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Resignation Letter

bariweiss.com

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Re: Resignation Letter

#501

Post by nailer »

TeaDrunk wrote: post #484
notmyfriend wrote: post #455

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thats only one thing she is saying. The other thing she is saying is that there is no room for anyone who falls outside the orthodoxy of the new progressive religion.

She's politicizing a totally nonpolitical issue. She was totally fine until she live-tweeted public insults about her co workers during a company meeting. If it were not for her politicizing the issue she would be immediately fired.

> She was totally fine until she live-tweeted public insults about her co workers during a company meeting.

Do you have a reference for this?

Re: Resignation Letter

#502

Post by shkkmo »

dimgl wrote: post #54
gfodor wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hilarious that the top comment exemplifies the problem. It seems few today are still able to engage with ideas directly, always trying to filter them through some, any, lens to discredit the ones they don’t like. Sometimes it’s attacking the speaker, sometimes their associations, sometimes the tweets they have “liked.” If all else fails, seek out language in the text itself for unfalsifiable “dog whistles” that allow…

It's truly telling that the most upvoted comment is one working to discredit the writer, rather than taking what's being said at face value.

I don't see anything "discrediting" the that comment. I think it is very salient to point out that it us much easier to call out intolerance in other people than to face our own intolerance. Weiss's own intolerance doesn't negate the intolerance she faced, instead it reminds us to remember to strive for tolerance within ourselves as well as pushing for it from other people.

Re: Resignation Letter

#503

Post by blaser-waffle »

jrumbut wrote: post #360
rbecker wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even ten times that many journalists will do you no good, when what they report is filtered according to some pre-concieved view of the world (or the journalists themselves are only hired if they share that view: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1nBx-37c3c8 ).

Noam Chomsky says a lot of interesting stuff but he published his writings on 9/11 a couple months after the attacks (and he certainly has his own ideological filters). He's an essayist, a linguist, but not a news source. I'm looking for the better alternative to the NYT here. Where would you go for information if I told you about some surprising event occurred and people on Twitter are posting very different stateme…

Noam has some very valid ideas, but he's got a long habit of supporting questionable characters like Pol Pot and Chavez.

Re: Resignation Letter

#504

Post by chroma »

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?

A while ago I interviewed a candidate for a software engineering position. He seemed quite capable. I decided to find him on Twitter.

His feed was full of things like, "All Cops Are Bastards", many images of the hammer & sickle, and generally hating on white people. He even retweeted an illustration of the White House burning with a hammer & sickle flag being raised in front of it along with the caption "my 2020 goals".

Actually... I lied. The person I described is Steve Klabnik. Despite throwing around extremely offensive imagery and calling for violence against members of certain professions and races, that guy can get a job anywhere he wants. Meanwhile if someone simply says, "all lives matter" or makes an OK sign, they risk getting fired. The double standard could not be more obvious.

Re: Resignation Letter

#505

Post by hintymad »

uncoder0 wrote: post #8
mikece wrote: post #3

"Instead, a new consensus has emerged in the press, but perhaps especially at [the New York Times]: that truth isn't a process of collective discovery, but an orthodoxy already known to an enlightened few whose job is to inform everyone else." This is a very key point, and what are the consequences of "informing everyone of a truth" that doesn't accurately reflect -- of even contradicts! -- reality? Harm to the reput…

Whats worse is this phenomenon isn't contained to the NYT all media it appears is infected.

I'm not sure about "all media", but CNN is definite worse, and WaPo is on par with NYT in pushing their narratives.

Re: Resignation Letter

#506

Post by minikites »

seibelj wrote: post #333
minikites wrote: post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why the appeal to authority? There are plenty of senators who don't believe in evolution and other basic principles of science. Publishing an anti-science op-ed from any of them would be just as harmful as Tom Cotton's incitement to violence.

The rioters were already burning buildings and looting stores. That is why Tom Cotton proposed sending in the military. It was fighting violence with violence. Again, I disagree with sending in the military, but preventing the progressive readership of the NYT from hearing about an opinion that 58% of Americans hold is simply coddling them and keeping them away from bad thoughts. We need an informed citizenry, not on…

>This is why I support publishing such an op-ed despite disagreeing with it. It allows us to debate and attack the idea, without letting it fester and hide. Bad ideas should be argued against this way, not de-platformed entirely.

If you're so certain the ideas would be defeated then why not hand out copies of the Turner Diaries to every citizen? Why is racism still around when a true marketplace of ideas would have defeated it centuries ago? Propaganda doesn't fit into your naive model of how ideas spread and function.

Re: Resignation Letter

#507

Post by frandroid »

throwawaysea wrote: post #292
jrumbut wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They have 1,600 journalists last year that were sent to 150 countries [1]. What other organization is doing anything like that effort to gather facts around the world? Who is doing more collective discovery (and making it accessible to the public at a price an average person can afford)? I can only think of a handful of organizations that are serious candidates (Reuters? The BBC? Wikipedia?). Weird puff pieces, drama…

I get the point you're making, but when such a tenured and large scale organization is subject to increasing ideological bias, couldn't we also cast the entire 'fact collection' activity as being in support of that bias? Who's to know if the facts are being selectively reported, or stitched together to tell one narrative instead of the whole truth? A similar argument applies to academia - biased researchers will sele…

> when such a tenured and large scale organization is subject to increasing ideological bias

Every new organization has an editorial line, within its own Overton Window, both of which can shift over time. So it's not a new thing. Even being centrist is a bias.

Re: Resignation Letter

#508

Post by andreilys »

jrumbut wrote: post #391
andreilys wrote: post #375

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Financial times.

That's a great choice. I am curious if as an FT reader do you really hate the NYT or do you think FT is better but if it wasn't available NYT is readable.

I don't hate NYT, I think it's compromised and diminished in quality but they still put out good content every once in a while.

The incident with Scott Alexander of SSC left a particularly bad taste in my mouth.

If FT wasn't available, I'd pay for Substack newsletters from trusted authorities.

Re: Resignation Letter

#509

Post by iateanapple »

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?

> Am I a McCarthyist for rejecting him outright without hesitation?

Yes.

Why can’t he have an opposing view from you on immigration?

I was on a visa and could still see the h1b program was being abused.

We often have less than ideal experiences with other cultural groups. That’s normal.

Is your work culture toxic because of your visa holders?

Would you refuse to hire feminist women because you had a mostly male team?

Re: Resignation Letter

#510

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

eric_b wrote: post #211

The "orthodoxy" the author writes about is real. I am a skeptic and cynic by nature. In my experience "common wisdom" is usually anything but. In software and technology I've found when you eschew dogma and "best practices" you more often than not get better results. But, in 2020 you cannot question or be skeptical of the "progressive" agenda. Merely hinting that you are not fully bought in will get you labeled as a…

>merely hinting that you are not fully bought in will get you labeled as a racist, or even worse these days, a "Conservative".

oh my god. the HORROR. People call you names!

> [the WP ] has moved so far left as to become almost a caricature of a "news" paper

maybe you should get out a bit more. there are other traditions of journalism (notably in the UK) that do not cling to this "noble ideal" of "objectivity". when you buy a newspaper in the UK, you (should) know what you're getting. nobody pretends that the guardian is "objective" - its a left-center paper and it wears its heart on its sleeve, while still doing lots and lots of fact-based reporting. nobody pretends that the london times is "objective" - it's a right-center paper that defends the status quo and the ruling classes of the UK, and doesn't do much else. and so on and so forth.

IMO it is a good thing that US journalism is awakening from this delusion of "objectivity", 30+ years after David Byrne sang "facts all come with points of view".

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