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Resignation Letter

bariweiss.com

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Re: Resignation Letter

#411

Post by cayblood »

throwaway894345 wrote: post #259
chasing wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First, I think you're lumping "the left" together and assuming "the left" believes whatever the most extreme "left" tweets say. Second, Bari Weiss can write whatever she wants. Totally her right. She's got a website there in the link! She can continue to reach a global audience. Does the NYTimes need to promote her? No, that's not a right I'm willing to die for. Third, why on earth is Bari Weiss' opinion more sacrosa…

> Fourth, when I hear people complain about "going against the progressive party line" or whatever, I generally hear people wanting to be some flavor of racist, sexist, transphobic, or just asshole-ish without consequence. I hear this all the time, but it seems so disingenuous. There are so many national examples that no reasonable person could consider to be any of the above: * A hispanic man was fired for accidenta…

Those are three anecdotes, and at least two of them are not as stark as described. The data scientist's timing was bad and his prior relationship with several stakeholders was already on the rocks. There are rumors that the worker who had no idea what the connotations of the ok symbol are has been re-hired. This is hardly anything compared to the armies of celebrities who signed the Harper's letter and are mostly complaining that they can no longer express their opinions without being criticized.

The difficulty here is that several things are happening at once. There is a problem with groupthink at some institutions, but there are also people who are trying to suppress legitimate criticism.

Re: Resignation Letter

#412

Post by seneca »

enraged_camel wrote: post #248
AnimalMuppet wrote: post #27

> Twitter is not on the masthead of The New York Times. But Twitter has become its ultimate editor. As the ethics and mores of that platform have become those of the paper, the paper itself has increasingly become a kind of performance space. Stories are chosen and told in a way to satisfy the narrowest of audiences, rather than to allow a curious public to read about the world and then draw their own conclusions. I…

>> Can't anyone there see past the current insanity and think? "To be inclusive, we have to get rid of her"? Don't they even hear the words coming out of their own mouths? This confuses a lot of people, but the explanation is simple: it is the Paradox of Tolerance. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance Namely, not tolerating someone, who themselves espouse intolerant views and give voice to intolerant ex…

This argument is used as a pretty classic motte-and-bailey. You put forward the idea that intolerance is the only thing that must be excluded, expressing it as blatant racism, sexism, and violence. You then slight-of-hand intolerance to mean an ever increasing list of "problematic" behavior as defined by a small group of vocal political activists. When people argue with this (the bailey), you retreat back to the motte and call them a racist.

It's also fairly amusing that a group adhering to a political doctrine that notoriously ignores falsification love to trot out (a tortured interpretation of) Karl Popper as a meme.

Re: Resignation Letter

#413

Post by [deleted] »

some-guy wrote: post #260
quotemstr wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being barred from employment in your industry due to your non-work-related political opinion and affiliations is literally McCarthyism though.

I was interviewing a candidate last year for a software engineering position. Interview was fine and he was capable. I decided to find him on Twitter. He said immigration was ruining the country, and that there are too many Indians / Chinese in the Bay Area. About half of my organization either have an H1B visa or a green card. Am I a McCarthyist for rejecting him outright without hesitation?

[deleted]

Re: Resignation Letter

#414

Post by thedudeabides5 »

koheripbal wrote: post #318
benlumen wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's the same story across journalism and I wrote about this exact phenomenon in the article I submitted yesterday - journalism had to please the social media, news aggregator and SEO algorithms to stay alive. They write and say what's popular to their audience and suitable for the tech platforms - not what's right.

...and this is why it is so vulnerable to foreign influence. An army of bots (human or programmed) can sway Twitter incredibly easily and drive outrage, which now seems will shape the US media narrative. It's like they are intentionally steering the ship towards the rocks. I wonder who might be helping this effort... hmm... /s

Well, an army of bots is not free. So you have a new medium which allows power in the real world to become manifested in the digital world.

Illiberal forces have been using capital to mess with the institutions of open and free discourse since before the printing press, Twitter is just yet another new market where power and money matter.

Re: Resignation Letter

#415

Post by slg »

smsm42 wrote: post #366
slg wrote: post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Calling your climate change denying coworker a backwards dumb-ass is not illegal. You can of course be fired for that inappropriate behavior, but it isn't illegal. Weiss specifically called out this behavior as unlawful discrimination. Also it is worth pointing out that Weiss's job was to voice opinions. It is entirely different for someone in that role to face backlash for their bad opinions than it is for someone i…

> Calling your climate change denying coworker a backwards dumb-ass is not illegal Illegal is when you call the police. There's lots of behaviors that the employer is better to prevent before you have to call the police. If it rose to the level of illegal, there's a lot of things that already went wrong. > Weiss specifically called out this behavior as unlawful discrimination. If she was uniquely subjected to harassi…

Discrimination is a legal word. She used the phrase "unlawful discrimination" which means she is using it in a legal context. Discrimination is not defined by being "subjected to harassing and hostile behavior" unless the reason for that behavior focuses on a protected class. There is nothing unlawful about treating her poorly based on her "unorthodox thoughts".

Re: Resignation Letter

#416

Post by bgorman »

jrumbut wrote: post #383
disgruntledphd2 wrote: post #348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the FT do a pretty good job, without as much of the problematic editorials. Probably not as useful to you if you're US based, but I find it really useful for living in Europe.

I wish I could award you several upvotes for answering my question. I really like FT myself. I am not in business so much but I think business news sources often get at a lot of interesting angles that others miss.

Absolutely, most journalists do not understand basic quantitative reasoning or economic principles.

For example, I read a BBC article a while back about a sand shortage in India. It turns out the government imposed a price-ceiling, and there was no shortage at all (sand was available in the black market) - there was just a shortage at the government mandated price point.

Any economics 101 student can tell you that if you set a price-ceiling there will be a shortage.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-50386515

Re: Resignation Letter

#417

Post by throwaway894345 »

jrumbut wrote: post #378
rbecker wrote: post #347

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The absence of a better news source doesn't mean we should be blind to its faults.

Sure, but the grandparent doesn't say "I read the NYT but here are some flaws..." or "The Houston Chronicle is better because..." it says the entire enterprise has been directed "in support of bias". I am arguing against being blind to the news source's virtues. If we don't want to be blind to the world we have to pick our poison(s).

Fair enough. I find that Wall Street journal, Reuters, and NPR all do better jobs (in roughly that order) with respect to reigning-in their biases than the NYT.

Re: Resignation Letter

#418

Post by mancerayder »

Barrin92 wrote: post #247
ngngngng wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Completely disagree. And I think Joe Rogan's podcast is the perfect example of how the market is suggesting exactly what you replied to. "Normal Americans" don't read the NYT anymore, or WSJ, or the Post, they listen to Joe Rogan on Spotify and Youtube. There's virtually no limit to who Joe will have on his show, and while he's not a remarkable interviewer, he brings the often vital opinions of his guests on all side…

Joe Rogan is pretty much Oprah for dudes. Sure he is extremely popular but I'm not sure there's a relationship between what 'normal Americans' think of journalism and the success of his podcast, other than that people for some reason keep asserting it because he on occasion has public intellectuals on his show, but so have talk show hosts for eons. The New York times these days has 6 million digital subscribers, that…

The OP you're responding to is correct that his popularity is MUCH higher than your response suggests:

"In January 2015, the podcast was listened to by more than 11 million people. By October 2015, it had grown to acquire 16 million downloads a month. By April 2019, the podcast had 190 million downloads a month."

That's a lot higher a number than your NYT 6 million subscribers (-1 as I just canceled in early June after it became clear how far along it is in its transformation into naked narrative-driven agitprop).

The NYT has become a niche market.

Re: Resignation Letter

#419

Post by disgruntledphd2 »

jrumbut wrote: post #383
disgruntledphd2 wrote: post #348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the FT do a pretty good job, without as much of the problematic editorials. Probably not as useful to you if you're US based, but I find it really useful for living in Europe.

I wish I could award you several upvotes for answering my question. I really like FT myself. I am not in business so much but I think business news sources often get at a lot of interesting angles that others miss.

Yeah (fortunately or unfortunately), that's the world that capitalism has made.

To be fair, lots of people in the UK don't like them because of their stance on Brexit, but I really appreciate their coverage of conservative political voices is much more restrained rather than the click-driven style of the Guardian or the NYT.

Their environmental coverage is terrible though, so I wouldn't treat them as my only news source.

Re: Resignation Letter

#420

Post by luckylion »

slg wrote: post #207
tomcam wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> She doesn't want free speech. She wants consequence free speech. She wants her detractors silenced by the law Not sure we read the same letter. Can you support these assertions based on the text?

I thought that was clear from my previous comment, so I'm not sure how much clearer I can make it. She used the term "unlawful discrimination". She wants this behavior to stop. She is calling this behavior out as illegal. I don't think it is a leap to think that she wants this behavior that she is against and called illegal to be stopped by the law.

> She wants this behavior to stop.

"this behavior" being insults, mobbing and "ax emojis + name", not "disagreement", apparently.

Wouldn't you? And if you don't, why would you draw any line? Why shouldn't it be okay to get beaten up for saying "the wrong thing", it shouldn't be "consequence free speech" after all?

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