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Mark in the Middle

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Re: Mark in the Middle

#181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Do not confuse disagreeing with someone as that person being morally sub-human If your disagreement with that person is about whether someone else is considered less of a human than they are (by dint of race, wealth, sexuality, whatever), it's probably ok to consider them morally bankrupt on that basis.

No, it's actually not, because people have different moral foundations, and many people value loyalty/authority/sanctity over care/fairness. It doesn't mean they don't care about care/fairness, it just means they don't make it their moral priority. If you refuse to engage with these people and view them all as sub-human there's no path forward for society.

Hey hey. You're opposing loyalty, authority and sanctity to fairness. This is already a caricature of ideological positions different from yours.

Most people you violently disagree with have probably a different view of fairness than you do, and think that your opinions and goals are plainly unfair, as much as you think the same about them.

Re: Mark in the Middle

#182
post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's minor, but "A major sell to candidates is our office perks include free food" "with work from home, we’ve lost a huge financial part of our package" https://www.levels.fyi/company/Facebook/salaries/Software-En... Perhaps they don't know how much food costs, having never gone to the grocery store. ("How much does a gallon of milk cost" is the classic political gotcha question.) Or they don't know how to cook. T…

Young urbanites don't cook. They don't drive, how do they get groceries. They probably have a single frying pan. For these people, free food at work might be a large portion of their daily caloric intake, outside of the beer/booze.

I don't know why this is downvoted.

Honestly, I bet a lot of employees were fine with living in apartments with minimal kitchens (most studios have the kitchen be a single long counter in a corridor of the apartment) since they would be getting their meals at the office anyways.

Re: Mark in the Middle

#183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Do not confuse disagreeing with someone as that person being morally sub-human If your disagreement with that person is about whether someone else is considered less of a human than they are (by dint of race, wealth, sexuality, whatever), it's probably ok to consider them morally bankrupt on that basis.

No, it's actually not, because people have different moral foundations, and many people value loyalty/authority/sanctity over care/fairness. It doesn't mean they don't care about care/fairness, it just means they don't make it their moral priority. If you refuse to engage with these people and view them all as sub-human there's no path forward for society.

You can't build a functioning society that embraces people who reject the humanity of its other members. Or rather, you can build a society that way, but the moment that opinion is accepted you are on the road to terrible persecution of that out-group, whoever they are.

A pluralistic society can handle many different viewpoints, but it cannot give them equal value or acceptance.

Re: Mark in the Middle

#184

> Mark Zuckerberg has faced criticism that Facebook is bad for democracy. > Employees want him to take a harder line against the Trump Administration. They employees want to support democracy by taking a stand against the democratic chosen president. I have a hard time coming up with words to describe my disbelief. Guess it's time for companies to enforce "absolutely no politics at work" rules. And you can add religi…

While the President himself may have been chosen democratically, there is a reasonable position one can hold that says his actions in office are not democratic. And THOSE are not democratically chosen. We don't have to vote as a group on every word or policy Trump wants to pass. We don't get to vote against him blocking access to relevant people required to finish a DoJ investigation. So, if their objection was that…

> While the President himself may have been chosen democratically

The President was chosen lawfully, in an outcome which sits in the space where the lawful process produces results at odds with democratic norms.

Re: Mark in the Middle

#185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, the way people like JK Rowling have been hounded for not agreeing on every point with some people is very depressing to see, considering that she has been quite supportive in the past of the very groups that are hounding her. Mob like behaviour to hound someone for their beliefs just reeks of illiberalism.

Do you think it would be "illiberal" to hound someone for believing that white people are inherently superior to black people? To keep things in context, JK Rowling has stated that she believes that biologically male people are inherently a danger to biologically female people. This is fundamentally the paradox of tolerance: is it intolerant to be hostile to intolerant beliefs? JK Rowling's essay explaining her stanc…

I feel JK Rowling was echoing a common sentiment in many women: “Men are afraid that women will laugh at them. Women are afraid that men will kill them.” - Margaret Atwood

Re: Mark in the Middle

#186
post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of the developing world are still deeply homophobic. Are all those people morally bankrupt and unworthy of a place in the hallowed gardens of equality? Maybe a point of view is crafted through a life's worth of conditioning and experience. We seem comfortable accepting that fact when considering social conditioning over other issues, but when it comes to conservatism we draw the line - they are the evil others.…

> I have a lot of family who have views which would terrify liberals, but I know these people are also not evil but just have had their own life circumstances shape their views. Like what? What life experiences have shaped their views to make them terrifying to liberals? I'm genuinely curious because the people most likely to have actual lived experiences to support "views which would terrify liberals" are generally…

Growing up in very religious environments - like all of the Middle East?

Growing up with a homophobic government and homophobic environment like Russia where it is the norm?

Growing up in countries where there is a very hated "other" tribe like in Israel?

Outside of the "developed" world a lot of non-liberal stances are very alive and practised. But should we condemn a vast fraction of these people who hold racist or homophobic views in environments where they are accepted or even encouraged?

Plenty of people have left those places and adopted more liberal stances. But this times time and acclimatisation. And education. So much education.

But when you write people off or morally judge them, you usually encourage them to dig in their heels because no one likes to be told their life and upbringing is wrong and a lie.

I have seen relatives' views on homophobia soften over the years but I know from experience flat out telling them they are wrong got nowhere. But they came from a time when everyone was supposed to have only one boyfriend/girlfriend into spouse for their whole life, and living was about making sure food was on your table that night. They had society force feed some ideal on them and never given the space to contemplate otherwise.

Re: Mark in the Middle

#187
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Although a follow up would be the comforting level of maturity in Facebook's leadership, acknowledging that it isn't their role to bring politics into the workplace. It is distressingly refreshing to see a company in the news for taking a stance like "In my work with Joel, I’ve found him to be ... very rigorous and principled in his thinking [and therefore I'm happy to work with him despite being a Republican]". It r…

Whenever someone says "don't bring politics into X" it's a cop-out. Doubly so for anything related to Facebook. Politics is how we solve all problems between competing interests as a society. You can't operate a business in this country (or any) which is divorced from politics. It's absurd for Zuck to suggest that his business should be immune to political forces.

Yep.

Also it can be (not saying that's the case here) used as a way to exclude undesirable politics while keeping desirable politics in place.

For example the "don't bring politics into sports" that was bandied about during the kneeling controversy in the NFL a few years ago. The National Anthem is political. All of the "support the troops" events during games (paid for by the taxpayers!) is political.

Re: Mark in the Middle

#188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Facebook is a company that uses its power to change what people think I don't think that's a helpful way to look at it. Facebook is a platform that other people use to change what people think, and that's dangerous enough. Without any ill intent whatsoever from Facebook itself, that still creates serious issues with unintentional bias (e.g. via algorithms trained with poor data sets) and manipulation. Those are the…

> I don't think that's a helpful way to look at it. Facebook is a platform that other people use to change what people think, and that's dangerous enough. I'm not sure there is a distinction. Intent doesn't matter. If your system is used by other people do X, then you are building a system that does X. The Purpose Of A System Is What It Does [1]. You can't just wipe your hands and say "hey it's just a platform, it's…

[deleted]

Re: Mark in the Middle

#189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"a bit more" lol See this link if you're wondering what "a bit more" looks like: https://twitter.com/FacebooksTop10

Last 24hrs top-performing pages in the US, for anyone who can't click the link. 1. Dan Bongino 2. Dan Bongino 3. Breitbart 4. Fox News 5. Robert Reich 6. NPR 7. Ben Shapiro 8. Dan Bongino 9. Mark Levin 10. Bernie Sanders This is curated by https://twitter.com/kevinroose I had to look up most of those names but if you're wondering, looking back a couple weeks it's usually 9/10 or 10/10 right-wing talk hosts/sources. I…

>It appears FB is essentially a right-wing mouth piece, idk if that is a controversial opinion, but the data appears that way, I think.

Given that the common narrative around Facebook is that it, along with all other social media, is engaged in a leftist conspiracy to purge all conservative and right-wing speech from the internet, I'd say it would be.

Re: Mark in the Middle

#190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"a bit more" lol See this link if you're wondering what "a bit more" looks like: https://twitter.com/FacebooksTop10

Last 24hrs top-performing pages in the US, for anyone who can't click the link. 1. Dan Bongino 2. Dan Bongino 3. Breitbart 4. Fox News 5. Robert Reich 6. NPR 7. Ben Shapiro 8. Dan Bongino 9. Mark Levin 10. Bernie Sanders This is curated by https://twitter.com/kevinroose I had to look up most of those names but if you're wondering, looking back a couple weeks it's usually 9/10 or 10/10 right-wing talk hosts/sources. I…

> It appears FB is essentially a right-wing mouth piece, idk if that is a controversial opinion, but the data appears that way, I think.

I mean, mouthpiece can't possibly be the right term. Does anyone think they should forbid Fox News articles from being shared? If you don't want them moderating it away, and they aren't themselves recommending it, their role is pretty minor. The idea of Facebook is that when you post things some people you know see it. How do you show people what they want and avoid results similar to this?

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