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Heresy

paulgraham.com

131–140 of 1001 posts

Re: Heresy

#131
post #55

Graham has forgotten his own essays if he thinks that this is a rebirth. "What you can't say" [ http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html ] is one of the first of his essays I ever read. It eventually directed me to this site. At the time, I thought it was brilliant. 18 years on, I think it's a good piece of writing but he's only got half the story. Sadly, today's essay suggest to me he hasn't found the other half in the in…

Graham didn't say it's a "recent" rebirth in the sense that we often use that word in the technology sector. It's "recent" in the sense that historians use it, i.e. sometime in the last generation or two. In TFA he places the cultural shift somewhere in the late 80s, long before his 2004 essay on the matter. I've read both essays and it seems that Graham's opinion on the topic hasn't changed much over the last 18 yea…

Sorry, can't guess, not in the US. Care to enlighten us?

Re: Heresy

#132
post #11

This 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…

> When people bring up posts like this they never say what the "heresies" are. People aren't getting "cancelled" for their takes on taxes. There are plenty of examples of stuff that is way less clearcut "that's bad" than your example. See e.g. David Schor getting fired for retweeting a black professor's paper arguing riots are bad for black political movements. See also, e.g. a friend ending our friendship because I…

> See also, e.g. a friend ending our friendship because I gently challenged her fat acceptance rhetoric, "Anti-fatness is more toxic to women's bodies than fatness has ever been." At best it's not falsifiable, but really it is just not a realistic statement.

Is this really a topic you needed to weigh in on? I’m assuming you weren’t concern trolling or playing devil’s advocate, but it’s very easy to imagine how a “gentle challenge” might get interpreted as such if your relationship with the other person doesn’t generally include similar discussion topics.

Re: Heresy

#133
post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 top…

I don’t think this is true; it’s not a criminal statute. While the law is problematic for plenty of reasons, the threat of imprisonment is not one of them.

Re: Heresy

#135
post #86
post #11

This 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.

[deleted]

Re: Heresy

#136
post #20

Earlier 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.

Nobody’s trying to put you in jail for having differing views. But there’s never going to be a world in which there aren’t social consequences for having them. If you think, for example, that the world is going to greet people who think it’s ok to molest children (whether they do it or not) with open arms, you’re just deluded.

>Nobody’s trying to put you in jail for having differing views.

>>Man guilty of hate crime for filming pug's 'Nazi salutes'

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-43478925

Turns out they are and will.

Re: Heresy

#137

Quoted post unavailable.

You should probably go look at the current state of diagnosis and treatment of gender dysphoria before giving your hot take. If caught and treated early, gender reassignment surgery can work miracles on a child's quality of life. It really shouldn't be seen any differently than other treatable birth defects.

If misdiagnosed, gender reassignment surgery is disasterous on a child's quality of life. So perhaps we should be looking at the number of false diagnoses for gender dysphoria?

Re: Heresy

#138
post #86
post #11

This 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.

Perhaps replacing "trans" with "black", "Jew", "Muslim" or any other marginalized minority group, would help you understand why such blanket "I cannot understand X at all" causes people to object?

Re: Heresy

#140
post #4

What 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.

Whole thing boils down to "I've always been in the cultural in-group, but man it sucks here in the out-group," as he notices for the first time what life has been like for most people, for most of history. Hilarious.

Yup. If you want trans and gay people, history of racial oppression and female nipples on tv banned, that is just "normal" and "natural". But anything else is horrible attack on mah freeze peach.
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