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

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

#451

Post by solosoyokaze »

keiferski wrote: post #9

I find it almost funny how the media/culture/etc. seems determined to build a group of people that will react negatively to so-called "cancel culture." They seem to think that people will gladly follow the ever-growing list of arbitrary rules indefinitely. If I were a betting man, I'd predict a resurgence in punk attitudes in about 2025 or 2030. At some point, the dam will break and people will stop caring. I already…

Have you considered that cancel culture is the new punk rock? Look at the reaction in this thread. The responses range from clutching pearls to legitimate fear. Just like the reactions to punk rock.

Even the real punk rock was pretty much in line with what we consider cancel culture. It's an attack on the establishment:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God_Save_the_Queen_(Sex_Pistol...

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

#452

Post by KittenInABox »

IAmWorried wrote: post #443
bachmeier wrote: post #117

Surprising how much press "cancel culture" gets these days as if it's a new thing or as if it's a new thing being pushed on society by the left . We've always had cancel culture. Some might remember the Dixie Chicks. How about the Rachael Ray ad that Dunkin Donuts pulled merely because it looked like an Arab scarf? Jerry Falwell came to prominence entirely based on his pushing of cancel culture. When I lived in North…

Honestly, it's viewpoints like yours that I despise the most. We have innocent people losing their careers with no due process, just mob justice, and what do you people do? "Oh, republicans did it 30 years ago, so any criticism is invalid." Honestly, F that. I was never even alive for what you are talking about. How about we try to build a better society where people don't lose their jobs for their views, rather than…

I think this person isn't saying it's fine. They're pointing out that the outrage about this is dissociated from the fact that this has been a longstanding problem and therefore likely has significantly deeper issues than the surface-level symptoms (eg. self-censorship).

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

#453

Post by rayiner »

bachmeier wrote: post #117

Surprising how much press "cancel culture" gets these days as if it's a new thing or as if it's a new thing being pushed on society by the left . We've always had cancel culture. Some might remember the Dixie Chicks. How about the Rachael Ray ad that Dunkin Donuts pulled merely because it looked like an Arab scarf? Jerry Falwell came to prominence entirely based on his pushing of cancel culture. When I lived in North…

If what you’re saying is that the New York Times is now the progressive version of Liberty University then I accept that concession.

Regarding your edit:

> Edit: Forgot to mention this extreme example of cancel culture: https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/professor-who-wore-hijab-...

The professor was fired from a Christian school for making an assertion (that Muslims and Christians “worship the same god”) that, according to its theology, amounts to heresy: https://www.businessinsider.com/professor-maybe-fired-for-hi...

> “Contrary to some media reports, social media activity and subsequent public perception, Dr. Hawkins' administrative leave resulted from theological statements that seemed inconsistent with Wheaton College's doctrinal convictions, and is in no way related to her race, gender, or commitment to wear a hijab during Advent," Wheaton's administration said in a statement released December 16th.

So if your point is that cancel culture is the expression of a new progressive theology, then again I accept your concession.

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

#454

Post by vmladenov »

IAmWorried wrote: post #443
bachmeier wrote: post #117

Surprising how much press "cancel culture" gets these days as if it's a new thing or as if it's a new thing being pushed on society by the left . We've always had cancel culture. Some might remember the Dixie Chicks. How about the Rachael Ray ad that Dunkin Donuts pulled merely because it looked like an Arab scarf? Jerry Falwell came to prominence entirely based on his pushing of cancel culture. When I lived in North…

Honestly, it's viewpoints like yours that I despise the most. We have innocent people losing their careers with no due process, just mob justice, and what do you people do? "Oh, republicans did it 30 years ago, so any criticism is invalid." Honestly, F that. I was never even alive for what you are talking about. How about we try to build a better society where people don't lose their jobs for their views, rather than…

Moral policing is a far older struggle than a recent US-centric partisan squabble. I’m with you in that I wish more people held liberal values, but reducing a complex, entrenched cultural phenomenon present throughout human history to such a myopic view of the present isn’t likely to improve the situation you’re concerned about.

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

#455

Post by nomdep »

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."

Are you sure? https://www.myheritage.com/deep-nostalgia

The result is not perfect but it could be with a few more photos.

And realistic synthetic voice generation is not so far away in the future.

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

#456

Post by [deleted] »

sudosysgen wrote: post #278
Tarq0n wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wasn't McCarthy-ism basically proto-cancel culture?

Moreso super cancel culture. Same for Mao's struggle sessions. And so on forever. Cancel Culture is just a new name for an eternal phenomenon in every society.

[deleted]

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

#457

Post by rayiner »

mywittyname wrote: post #316
bachmeier wrote: post #117

Surprising how much press "cancel culture" gets these days as if it's a new thing or as if it's a new thing being pushed on society by the left . We've always had cancel culture. Some might remember the Dixie Chicks. How about the Rachael Ray ad that Dunkin Donuts pulled merely because it looked like an Arab scarf? Jerry Falwell came to prominence entirely based on his pushing of cancel culture. When I lived in North…

The Dixie Chicks are a great example. They vanished from the mainstream basically overnight. People still hate them to this day and probably don't even really remember what they said.

By “vanished from the mainstream” you mean their 2003 album still went 6x platinum, and then their 2007 album went 2x platinum and won 5 Grammys?

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

#458

Post by guerrilla »

nine_k wrote: post #450
bachmeier wrote: post #117

Surprising how much press "cancel culture" gets these days as if it's a new thing or as if it's a new thing being pushed on society by the left . We've always had cancel culture. Some might remember the Dixie Chicks. How about the Rachael Ray ad that Dunkin Donuts pulled merely because it looked like an Arab scarf? Jerry Falwell came to prominence entirely based on his pushing of cancel culture. When I lived in North…

The underpinnings of the "cancel culture", the intolerance and mob mentality, were always around. The "cancel culture" adds two news things to the picture. One is the ability for anyone to participate, not just the few on the TV screen or newspaper pages. Another is the attempts at totality: expel the victim from every social media platform, every internet hosting, every payment platform, every public venue. It's not…

Modulo specific technology, that's how life was if you were gay, Jewsish, Black, Asian or communist at certain times. None of that is new and the point stands.

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

#459

Post by SpicyLemonZest »

jandrese wrote: post #436
SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #414

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We can. My go-to example is Emmanuel Cafferty ( https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/06/stop-firin... ) - a Twitter power-user took a video of him using the OK sign, then declared him to be a white supremacist and summoned up a Twitter mob to get him fired for it.

That's a good example of atrociously poor HR by PG&E. Especially since they're apparently not willing to reconsider. It should be noted that he's has not been banned from speaking anywhere. I was curious about this so I tried to follow up on the story to see what happened after the fact, but the reporting is pretty much entirely about the firing. I'm curious if he's been blacklisted from his industry or not? If so, t…

He reports that he's been unable to find work (https://www.sandiegoreader.com/news/2020/nov/25/cover-sdge-l...), although I don't know how anyone could go about confirming that.

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

#460

Post by guerrilla »

cozuya wrote: post #409
jimbokun wrote: post #396

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The concept is not new, see McCarthyism. What's new is social media's ability to amplify the voices of a small number of relatively anonymous people to "cancel" someone. McCarthyism required a Senator to have a serious impact. Now people are cancelled, without there being a clear link back to who, exactly, did the cancelling.

What are some examples of people being cancelled by a small amount of anonymous people? I can't think of any. Lets looks at Gina Carano for example. She was "cancelled" (fired from her job) as the direct result of her social media posting things a large number of people found offensive and inappropriate, not a small amount. 10 anonymous people didn't cause it, hundreds of thousands of people thought it was wrong.

The Inquisition, witch trials, outing people as gay, most of the history of the Jews..
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