There is a certain joy in seeing that this submission is presently titled:
[flagged] HeresyHeresy
81–90 of 1001 posts
Re: Heresy
#82flagged.... lmao
Re: Heresy
#83Earlier quoted context omitted.
None of the competing thoughtcrime tribes seem to care about things like free thought, discourse, etc. This is the frightening part to me--people in the "other tribe" aren't worthy of things like due process, and authoritarian approaches are fine as long as they are aimed at the "other". I know history repeats itself but wow, c'mon.. the 20th century wasn't that long ago.
I have heard a scant few stories of people having their due process taken away. There is some controversy though about whether the concept of due process as per law should be extended to a general principle that guides the operation of privately-owned websites. That isn't how the internet used to work so the jury's still out.
"aren't worthy of" is distinct from realized actions of the state. If you recall the impulse of the mob during me too was to burn without trial any accused--this sentiment is what I'm talking about.
Re: Heresy
#84Why was this post flagged?
It's heretical
Re: Heresy
#85This thing where people want to say horrible things without consequence is just so weird. I have the right to judge your statements just as much as you have a right to say them. I have the right to leave jobs when it turns out the people working there hate people like me, and companies have the right to hire people who aren't going to alienate future potential employees. When people bring up posts like this they neve…
Does the right have hold of corporate culture however? I think the issue is the consequences of speech which are permissible themselves -- I think being shunned by a friendship group seems always permissible. Being marginalized in one's workplace, shunned by one's colleges, and so on -- this seems far less permissible. I dont think this is a strictly left/right issue; and what today is called "left" is rather a kinda…
I think it's ridiculous to think the left has hold of corporate culture. I think a lot of different companies have a lot of different cultures, and I think for the majority of companies the right holds power. I think that tech companies are a major exception to this, in part because it seems that a much larger percentage of queer people are in tech (both directly and indirectly, via companies that support tech)- but if you pick any random company in the US you're going to find a fairly conservative culture.
The only reason I brought up left versus right was because that's the reductionism PG resorted to here. I also think it's a bit more nuanced. I also think focusing on this being a free speech issue, as PG does, is a red herring for other cultural issues.
Re: Heresy
#86This thing where people want to say horrible things without consequence is just so weird. I have the right to judge your statements just as much as you have a right to say them. I have the right to leave jobs when it turns out the people working there hate people like me, and companies have the right to hire people who aren't going to alienate future potential employees. When people bring up posts like this they neve…
I don’t think people want to say bad things without consequence. They want to be able to discuss a topic without the rabid tone police descending on it.
Like, I say I cannot understand trans people at all, and people will jump on me because I’m rejecting them and making them feel bad, when I’m just stating a fact.
There’s a lot of this stuff.
Re: Heresy
#87I feel like a pariah sometimes in those discussions. I agree with PG in that I'm also not too happy with the "only X can be x-ist", but on the other hand I'm also not a conspiracy nut that talks non-stop about "critical race theory". I'm also not free speech absolutist, as I'm ok with things like European law criminalizing Nazism or glorification of genocide. I feel like I'm constantly against three very radical grou…
When liberalism, conservatism, and libertarianism have all failed you, perhaps the only path left is communitarianism.
Re: Heresy
#88What I find most interesting are those arguing against "cancel culture" and the revival of heretics don't find issue with things like the "critical race theory" boogeyman and the "don't say gay"-style bills preventing teaching of sexuality topics. It's interesting how consistency of free thought isn't really the important thing here.
It's not "don't say gay", it's "don't subject, expect or mandate young kids to learn stuff about things like sexual orientation (or even gender identity) that they cannot possibly relate with prior to the biological changes of adolescence, and that are enough of a minefield for adults already. Leave this stuff to family and broader society for the time being."
It's not "leave this stuff to family".
It's "you're going to jail if you dare to talk about it".
That's the obvious violation of First Amendment: government cannot use force to dictate what you say.
And this topic is not on the short list of exceptions (threats of violence etc.).
And stepping back: realize you're being played by politicians.
Republicans know well this bill is unconstitutional.
They know there are topics way more important to spend their very limited legislative time on.
But DeSantis is going to run for the president so Republicans are picking fights with stupid bills to whip up their base to vote for them.
Those stupid fights are also distracting you from things that actually matter i.e. how to maintain and increase prosperity of the people.
Re: Heresy
#89> Can a statement be x-ist, for whatever value of x, and also true? If the answer is yes, then they're admitting to banning the truth I disagree. The statement “very few women are capable of running a Fortune 500 company effectively” is factually true, but implicitly sexist (very few men are capable either). By banning those sorts of statements you’re not banning the truth, you’re just quieting assholes.
These kind of "x-ist" statements are fine for things that are overtly x-ist. The problems happen when things are more murky; for example when you start exploring the reasons why there are few women running Fortune-500 companies. If you start shutting down things with "it's x-ist!" then you may never find out the reasons (and by extension, how to do something about them!)
"It's x-ist" is an assertion, as well as an accusations, and not an argument. It's usually much better replaced with "I think this will be bad for group x, because reason y". It has the same effect, and is actually constructive.
Re: Heresy
#90Minor criticism: I wonder why including a statement like "like a vector field whose elements become aligned" was thought necessary. It does not make much sense technically and it does not even add to the content. If anything it makes me doubt the rest of the essay by suddenly making me aware that Gell-Mann amnesia is a thing. From my point of view it is absolutely net-negative.
He's sort of thinking of a phase transition. I imagine it's included as a symptom of how he's visualizing the situation. The idea of a phase transition here makes sense, and I suspect is a fair description of some social phenomenon.