Speaking Freely: Why I resigned from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation • Hacker News Board

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

#371

Post by ameminator » Mon, Jan 03, 2022, 11:02 PM UTC

YZF wrote: post #353

ameminator wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you believe in freedom of expression and of speech, it doesn't matter how much power Sam has, even if you disagree with what he says. I don't like or agree with white supremacists, but I consider the ACLU defense of their speech a monument to our civilization's respect of human rights.

In the US I think hate speech is protected under freedom of speech but I disagree with that. Hate speech leads to violence. This isn't about disagreeing with what Sam says. In a perfect world people decouple "speech" from their actions/beliefs but in the real world people act on what they believe and what they believe is influenced by "speech" (sometimes more so than by things like "facts", "reality", "science", "log…

How exactly do you quantify this harm? Most of these re-definitions of "harmful" speech always seem unclear and difficult to define. Under the current legal framework (which you said you disagreed with) we already have standards and methods of quantifying that harm when speech directly incites violence. These same measures also explicitly define anything else as not harmful.

The way I see it, the government has more of a duty to protect free speech than it does to prevent nebulous, poorly-defined and indirect harm. Outside of these moral implications (that no speech is fundamentally harmful, that we must have the freedom to have incorrect ideas), efforts to "prevent harmful speech" always seem to hurt society and individuals when put into practice. There is always the problem of who defines what harm is (usually it's the government) and such measures exist now explicitly to prevent the government from infringing on these rights.

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

#372

Post by masonic » Mon, Jan 03, 2022, 11:03 PM UTC

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.

>conversing with you

When conversing with you, your gendered pronouns aren't used. There is no gendered version of "you".

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

#373

Post by version_five » Mon, Jan 03, 2022, 11:10 PM UTC

reallyagain wrote: post #366

milderworkacc wrote: post #357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Calling the CBC “Government approved journalists on the government payroll” is an extremely misleading description of what is an overwhelmingly common situation in English speaking democracies. Canada has the CBC, the UK the BBC, Australia the ABC and NZ TVNZ and associated entities. None of these are Pravda, they’re all arms-length, independently run organisations. I’m sure they’re all far from perfect (I’m happy to…

You're running straight into an established Canadian conservative talking point. It's pushed relentlessly by private news organisations who would reap financial benefit from the CBC being defunded. These organizations also happen to be the major news and opinion source for many conservative people in this country, so there's a convenient feedback loop in place. I'm sure this is not dissimilar to the other countries l…

I really don't see how one could look at CBCs news coverage and feel that way. It's the propaganda arm of the Liberal party, plain and simple. The "childish" take would be really believing that CBC is anything but a liberal mouthpiece. All mainstream Canadian news organizations are garbage, I don't mean to say there is a better alternative, but our tax money only pays for one of them.

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

#374

Post by ameminator » Mon, Jan 03, 2022, 11:10 PM UTC

metabagel wrote: post #316

ameminator wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I don't necessarily think something is bad just because it belongs to one political side or another. Good and bad ideas exist on both sides of the aisle and the proportion of good to bad is always in flux.

I'm not convinced of those arguments. However, assuming I'm being charitable (which I will try to be to my utmost) and take these to be true, it's quite possible the right is correct when it comes to the worst excesses of "wokeism". Nothing about "they pick extreme examples" or "they foment a sense of grievances" means they are incorrect. Even if the problem is overstated, I still see it as a problem.

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

#375

Post by Lio » Mon, Jan 03, 2022, 11:17 PM UTC

Spooky23 wrote: post #33

newsclues wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never fill out the preferred pronoun section that have suddenly made their way into forms.

I have a coworker who assigned “Lord” as his personal pronoun.

I always liked the idea of using “m’lud” or “y’excellency”.

It makes HR emails sound more subservient I think.

HR departments are famed for their sense of humour so I’m sure they’d be fine with it.

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

#376

Post by abernard1 » Mon, Jan 03, 2022, 11:19 PM UTC

onphonenow wrote: post #257

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.

Max dem donor, historically very "left" as well. This is an issue on both sides in the extreme. On the right just look at what to outsiders are TINY doctrinal differences in things like faith issues - have historically driven major internal divisions. I always thought the American left would really endure / have the advantage long term because of what seemed like a healthier exchange of ideas (free speech support etc…

> I'm hoping the next generation has a good take on this.

I believe the current generation has a good take on this: when your identity becomes enmeshed in a political religion, the creation of differences is mandatory to support your vision.

This necessity of finding a cause or something to believe in—the need for baddies and an existential battle of good vs evil—will exist in perpetuity on the left. If there are no baddies, they must be created.

The origin of "the left" in America is a road through the Darwinian origins of Progressivism which, along with its gross support of racial anthropology, believed in a better class of men to administer a society they believed incompetent. It then moved down the meandering corridor of postmodern Marxism in academia which took as an article of faith that dishonesty was required for social change. We're now at the weapons-grade, enriched version of that belief with Wokeness where the adherents privately believe they are better people, qualified to manage society's past ills but then publicly disown the idea when confronted.

Unless the cultural left in America wants to disown over a century of believing they are superior, the orthodoxy is here to stay. There is no difference between Wilsonian progressives and the modern day woke other than transparency and visibility into the worldview.

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

#377

Post by onphonenow » Mon, Jan 03, 2022, 11:28 PM UTC

gopher_space wrote: post #368

onphonenow wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Max dem donor, historically very "left" as well. This is an issue on both sides in the extreme. On the right just look at what to outsiders are TINY doctrinal differences in things like faith issues - have historically driven major internal divisions. I always thought the American left would really endure / have the advantage long term because of what seemed like a healthier exchange of ideas (free speech support etc…

> And despite the talk of love and acceptance, the left really seems to be driven by hate and outrage now more than I remember plus a very healthy dose of hypocrisy. Sounds like you're talking yourself into giving Nazis a "fair shake". Why would you do that?

What does this have to do with Nazis?

Is the claim that the left is being fascist or the right is? Ie, who bum rushes someone off the stage these days - is that a left wing thing or right wing or both?

Is this claim meant to undermine my claim around the extremism now in the left and right?

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

#378

Post by 908B64B197 » Mon, Jan 03, 2022, 11:32 PM UTC

milderworkacc wrote: post #357

908B64B197 wrote: post #341

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always considered the idea of CBC to be... extremely weird. Having government approved journalists on government payroll sure sounds like something out of China, Russia or Cuba. Not a western democracy. From the article: > To work at the CBC now is to accept the idea that race is the most significant thing about a person, and that some races are more relevant to the public conversation than others. It is, in my new…

Calling the CBC “Government approved journalists on the government payroll” is an extremely misleading description of what is an overwhelmingly common situation in English speaking democracies. Canada has the CBC, the UK the BBC, Australia the ABC and NZ TVNZ and associated entities. None of these are Pravda, they’re all arms-length, independently run organisations. I’m sure they’re all far from perfect (I’m happy to…

> is an extremely misleading description of what is an overwhelmingly common situation in English speaking democracies.

... but who signs the check?

> they're all arms-length, independently run organizations.

I have no doubts they claim to be. It's pretty convenient to have a news organization that you can claim is "independent", but that will still take commands from you. Like, for example, if you don't want a certain story to be heard. After all, you are signing the check...

Even better, because you subsidize it so much it makes it harder for truly independent medias to survive, so it becomes a single source of "truth". Because your competitor has to make money and attract viewers, while the state-backed network doesn't.

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

#379

Post by reallyagain » Mon, Jan 03, 2022, 11:35 PM UTC

version_five wrote: post #373

reallyagain wrote: post #366

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're running straight into an established Canadian conservative talking point. It's pushed relentlessly by private news organisations who would reap financial benefit from the CBC being defunded. These organizations also happen to be the major news and opinion source for many conservative people in this country, so there's a convenient feedback loop in place. I'm sure this is not dissimilar to the other countries l…

I really don't see how one could look at CBCs news coverage and feel that way. It's the propaganda arm of the Liberal party, plain and simple. The "childish" take would be really believing that CBC is anything but a liberal mouthpiece. All mainstream Canadian news organizations are garbage, I don't mean to say there is a better alternative, but our tax money only pays for one of them.

If the CBC was the "propaganda arm" of the Liberal party, it would follow that they were be extremely negative towards the NDP and the Green party. The combined share of left-wing vote in Canada swamps the combined right-wing vote, and it's not particularly close. In 2021, there were 9 million left-wing votes and 6 million right-wing votes. If we put the BQ with the left-wing(which in my view isn't unreasonable), it's 10.5 million versus 6 million.

If the CBC had daily meetings where they planned on how to elect the Liberals in the next election, the most logical course of action would not to go after Conservatives, but to spend their time going after the other left-wing parties.

But, of course, that's not what happens. Why does that not happen? Because they're not a "propaganda arm" for the Liberal party, they are biased towards small L liberal viewpoints. And that difference is the difference between the CBC and a state-run propaganda program. The childishness is equating the two.

(FWIW, I know three people who work for the CBC, one of whom is a complete moron, and two of whom are good humans. All three are left-wing in their personal lives, but if any of them were in a meeting where it was discussed how to elect the Liberals in the next election, they would walk out on the spot. The idea that that happens is purely a Conservative fantasy.)

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

#380

Post by AnimalMuppet » Mon, Jan 03, 2022, 11:37 PM UTC

consumer451 wrote: post #280

InTheArena wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the Overton window at work: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window In the US, it goes far beyond broadcasting. Note how lin manuel miranda's Hamilton has gone from Obama era cultural gold to "cringe-worthy" - https://www.vox.com/22641501/hamilton-parks-rec-harry-potter... Or how JKR on Harry Potter went from being vilified by conservative voices to the modern "She who will not be named" of Lefty HBO.

And a different edge of said window expanded to include actual ethno-fascists. This is not whataboutism, just want to portray the scenario in a more complete light.

I think that the Overton Window shattered.

To explain what I mean, let me start by defining a personal Overton Window. Each individual person has a range of what they, personally consider to be "acceptable ideas". I, personally, have my own politics, but I consider other views to be acceptable, even if I don't agree with them. Both Democrats and Republicans have some views that are within my personal window, but not all ideas of either side.

Society has an Overton Window when most people hold views that are within most other peoples' personal Overton Windows. For example, in 1950 there was a society-wide Overton Window on gay marriage - it was outside the personal Overton Window of, say, 98% of the population, so 98% of the people had views that fit within 98% of the peoples' personal Overton Window. That's a society-wide Overton Window.

Now it's different. Now, say, 40% of the people still have gay marriage outside their personal Overton Window. (All numbers made up on the spot, but I think they're approximately right.) But 25% of the people think that opposing gay marriage is unacceptable - it's outside their personal Overton Window. The remaining 35% are somewhere in the middle. There is no position that the majority of the people fit in. That's a shattered Overton Window.

But the people who are in media have more of a consensus Overton Window. But it doesn't match the peoples' Overton Window (then again, nothing does, because there is no consensus view).

This split - the media has a more unified view than the people do - is why so many people feel unrepresented by the media.