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

Speaking Freely: Why I resigned from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation

tarahenley.substack.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

141–150 of 441 posts

Re: Speaking Freely: Why I resigned from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation

#141

Post by david38 »

nefitty wrote: post #123
CapitalistCartr wrote: post #30

Except at political groups to which I belong, I am almost always the left-most person in the room. The Lefts greatest weakness is an enthusiasm for splintering over small matters of doctrine. Identity politics, tribalism over principle, virtue signaling, whatever fad this is, it's deeply hurting progress.

Peter Thiel (gay man), Caitlyn Jenner (trans woman) and Kanye West (black man) all publicly support Donald Trump. It's not identity that's the issue, it's economic inequality. Even as part of marginalized groups, these people's vast wealth allowed them the luxury to support a man who did not have marginalized group's best interests in mind. If I was rich and wanted to take over a local government, I would channel my…

This.

IMO, most of the culture was a distraction from what really matters. People are up in arms on TV over who can claim to be a woman, but meanwhile, the concentration of wealth and economic power and worse than even the guided age.

If the bottom 50% of the population (economically) united on JUST this topic, they would see massive change - better structured education, housing, health, etc.

Instead we get what I call "hand grenades" that distract and mean almost nothing - like another biological male smashing records in a female sport and wanting to keep the medals.

Re: Speaking Freely: Why I resigned from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation

#142

Post by dan_pixelflow »

john_moscow wrote: post #80
NikolaeVarius wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At a previous job HR directly contacted me and told me to put my pronouns on my profile. I said sure and proceeded to ignore it. Fuck that shit

When someone asks me about preferred pronouns, my answer is "I prefer a raise over pronouns and thank you letters". I wish more people would do the same.

This weird hatred of not sharing pronouns is harmful - it's.. a few characters next to your name to help people talk to you and to help people who use different pronouns to what society has given them. Please stop acting all high-and-mighty over them - it's always with good intent.

Re: Speaking Freely: Why I resigned from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation

#143

Post by coldtea »

>It used to be that I was the one furthest to the left in any newsroom, occasionally causing strain in story meetings with my views on issues like the housing crisis. I am now easily the most conservative, frequently sparking tension by questioning identity politics. This happened in the span of about 18 months. My own politics did not change.

Don't worry, you're still the furthest to the left.

It's the others that have aligned with the priorities of mega-corporations, think tanks, and power centers - downplaying class and overplaying identity issues (and at the moment when those are the least anti-establishment and most incosequential position). Worse, they're using this as a weapon for class warfarce (against the working class, white predominantly, but they'd also openly use it against the poor black and latinos too, but they need to pretend they champion them) and a class signifier.

Re: Speaking Freely: Why I resigned from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation

#144

Post by xienze »

kbenson wrote: post #110
NikolaeVarius wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At a previous job HR directly contacted me and told me to put my pronouns on my profile. I said sure and proceeded to ignore it. Fuck that shit

While I understand the sentiment, I think to some degree putting a pronoun down is for the benefit of those conversing with you, so they don't have to wonder or get it wrong. In lieu of this, and because I don't really care what pronoun is used for me, I sometimes just put "any" if it's an option to denote that I don't care.

> putting a pronoun down is for the benefit of those conversing with you, so they don't have to wonder or get it wrong.

The type of people concerned with being addressed by the "correct" pronouns will list them without being asked, believe me. And for the other 99.9% of people, it's pretty obvious what to use.

Re: Speaking Freely: Why I resigned from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation

#145

Post by [deleted] »

phonypc wrote: post #87
epivosism wrote: post #17

What clearly seems wrong is the requirement to fill out forms on the race and gender of people you interview, and to have quotas to control whose voice is heard based on those irrelevant traits (irrelevant relative to the individual person's life, ideas, experiences, ability to express themselves etc.) My policy is to refuse to give my gender or race. If everybody did this, high frequencies of "other" or "unknown" co…

> which seems difficult since they're also the people who claim it's not a real concept. A straw man if there ever was one. Insofar as anyone even says something like "race isn't real", the claim isn't that the concept doesn't exist. What would that even mean? The claim is that it isn't biologically grounded, or that it's socially constructed or some such.

[deleted]

Re: Speaking Freely: Why I resigned from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation

#146

Post by ninkendo »

elevenoh wrote: post #46

Quoted post unavailable.

"Wokeism" is a pejorative catch-all term for all the negative aspects of trying to be against racism, so it's kind of true by definition, isn't it? Literally no one is defending "wokeism" any more than people are defending "racism", because the terms themselves are intended to convey something negative.

It makes the term kind of useless, wouldn't you think? It's a placeholder term for whatever you don't like.

Re: Speaking Freely: Why I resigned from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation

#147

Post by SavantIdiot »

CapitalistCartr wrote: post #30

Except at political groups to which I belong, I am almost always the left-most person in the room. The Lefts greatest weakness is an enthusiasm for splintering over small matters of doctrine. Identity politics, tribalism over principle, virtue signaling, whatever fad this is, it's deeply hurting progress.

> an enthusiasm for splintering over small matters of doctrine. Identity politics, tribalism over principle, virtue signaling, whatever fad this is,

I question your assertion that you are "leftist" when you describe progressive thought in dismissive, inflammatory, right-wing terms.

Re: Speaking Freely: Why I resigned from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation

#149

Post by nrdgrrrl »

kbenson wrote: post #110
NikolaeVarius wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At a previous job HR directly contacted me and told me to put my pronouns on my profile. I said sure and proceeded to ignore it. Fuck that shit

While I understand the sentiment, I think to some degree putting a pronoun down is for the benefit of those conversing with you, so they don't have to wonder or get it wrong. In lieu of this, and because I don't really care what pronoun is used for me, I sometimes just put "any" if it's an option to denote that I don't care.

I'm transgender and this business of putting pronouns everywhere bothers me too. If I'm in a group that usually doesn't do pronouns but does when I'm in the room it's like they're pointing a finger at me saying "you're different and we're afraid of offending you, so we're going to act differently around you".

No. I just want to be a human being. If you wonder about my pronouns, ask and I'll happily answer. If you get them wrong I'll happily correct you.

If you're an ass to me I'll report you to HR, but putting my pronouns at the bottom of my email isn't going to make you any less of an ass.

Re: Speaking Freely: Why I resigned from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation

#150

Post by btown »

dang wrote: post #15
undoware wrote: post #13

Quoted post unavailable.

" Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith. " https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

The article opens with an opinion that drawing awareness to non-binary pronouns is too much of an "editorial priority." That the author hides behind "people want to know" is a distinction without a difference.

The "strongest plausible interpretation" is that the author believes LGBT issues should be talked about less. But the author is not simply talking about it less; they are using their platform to advocate that it be talked about less.

That is, quite literally in this instance, free speech being used to complain about trans people, or at the very least their visibility in society. With 92 upvotes as of the time of writing, it's arguable that this opinion is being "celebrated" by many members of this community. And many HN comments are obviously hyperbolic for effect; this one is no different.

Assuming good faith goes both ways.

Post reply on HN