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Manifesto of the Silent Minority

lesswrong.com

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Re: Manifesto of the Silent Minority

#51

Post by stickfigure »

There seems to be a lot of confusion about what this is.

The author posted a survey of the Thiel Question, which asks "Tell me one or more things almost nobody agrees with you on." The motivation of the question is a belief that to build something revolutionary, you need to be able to think outside the box. "People would be willing to rent air mattresses in their living rooms like hotels" is the canonical example (from 2008).

The problem is, most iconoclastic ideas tend to be... pretty outlandish. Also, people posting to anonymous web surveys (especially in the rationalist community) are probably tempted to exaggerate a little. So it's comedic to survey a group of people, collect the responses, and put them together as a hypothetical political platform.

I found it hilarious.

Re: Manifesto of the Silent Minority

#52

Post by norswap »

I'm getting a lock of kicks out of the comments here. Clearly, many people don't get it's a joke (but at the same time, based on a survey whose purpose is probably not to make that joke in the first place (1)).

I'm considering using this as a filtering device. Misunderstanding this is a red flag for not trying to understand the context. And having a raging negative reaction to it is a red flag for temperament.

(1) If you don't know about the Thiel question, here's the first google result for you: https://www.safegraph.com/blog/why-the-famous-peter-thiel-in...

Re: Manifesto of the Silent Minority

#53

Post by mcphage »

jimbokun wrote: post #46
rusk wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> today’s standards “Today’s”? There has never been a better time for freedom of speech. You can pretty much say whatever you want and nobody is going to put you in jail or burn you at the stake. Indeed you have tools like never before with which to promulgate your message. Even if your remarks are racist, xenophobic, misogynistic or some other kind of bigoted you can still pretty say much whatever you like and there…

> There has never been a better time for freedom of speech. In the West, or at least the USA, I would say the 1990s and 2000s were better for free speech, and very recently there has been a relative curbing of free speech. In surveys, a majority of Americans say they are afraid to share some of their political views. Still better than almost all of human history before that, but I would say we are no longer at the pe…

> I would say the 1990s and 2000s were better for free speech

Not really. There was no easy way to get your voice out there that people could listen to you.

Re: Manifesto of the Silent Minority

#54

Post by fallingfrog »

Humorous but also pretty disturbing! Just by reading these survey responses, it seems that we humans are mostly a bunch of racists and pedophiles. I guess that dovetails nicely with the assertion that human life is worth less than 500$?

Re: Manifesto of the Silent Minority

#55

Post by drewcoo »

peteretep wrote: post #30
drewcon wrote: post #25

It feels like folks are missing the part where it’s a joke...

aren’t jokes meant to be funny tho

The title alone got a chuckle out of me. It made me click and read. Then I laughed more.

By the end I was imagining small crowds of self-educated savants from Middlebrowlia not-really-marching with their many signs that said nothing.

Re: Manifesto of the Silent Minority

#56

Post by amalcon »

jimbokun wrote: post #47
amalcon wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not new , though. It's just adopted a different school of thought than it used to (and not even universally). It wasn't that long ago that you could be fired for mentioning that you are not christian at the office christmas party.

> It wasn't that long ago that you could be fired for mentioning that you are not christian at the office christmas party. Citation needed. ACLU would be all over that, religion is a protected class.

I would cite the exact law that made religion a protected class in the american workplace: the Civil Rights Act of 1964. 56 years ago, this was happening often enough that Congress felt the need to act.

This isn't a citation, but if you have a discussion with a jewish american over fifty years old, they likely have stories about this sort of thing.

Re: Manifesto of the Silent Minority

#57

Post by mcphage »

coldtea wrote: post #17
jevgeni wrote: post #12

WARNING: reading this article makes you roll your eyes so hard, they might just stay there.

I should read it then. Because such a facile dismissive comment makes me more interested in reading the article and less in what the commenter has to say. Without having read a line yet, I'm betting the article goes against "polite conversation", and ventures into trying to say something interesting, and this is the "pearl clutching" that usually accompanies such a thing. Let's see...

Congrats! Without reading a line you got it completely backwards!

Re: Manifesto of the Silent Minority

#58

Post by tabob »

dash2 wrote: post #34
tabob wrote: post #32

What I get from this: The author decided to try and make an inciteful libertarian rant while smoking crystal meth. Is there something I’m missing as to why this is on HN? Was this written by an ai, or is it’s relevance that it name drops Peter Thiel?

The point is that it combines the responses from a survey of readers on "what they think that almost nobody agrees with".

> Yesterday I asked readers the Thiel Question. 40 people responded. I have combined the responses into a single political platform. You can view the raw responses here.

Whoa. Somehow my brain skipped over that 3rd sentence, and I read the whole thing 3 times. My bad.

Re: Manifesto of the Silent Minority

#59

Post by falcolas »

mcphage wrote: post #53
jimbokun wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There has never been a better time for freedom of speech. In the West, or at least the USA, I would say the 1990s and 2000s were better for free speech, and very recently there has been a relative curbing of free speech. In surveys, a majority of Americans say they are afraid to share some of their political views. Still better than almost all of human history before that, but I would say we are no longer at the pe…

> I would say the 1990s and 2000s were better for free speech Not really. There was no easy way to get your voice out there that people could listen to you.

The internet has existed for me as a boring citizen in the boonies since at least ‘95. This doesn’t even count Ham radio, BBS, and various other local and global methods of sharing speech.

Re: Manifesto of the Silent Minority

#60

Post by mcphage »

falcolas wrote: post #59
mcphage wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I would say the 1990s and 2000s were better for free speech Not really. There was no easy way to get your voice out there that people could listen to you.

The internet has existed for me as a boring citizen in the boonies since at least ‘95. This doesn’t even count Ham radio, BBS, and various other local and global methods of sharing speech.

Well then, look at it this way: those things still all exist, but there are also new ways of sharing your speech now that didn't exist before.
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