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Speaking Freely: Why I resigned from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation

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

#311

Post by mikepurvis »

AlexandrB wrote: post #215
maxsilver wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>by specifying pronouns if they are obvious (99% of the time) Except they aren't obvious 99% of the time. They aren't even "obvious" like 60% of the time. They aren't even "obvious 99% of the time" for cis-straight (non-LGBTQ) folks. "Hi, Sam Shepard will be on the call with you today, and will be joined by Alex VanBeckran and Kegan Marton" -- are these folks hoping to be addressed as men, or women, or non-binary? Th…

> "Hi, Sam Shepard will be on the call with you today, and will be joined by Alex VanBeckran and Kegan Marton" -- are these folks hoping to be addressed as men, or women, or non-binary? There's no way to tell, and it's kind of disrespectful to be wrong. As another commenter pointed out, in a professional setting you would ideally address these people by their proper nouns (names) and not by their pronouns. And if you…

> I'm actually struggling to think of a business scenario where using the proper pronoun would be more professional or polite than just using someone's given name.

It works at first to just always use names and theys, but the longer a conversation goes on, the more awkward little nooks and crannies you find where it sure would be convenient to have a third-person singular pronoun for referencing the thing the person just said as you expand on it or synthesizing between statements made by multiple other participants. Maybe each one individually has a solution, but the cumulative effect of these small hitches and inefficiencies does build up.

Anyway, it's not impossible to make this feel natural, of course, and some people put in the work to master it. But there's a reason To Kill A Mockingbird stands out as a book that almost completely conceals the gender of its narrator and main character until about halfway through the story.

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

#312

Post by hk__2 »

inglor_cz wrote: post #250
hk__2 wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a strawman argument. That some claims aren’t proven or that some similar logic was used to do another bad thing doesn’t mean OP is wrong. What OP is referring to is largely documented and is not some small claim from a random article.

[citations needed] Lots of previously believed claims fail to replicate. One of those is "stereotype threat", which was basically taken for granted for decades and also looks logically plausible. https://replicationindex.com/2017/04/07/hidden-figures-repli...

That’s not that simple.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stereotype_threat

> Some researchers have suggested that stereotype threat should not be interpreted as a factor in real-life performance gaps, and have raised the possibility of publication bias. […] However, meta-analyses and systematic reviews have shown significant evidence for the effects of stereotype threat, though the phenomenon defies over-simplistic characterization.

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

#313

Post by metabagel »

coldtea wrote: post #143

> 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…

What makes you think corporations, think tanks, and power centers are aligned with identity politics? I draw rather the opposite conclusion.

I'm not big on identity politics, but then I'm white. But, I also don't get why we can't allow other people to express their own valid experience without trying to shout them down.

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

#314

Post by Vinnl »

lnxg33k1 wrote: post #248

Quoted post unavailable.

> their attitude of sharing things that don't really belong in a workplace.

This doesn't in any way seem inherent to being transgender, and hence not a reason to avoid them in general? Seems more like a characteristic of some particular people you happen to know, and identity politics or not, generalising that over people who happen to share a noticeable trait with them is what I think we should be careful to avoid anyway.

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

#315

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

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

#316

Post by metabagel »

ameminator wrote: post #286
ninkendo wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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.

Unfortunately, I think a lot of people implicitly or explicitly defend "wokeism" as interpreted in the most severe and uncharitable way. I try to be charitable in my assumptions, but even then, it's hard to argue that it's safe to criticize any DIE or "woke" initiative. There always seems to be some risk in being fired/blacklisted or otherwise attacked for even modest criticism of the DIE movement.

It may seem that way, but I think that's because right wing media does a stellar job of surfacing extreme examples. Plus, right wing media fosters a collective sense of grievance, which I see in some of the comments here.

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

#317

Post by snowron6 »

john_moscow wrote: post #241
space_fountain wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well sometimes it can be tough to know. Is that a trans man showing a bit an effeminate side sometimes or a woman? Is that person trying to look androgynous or masculine or is it just what they like to wear?

Well, if it really bothers someone when someone else uses the wrong pronoun, they could always just politely ask. Just like people with hard-to-pronounce foreign names. And if someone else refuses, you know, just don't be friends with that guy - be professional, to-the-point and spend your free time with the people that share your values. If you actually have a great home, friends, hobbies, and are generally happy ab…

>Just like people with hard-to-pronounce foreign names. And if someone else refuses, you know, just don't be friends with that guy - be professional, to-the-point and spend your free time with the people that share your values.

I'd argue it's the person refusing to refer to someone how they'd prefer to be referred to as being unprofessional. It's odd you use foreign names as an analogy, when refusing to pronounce someone's name correctly would probably get you a call from HR.

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

#318

Post by finite_jest »

smnrchrds wrote: post #45
adamc wrote: post #18

I am curious what Canadians think of this argument. Does it seem true? It's hard for me, a USA resident who doesn't follow the CBC, to really evaluate.

I cannot speak about the alleged wokeness, as I don't consume enough CBC content to make an informed judgment. What I can say is that CBC is the only major Canadian media company that is not capital C Conservative, at least among English-language media. Toronto Star used to fit this description too, but they got sold to what I think is a private equity firm who has been selling off their assets, so I don't expect the…

You are right that newspapers lean capital C Conservative [1] in Canada. It is mostly due to Postmedia. Ownership by Postmedia is quite conspicuous in the list.

CBC is really woke though. You don't need to suffer them too much to notice that. Randomly turn on the radio while driving a few times, and you will see.

[1]: Which in its current form looks like a bland, toothless, uninspiring, "big tent" party. Roughly speaking, they only seem to win if you use irrelevant metrics like popular vote (https://ca.sports.yahoo.com/news/erin-otoole-conservatives-p...)

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

#319

Post by onemoresoop »

Taywee wrote: post #227
btown wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 i…

> The "strongest plausible interpretation" is that the author believes LGBT issues should be talked about less. I disagree. I think the strongest plausable interpretation is that the author believes that the specific LGBT issues getting the most airtime are less important and more trite and divisive than things that are being largely ignored. That the issues themselves are not the focus, but the goal of making corpor…

The weaponization may in fact cause more harm and shift back a lot of good progress that has been done over the years. You are the perfect person to speak up about this issue because you're supposed to be a beneficiary and you're not going to be attacked to harshly for speaking your mind.

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

#320

Post by boppo1 »

david38 wrote: post #141
nefitty wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ca…

> united on JUST this topic, they would see massive change - better structured education, housing, health, etc.

I think part of the issue is no one agrees on what causes it. Status-quo left says not enough taxes and social spending. SQ right says immigration, geo-arbing, and taxes too high.

Imo we actually need to be talking about interest rate interventionism, but good luck getting people to care about cash flow valuation denominators.

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