Sir Kazuo Ishiguro warns of young authors self-censoring out of 'fear' • Hacker News Board

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

#381

Post by nobodyandproud » Mon, Mar 01, 2021, 10:13 PM UTC

bryanlarsen wrote: post #315

jerf wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, one of the worst and most dangerous places to be is just outside the orthodoxy. This is not a comment about 2021; it is a historical pattern. Whether or not it's worse than being directly opposed to the orthodoxy is something I'd say changes between times and places, but there have definitely been times where its more dangerous to be just outside then full-on opposed. Those who are neither directly opposed, nor…

This is so old it's in the bible, or at least 1 Timothy 5:8 has been taken out of context to say it. "He has denied the faith, and is worse than the unbeliever."

Also, Socrates.

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

#382

Post by d1zzy » Mon, Mar 01, 2021, 10:13 PM UTC

IAmWorried wrote: post #372

fl0wenol wrote: post #358

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stop feeling sorry for yourself. Just don't be an ass to people who you have locker room talk with and they won't have shit to say later. Sure, there's always those lizard-brained people who will smile then stab you in the back, but they could also just as easily poison your dog or cut your brake lines vs. ruin your life on social media. These are the choices we make. Or we can live as a hermits Ted Kaczynski-style.

Well, poisoning my dog or vandalizing my car is illegal. Whipping up a twitter mob is legal and highly encouraged by an enormous number of people. I try not to be an ass to anyone, but jealousy and envy exists. It's now impossible for me to relax around some acquaintances who are unemployed while I pull in a big tech salary. All in all, I really made my mind up on this issue back during the BLM protests. This cancel…

I've unfortunately have discovered that the people who I thought to be friends (smart, funny, kind) have completely changed their attitude once they found out my employer. Now I have to watch out everything I say around them because it's all assumed to come from a place of evil intent and interpreted in the worst case possible.

Lesson learned: do not share your work place with anyone you want to keep being friends with, at least not people that aren't similarly employed/earn similarly.

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

#383

Post by klyrs » Mon, Mar 01, 2021, 10:14 PM UTC

undefined1 wrote: post #337

dash2 wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Dark age of thought" would be excessive (and is maybe a straw man). But there's plenty of people being cancelled: https://www.afaf.org.uk/the-banned-list/ https://sutherlandhousebooks.com/who-cancel/

I'm not sure that is an excessive description anymore. Jerry Seinfeld, a mainstream comedian, stopped playing at college campuses years ago already because he was getting picked apart and no longer welcome. at precisely the place that is supposed to be the most transgressive and open to ideas! a place to expand minds, remember? now it fully embraces orthodoxy and censorship. or take the case of Bret Weinstein. a libe…

> Jerry Seinfeld, a mainstream comedian, stopped playing at college campuses years ago already because he was getting picked apart and no longer welcome. at precisely the place that is supposed to be the most transgressive and open to ideas! a place to expand minds, remember? now it fully embraces orthodoxy and censorship.

Was Jerry Seinfeld banned from any campuses? Or did he elect to stop performing at campuses? From everything I've read, it was a choice he personally made.

So, why did he make that choice? Well, because people didn't find his jokes funny. And moreover, they had reasons that they didn't find them funny. He couldn't stand the heat, and left the kitchen.

Free speech is not freedom from critical response. This isn't some failure of free speech on campus, it's a failure of one comedian to keep his material fresh.

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

#384

Post by xenophonB » Mon, Mar 01, 2021, 10:18 PM UTC

hannasanarion wrote: post #247

kradeelav wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just this past weekend a disabled animator was blacklisted from the industry because an ex-friend objected to their NSFW drawings on a twitter handle (completely separate from their professional handle). The number of death threats were also an immense psychological toll, and a bit more than just "being yelled at" (I am open to the fact there is a fuzzy continuum between the two). Regardless - "some companies won't w…

Are you suggesting that blacklists are a new phenomenon? "cancel culture" has always existed. The only thing that is changing is that who is "cancelled" is no longer chosen by TV producers and news editors (ie, white men), but democratically by self-directed popular discourse. In 2003 the Dixie Chicks said at a show in london, "We don't want this war, we're ashamed the President of the United States is from Texas". I…

Yeah, the old "white" men who run Hollywood, record labels and the news media.

Oh wait, is that anti-Semitic to say? Then was it anti-white of you to say?

Also being cancelled for opposing a war that was engineered by globalist neocons is not proof that the interests of white males used to be the basis for cancelling people lol.

And there's nothing "democratic" about this lol, the cancelling is still done to suit the interests of those "white" people who run these organisations. No one cares if some people don't want to buy some tickets to a show, they care when Mastercard and Visa have secret blacklists of anyone to the right of Mitt Romney that they don't allow to transact on their monopoly global financial network.

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

#385

Post by d1zzy » Mon, Mar 01, 2021, 10:18 PM UTC

inglor_cz wrote: post #292

A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. And you only spoke political jokes to really close friends.

I was 11 when Communism fell in my country. By that time, kids knew perfectly well what to say in school, what to say among close friends and who of their colleagues was a snitch.

It was chilling when before the first day of school may parents made it very clear I shouldn't tell anyone (especially not teachers) that they were listening to Radio Free Europe.

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

#386

Post by xenophonB » Mon, Mar 01, 2021, 10:21 PM UTC

throwawaygh wrote: post #91

c06n wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And fired from your job. And yelled at on the street. And prevented from working in your field ever again. And death threats. So, blacklisting: check. Excommunication: check. I'd rather not wait till it goes down further.

All of those things happen to homosexuals and non-Christians in huge geographic swathes of the country, and with MUCH greater frequency. When CPAC starts eg hosting FFRF or ADL speakers I'll take the cancel culture bugbear seriously.

It's not 1960 lol, there are not vast swathes of the country where that happens, since the liberal left has almost total control via the Federal bureaucracy for enforcing their values everywhere, not just in blue states

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

#387

Post by xenophonB » Mon, Mar 01, 2021, 10:23 PM UTC

throwawaygh wrote: post #174

fallingknife wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First of all nobody is saying its good when right wingers do it. But here is Bernie Sanders invited to make a speech at the right wing Liberty University: https://www.vox.com/2015/9/14/9323041/bernie-sanders-liberty...

In the general case, you're not allowed to teach at Liberty unless you're a very specific type of conservative christian. A statement of faith is a required component of the faculty application packet. The student code of conduct prohibits homosexual behavior. Passing off Liberty as a bastion of free expression because they invited Sanders to give a speech is beyond disingenuous, and a perfect example of the enormous…

one tiny college versus the other 5,000 colleges where hyper leftist values predominate!

Could you be any more disingenuous?

And no one has ever suggested that other groups don't engage in this sort of activity when they're in power.

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

#388

Post by hannasanarion » Mon, Mar 01, 2021, 10:24 PM UTC

dash2 wrote: post #303

hannasanarion wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you suggesting that blacklists are a new phenomenon? "cancel culture" has always existed. The only thing that is changing is that who is "cancelled" is no longer chosen by TV producers and news editors (ie, white men), but democratically by self-directed popular discourse. In 2003 the Dixie Chicks said at a show in london, "We don't want this war, we're ashamed the President of the United States is from Texas". I…

I don't think anyone claimed that what happened to the Dixie Chicks was OK. Also, it sounds as if you think that cancellation is better if it's democratic. If so, you need to address the 150-year old argument made by Mill, that democratic popular opinion can be particularly oppressive and dangerous to minority viewpoints: "Like other tyrannies, the tyranny of the majority was at first, and is still vulgarly, held in…

You should maybe continue reading Mill, because nowhere in his writings, or those of anybody else who used the phrase "tyranny of the majority" prior to the modern age, believed that the solution was disempowerment of the majority and tyranny of the minority.

Surely if you think that majoritarian tyranny is bad, you must also believe that minoritarian tyranny is far worse, right? Such as when a select few individuals of a particular racial, gender, and social class, have complete control over popular media, with the sole power to decide who is successful and what damaging information about powerful people can becomes public knowledge and which is kept secret?

Also, quoting Mill while claiming that an individual consumer freely choosing to not buy a product is "tyranny" is laughable to the highest degree.

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

#389

Post by xenophonB » Mon, Mar 01, 2021, 10:25 PM UTC

throwawaygh wrote: post #65

standardUser wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Exactly. I grew up in the Midwest and outside of the city. When I visit home, I pretend to believe in God, lie-by-omission about my bisexuality, stay silent about politics, pretend to say grace at dinner, and go to Church on Sunday mornings. If I didn't, then in many ways I'd not longer be welcome in that social group. Finding a iving-wage job in the local community would certainly be impossible. There are only a few…

those people have zero cultural or institutional power.

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

#390

Post by _iyig » Mon, Mar 01, 2021, 10:26 PM UTC

kennywinker wrote: post #64

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.

What kind of intellectual progress do you think we're missing out on? I see people getting "cancelled" (aka facing consequences) for things like sexual misconduct / abusive behavior. For anti trans views. For fascistic ideas, or storming the capital to re-instate a democratically defeated politician. Are any of these places where the next big leap in intellectual progress is going to come from?

Here's one example, directly from the current HN frontpage:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26306020

In that instance, the canceled person was one of the United States' top reporters on the COVID pandemic.