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

Heresy

paulgraham.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

151–160 of 1001 posts

Re: Heresy

#151

Post by Aeolun »

UncleMeat wrote: post #112
Aeolun wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

“I don’t understand it but I’ll trust their feelings and the recommendations of their doctor” is very different from “I don’t understand it so I’ll call them mentally ill, misgender them, or insist that legislation prevent access to medical care”.

Indeed. But I do not feel like the wolves care about the distinction, or they just don’t attempt to figure out that nuance before they descend.

Re: Heresy

#154

Post by ekianjo »

jroblak wrote: post #22

Genuinely funny coming from the dude who insta-blocks anyone who even mildly disagrees with him about _anything_ on Twitter.

> who insta-blocks anyone who even mildly disagrees with him about _anything_ on Twitter.

Does his block makes you lose your job? If not, you are missing the point.

Re: Heresy

#155

Post by Beltalowda »

I think this is an important part:

"Fortunately in western countries the suppression of heresies is nothing like as bad as it used to be. Though the window of opinions you can express publicly has narrowed in the last decade, it's still much wider than it was a few hundred years ago. The problem is the derivative. Up till about 1985 the window had been growing ever wider. Anyone looking into the future in 1985 would have expected freedom of expression to continue to increase. Instead it has decreased."

Many people proclaim that "free speech is dead" and all of that, but it's still at an all-time high if you zoom out a bit. You don't even need to go back a few hundred years; look at the number of people persecuted by the government (both through the courts and outside of it) for things like blasphemy, subversion, civil rights, sexual deviancy (homosexuality, among other things), etc. just a few decades ago. In the US burning the flag was illegal in many states until the late 80s when the SCOTUS declared it was legal under the 1st (and only by a 5-4 majority).

Yes, there are some developments I am not especially pleased with either, but it's also important to remember the historical context.

Anyway, I liked this piece of nuance.

Re: Heresy

#156

Post by jakelazaroff »

eadmund wrote: post #130
pikma wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you explain what it means to "deny the existence" of someone? I see this expression often, but I'm genuinely puzzled by what it means in practice. I agree with you that "purposely misgendering one's colleagues" should lead to firing, but I think this article isn't about that. It's about people who are tolerant of others and in general try to be nice people, but just disagree about certain things - for example, ho…

Quoted post unavailable.

In case anyone is genuinely confused: this is the kind of bigotry people expect to get away with sans consequence, and complain about “heresy” when they’re called out on it.

Re: Heresy

#157

Post by DeWilde »

vinceguidry wrote: post #76
rs_rs_rs_rs_rs wrote: post #53

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.

But how accurate is that diagnosis, are there false positives and how much?

I know, anecdotally, that some homosexual men are gender dysphoric during prepubescent age but grew out of it during puberty, and feel it would have been a mistake to transition at that age.

But this isn't the point of the essay. The point is that asking questions like these would get you branded a heretic by the far left. And acknowledging gender dysphoria would get you branded a heretic by the far right.

Re: Heresy

#158

Post by Pxtl »

It's important to remember that this particular kind of "heresy" is not about hurting an imaginary God, but actual real people.

Questioning the legitimacy of geocentrism is a victimless crime. Questioning the legitimacy of gay marriage or gay adoption or sexual transitioning has very defined, specific victims that face real actual harms from these attitudes.

Right now parents of trans children are being accused of being abusers, with legal threats to that effect. Gay parents and their supporters are being called groomers.

Clamping down hard on that is defensible. You may believe that this is an unjustifiable restriction of speech, but it is materially different from old concepts of "heresy".

Re: Heresy

#159

Post by subjectsigma »

muglug wrote: post #36

> 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.

THIS is exactly what some are afraid of. People taking statements, interpreting them with their own mental models, and coming to the conclusion the person who made that statement is x-ist.

Your own comment literally provides multiple interpretations of that statement and you chose the "sexist" one to be the default!?

Post reply on HN