I'm kinda unfamiliar with the real situation on the western internet. What are top-3 things that could happen if I start writing things that are uncomfortable to the loud minority?
Blog Anonymously
461–470 of 482 posts
Re: Blog Anonymously
#462Earlier quoted context omitted.
Ideally policies should be based on facts and reason, not just speech.
But speech and opinion-forming plays naturally a large role in it, especially in a democratic system. Lots of speech does have consequences (and lots of it is intended to have consequences that aren't just speech without further consequences). Speech shouldn't have consequences just doesn't work as an absolute position IMHO, and if it isn't then it's harder to explain that counter-speech isn't allowed to have consequ…
Blatant opinion shaping is corruption of democratic system. Democracy should be driven by informed decision, not by stupid propaganda.
Re: Blog Anonymously
#463Earlier quoted context omitted.
So you won't complain when you get fired for this comment in 20 years when I am president? In what country were public figures ever above the law? Pre-employment checks search for drug use and crimes, a facebook post should never be a firable or arrestable offence (outside of the 3.3k arrested in the UK).
> In what country were public figures ever above the law? Is it considered to be “above the law” if victims never report violations, intimidated by abuser’s social capital? All the issues with cancel culture, wokeness et al. considered, there are upsides to living in a culture where it is possible to call out a very public person who has used their publicity to cause harm to someone and not be ridiculed.
You cant call out anybody and not be ridiculed. Ridicule, criticism, opposition is the basis of western culture. The legal system, the government and respectful debate is built on disagreement.
You can make justice for victims more or less easy, more or less private if you so wish, but seeking retribution for percieved slights against victims that aren't even you, has personal power written all over it.
You don't describe the reasoning of someone who wants to help victims, you describe the reasoning of someone who wants retribution. What you like is social capital and punishment of disagreement. I dont want to live your way, it leads to horrific outcomes. Turn the other cheek to criticism.
Re: Blog Anonymously
#464Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 c…
I think it’s a grotesque mistake to call them Democratic. These mobs (physical or virtual) are rarely more than 1% of the population, and are rarely supported by even 10% of a population (10% is about the ballpark for supporters of cancel culture as well, by my crude estimation). And yet they are able to push their agenda because they are (for the moment) uniquely willing to wield fear and intimidation. What about this is democratic?
To answer your questions about concerning similarities between physical and virtual mobs, they both use fear and intimidation to get their way. Neither are concerned about due process and they are happy to persecute innocent people (“scapegoats”)—of course legal courts are imperfect, but there imperfection is a big whereas with mobs (of any kind) it’s a feature. Both kinds of mobs are as happy to persecute the powerless and the powerful alike (or in the case of cancellers culture, they’ll pretend that the high schooler they’re targeting is “powerful” because of his race and that the mob speaks for minorities who the mob regarded as uniformly powerless—astute readers will note the racism here). Further, mobs have no sense of proportionality—the current cancel culture mob is notorious for its utter inability to distinguish between actual Nazis and progressives who fail to adequately toe the line (or anyone in between) and they are all punished as severely as the mob can muster. Since mobs are happy to target anyone who they decide they don’t like on a given day with the severest treatment they feel they can get away with, fear is imposed on everyone, not just those who have actually been targeted.
Note also that there are groups like antifa who openly profess a belief that violence is justified in order to “suppress fascists” (wherein their definition of “fascist” is so broad and arbitrary that it’s indistinguishable from “anyone they don’t like”) and they occasionally do perpetrate violence on these grounds. Note also that many (probably most) of the people who engage in cancellation also applaud Antifa’s violence or else they rationalize and justify it and very rarely condemn it (certainly they would never dream of cancelling people who engage in political violence which is apparently much less abhorrent than wrongthink). There is also a tiny minority of cancellers who are right-wing, and they also have their antifa-like physical violence groups who they applaud. So “cancel culture” and “physical mob” seem to be adjacent points on a continuum, and the only thing that keeps the majority of cancellers on the “cancellation-but-not-violence” side of the line is that as a society we have strong (but rapidly eroding) values of law-and-order and nonviolence and cancellers are usually rightly (though decreasingly) afraid of running afoul of those values. I take little consolation in the idea that our eroding social values are keeping most of the cancellers from using physical violence in their fear campaigns, and there’s nothing noble about cancelling someone because you’re afraid of the consequences of physical violence.
Lastly, if these mobs are allowed to continue, people will lose faith in the criminal justice system’s ability or will to keep their injustice in check, and counter-mobs will form (and to a degree already have formed). The mobs and the counter-mobs will go back and forth, continually escalating.
Cancel culture has no redeeming qualities.
Re: Blog Anonymously
#465Earlier quoted context omitted.
example?
I wrote out a graf with an example downthread, I'd copy over, but posting the same thing twice feels a little redundant.
Well, first of all I disagree that her defense of trans women is disingenuous. Her points are well thought out. She points to specific situations where trans women are vulnerable. Just because she has another concern doesn't invalidate her concern for trans women being vulnerable.
So her heinous viewpoint is she has concern for girls in restrooms and locker rooms? Why is she not allowed to have this concern? The rest of the country/world is not San Francisco. Where I live I've never seen anything other than Men and Women restrooms. Sure adding a gender neutral bathroom could help with the issue but they don't exist in the vast majority of locations in the US. I have two high school daughters - one with autism. I'm sorry if its a dangerous trope from half a century ago - but my wife and I would be concerned with a trans woman sharing the locker room with them. Certainly my non-autistic daughter would feel uncomfortable. My daughter with autism wouldn't care because she has trouble with boundaries and being appropriate which makes it more concerning.
So now you'll say I don't care about the fate of trans people. Nope. It's possible to have concern for them and concern for non-trans people.
Re: Blog Anonymously
#466Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, but has an open Antifa supporter ever been denied college entrance or attending a conference because of that support? Or lost their job?
Not quite Antifa but here's an example of a Harvard grad losing her consulting job due to threatening violence against people who say "all lives matter" [1] https://nypost.com/2020/07/01/harvard-grad-claira-janover-lo...
Yes, but you have to admit all the vast majority of firings lately are for people not having the proper left wing viewpoint.
Re: Blog Anonymously
#467Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 c…
I think it’s a grotesque mistake to call them Democratic. These mobs (physical or virtual) are rarely more than 1% of the population, and are rarely supported by even 10% of a population (10% is about the ballpark for supporters of cancel culture as well, by my crude estimation). And yet they are able to push their agenda because they are (for the moment) uniquely willing to wield fear and intimidation. What about th…
The Libertarian party is, at least ostensibly, democratic in nature. A group doesn't need to be the majority of the population to itself be democratic. My point is that the groups cancelling people are, themselves, democratic.
As for mobs, I disagree with your opinion on mobs and due process and proportionality, and have explained that at length elsewhere.
> astute readers will note the racism here
This is only racism if you deny critical theory. You should be explicit about that.
Bringing antifa into this conversation is a non-sequitor. I've yet to see antifa hurt anyone outside of like actual neonazi rallies where two groups of armed people beat the shit out of each other. It has nothing to do with cancellation, and the fact that you feel the need to bring it up is because your fears are based entirely on a slippery slope, as I've stated already. That because someone will criticize you on twitter the "antifa thugs" will beat you up. It's not a fear based in reality. The idea that "law and order" values are eroding is a right wing talking point used to stoke racial fear. It's again, not grounded in reality.
> if these mobs are allowed to continue, people will lose faith in the criminal justice system’s ability or will to keep their injustice in check
No, that's why these mobs exist. Which is my point. You're ignoring the viewpoint of the groups who are forced to take this action because the existing systems systematically fail to provide them justice. That is, ultimately a "justice and safety for me but not for thee" argument and it is a tool to perpetuate injustice.
If you want the things that frighten you to stop, you need to have answers on how to fix the existing injustice, because as long as the systems we have fail large groups of people, they will feel the need to get justice extrajudicially. That need isn't going to disappear if you oppress them more.
Finally, I note that the "counter" mob thing has been happening since forever. "Right wing" mobs are known to harass significantly more than left wing ones. We don't see people who are "cancelled" having to leave their homes for personal safety. But the Sandy Hook parents did.
Even if I grant you that cancel culture has no redeeming qualities, you want to make it illegal to participate in. I claim that any way to do that will be more harmful to society and to open expression than cancel culture itself.
Anyway, we're quickly running into politically fraught territory, so I'm going to disengage.
Re: Blog Anonymously
#468Earlier quoted context omitted.
We have decided that there are limits to freedom of association, though, for example when it comes to discrimination. Forcing people to interact with others whose opinions they disagree with seems plausibly less imposing than forcing someone to interact with others whose religion they disagree with. I'm not sure this as clear-cut as you make it sound. And I think it's quite the strawman to suggest that anyone believe…
>We have decided that there are limits to freedom of association, though, for example when it comes to discrimination. Yes, we have. And that's a good thing. But why should the same not apply to speech? I think it's unhealthy to view rights in an absolutist manner, be that freedom of expression, freedom of association or the right to privacy. All rights interact and are often in opposition to one another, they need t…
As you say, the rights are often in opposition, and I would say that your proposed limit on speech in favor of association would actually require undoing limits on association that are arguably more fundamental. If a person can be fired for holding objectionable opinions, how far are we away from firing them because they talk about unionizing or because of their religion? Or will those things be on a list of "Things You're Allowed to Have an Opinion About"?
And I agree that the quoted sentence is too absolute, but I don't think the spirit is wrong, in the sense that behavior can be circumscribed by society in a way that that completely prevents it without it having been made illegal, and it's not convincing (to me, anyway) to suggest that the behavior isn't prohibited because it is, in fact, legal.
Re: Blog Anonymously
#469Earlier quoted context omitted.
There's plenty of companies that don't fire employees for the things they do outside of work, it's been like this for ages, why should this become a normal standard all of a sudden? Just to appease the ever changing feelings of others? Unless I actually breach my company contract in some fashion I don't understand why what I do outside of work has anything to do with my company, in fact, unless I'm some executive, it…
That's not what I asked. You stated companies shouldn't do this. Just because some entities have chosen to act in a certain way doesn't mean that it is morally correct for all entities to act in that way. Certain companies have been founded based on religious beliefs forever , that doesn't mean that it is morally correct for every company to have religious foundations. If you want to run your company that way, you're…
If what someone does, does not actually affect a company negatively aside from a few emails or calls, I don't see why it should fire somebody. People will find someone that disagrees with them in virtually every single company.
Re: Blog Anonymously
#470Earlier quoted context omitted.
> In what country were public figures ever above the law? Is it considered to be “above the law” if victims never report violations, intimidated by abuser’s social capital? All the issues with cancel culture, wokeness et al. considered, there are upsides to living in a culture where it is possible to call out a very public person who has used their publicity to cause harm to someone and not be ridiculed.
You cant call out anybody and not be ridiculed. Ridicule, criticism, opposition is the basis of western culture. The legal system, the government and respectful debate is built on disagreement. You can make justice for victims more or less easy, more or less private if you so wish, but seeking retribution for percieved slights against victims that aren't even you, has personal power written all over it. You don't des…
If you happen to be horribly mistreated by someone with a lot of fame and power at some point, and you try to bring them to justice, I will support you and I hope you are treated seriously and not ridiculed by general public as well.
If it never happens to you (perhaps thanks to cancel culture serving as a sort of deterrent now?), all the better.
Do downsides of cancel culture outweigh the upsides? Up for a debate, but unless all participants are willing to acknowledge those upsides in the first place I don’t see how such a debate could have a point.