Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Sir Kazuo Ishiguro warns of young authors self-censoring out of 'fear'

bbc.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

321–330 of 694 posts

Re: Sir Kazuo Ishiguro warns of young authors self-censoring out of 'fear'

#321

Post by A4ET8a8uTh0 »

heterodoxxed wrote: post #301
A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"| She did, likely after she was told what would happen otherwise. Do you have any evidence of this or are you just saying it? " If you are asking if I have inside information and maybe personal email between author and medium. I do not. It would be odd if I did. What I do have, however, is rather vivid memories of the same kind of idiocy working in practice in the old country, the only difference being that it was d…

| This is truly the dark age of the information era. I think statements like this are hysterical and ahistorical. The amount of actual censorship and the way moral panics occurred throughout history make twitter dogpiling look absolutely quaint in comparison. I don't disagree with Kazuo Ishiguro one bit, but I think all it means is that authors need to get thicker skin, because unlike the past, they can read their re…

"I think statements like this are hysterical and ahistorical."

I find this line of defense interesting. Can you elaborate a little further, because I would want to avoid putting words in your mouth? Are suggesting that the overall volume of censorship is lower so it can be ignored and explained away? I find your perspective somewhat fascinating.

Re: Sir Kazuo Ishiguro warns of young authors self-censoring out of 'fear'

#322

Post by inglor_cz »

IAmWorried wrote: post #317
inglor_cz wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Deep fakes are coming and with it a tsunami of outrageous videos that have no connection to reality. People will learn to distrust video evidence.

I think this could extend to major public figures, but offers no recourse to the average joe who doesn't have 100 hours of talking footage online. Deepfakes require a lot of data to produce. Anyone who doesn't have this much data, you could reliably assume the content is real.

"Deepfakes require a lot of data to produce."

I wonder if this is going to hold, especially as 4K video is becoming the norm.

Re: Sir Kazuo Ishiguro warns of young authors self-censoring out of 'fear'

#323

Post by wrycoder »

robotresearcher wrote: post #235
wrycoder wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a movement, extending even to Congress, to take Fox News off the air, or to have ISPs block it.

There are lots of batshit ideas that get that far. Let's pay attention to help make sure they don't get into law.

It’s a clear violation of freedom of the press, but never mind.

Re: Sir Kazuo Ishiguro warns of young authors self-censoring out of 'fear'

#324

Post by nobodyandproud »

throwawaygh wrote: post #242
fallingknife wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First of all I never said or implied that it was a "bastion of free speech" > In the general case, you're not allowed to teach at Liberty unless you're a very specific type of conservative christian. Let's not pretend that you are allowed to teach at Harvard, at least in certain departments, without a very specific political leaning. And certain other political leanings are not allowed in any department. > A statemen…

> Let's not pretend that you are allowed to teach at Harvard, at least in certain departments, without a very specific political leaning. And certain other political leanings are not allowed in any department. I can't speak to all of Harvard's departments, but I know it's completely possible to have a wide variety of political viewpoints in SEAS. The faculty itself is probably to the right of the immediately surround…

“Diversity”, like what happened with Lawrence H. Summers?

An individual who I thought got a raw deal and was completely misunderstood, when he gave his speech.

Re: Sir Kazuo Ishiguro warns of young authors self-censoring out of 'fear'

#325

Post by whimsicalism »

dash2 wrote: post #311
whimsicalism wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you had a gay character in a sitcom in the 70s-80s you would similarly get a bunch of people calling your employer. There's totally a difference, but you honestly think that this is a new thing that never used to happen?

> If you had a gay character in a sitcom in the 70s-80s you would similarly get a bunch of people calling your employer. Apparently not: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_comedy_television_seri...

I think it's pretty obvious how that isn't contrary to what I said. [0]

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mediawatch-UK

Re: Sir Kazuo Ishiguro warns of young authors self-censoring out of 'fear'

#326

Post by zo1 »

standardUser wrote: post #27
bitcharmer wrote: post #5

It's really sad that in the age of unrestricted access to information public discourse is self-restricting to avoid wrong-think and dissenting opinions. If you look at the history of intellectual progress, much of it was exactly due to unpopular opinions. Now by having one you're risking your entire career and sometimes more. This is truly the dark age of the information era.

There is no era of Western history where unpopular opinions were more acceptable than today. In the past, dissenting opinions voiced loudly were often punished by blacklisting or excommunication or prison or death. Now, you get yelled at on Twitter and some companies won't work with you.

There are a lot of people that would get fired and worse if they simple stated their actual opinion instead of repeating the "popular opinion".

Re: Sir Kazuo Ishiguro warns of young authors self-censoring out of 'fear'

#327

Post by core-questions »

throwawaygh wrote: post #242
fallingknife wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First of all I never said or implied that it was a "bastion of free speech" > In the general case, you're not allowed to teach at Liberty unless you're a very specific type of conservative christian. Let's not pretend that you are allowed to teach at Harvard, at least in certain departments, without a very specific political leaning. And certain other political leanings are not allowed in any department. > A statemen…

> Let's not pretend that you are allowed to teach at Harvard, at least in certain departments, without a very specific political leaning. And certain other political leanings are not allowed in any department. I can't speak to all of Harvard's departments, but I know it's completely possible to have a wide variety of political viewpoints in SEAS. The faculty itself is probably to the right of the immediately surround…

> but I know it's completely possible to have a wide variety of political viewpoints in SEAS

What _you_ and Harvard in general think of as a wide variety of political viewpoints, and what _actually_ constitutes a wide variety, are likely very different things.

Re: Sir Kazuo Ishiguro warns of young authors self-censoring out of 'fear'

#328

Post by manigandham »

standardUser wrote: post #27
bitcharmer wrote: post #5

It's really sad that in the age of unrestricted access to information public discourse is self-restricting to avoid wrong-think and dissenting opinions. If you look at the history of intellectual progress, much of it was exactly due to unpopular opinions. Now by having one you're risking your entire career and sometimes more. This is truly the dark age of the information era.

There is no era of Western history where unpopular opinions were more acceptable than today. In the past, dissenting opinions voiced loudly were often punished by blacklisting or excommunication or prison or death. Now, you get yelled at on Twitter and some companies won't work with you.

"Some companies" not working with you can be the end of your career in some cases, especially with an online record of it that will come up forever in the future.

Re: Sir Kazuo Ishiguro warns of young authors self-censoring out of 'fear'

#329

Post by codezero »

bitcharmer wrote: post #5

It's really sad that in the age of unrestricted access to information public discourse is self-restricting to avoid wrong-think and dissenting opinions. If you look at the history of intellectual progress, much of it was exactly due to unpopular opinions. Now by having one you're risking your entire career and sometimes more. This is truly the dark age of the information era.

I haven't seen a dearth of people sharing their unpopular opinions, so I'm not sure I really agree with the sentiment that people are _actually_ self censoring in any more meaningful way than they normally do.

Re: Sir Kazuo Ishiguro warns of young authors self-censoring out of 'fear'

#330

Post by dragonwriter »

sudosysgen wrote: post #283
solosoyokaze wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Leftist actually does have meaning. Neo-liberalism is a right wing ideology built on imperialism and capitalism. To conflate the two is dishonest.

I agree with you. But there is a lot of leftist infighting, especially between MLs, Anarchists, LibSocs, DemSocs, AnComs, etc... And there is also of neoliberals that pretend to be leftist, yes, so called "Radlibs". Then there are leftists that accuse other leftists that aren't of their same brand of being liberals, for example MLs calling anarchists liberals because they admit markets, or anarchists calling MLs capi…

No one (on the Left, obviously the Right does this), including people who critique Leninists (who I assume you are referring to as MLs) for supporting “state capitalism”, calls Leninists “liberals”.

Or, at least, approximately nobody; you can find examples of anything, but it's not like a significant thing.

Post reply on HN