Heresy • Hacker News Board

Re: Heresy

#251

Post by CPLX » Sun, Apr 10, 2022, 3:39 PM UTC

cs702 wrote: post #213

We should all strive to keep an open mind, especially to ideas contrary to our own. But it’s not easy, because every group, in every society, organically develops its own heresies – things you cannot say without consequences. For example, here are some heresies common in the Silicon Valley startup community: * Heresy: “Government regulations are, on the whole, a net force for the good of humanity.” * Heresy: “All ent…

The ultimate heresy for SV culture is genuinely attempting to address even the possibility that the world is worse off because of their existence.

Of course any answer to that question has a lot of nuance to unpack. But SV culture I don’t think would even accept the premise that this question has valid answers on both sides.

Re: Heresy

#252

Post by ratww » Sun, Apr 10, 2022, 3:39 PM UTC

javajosh wrote: post #91

vinceguidry wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

What is the liklihood of the child being confused, mistaken, or later changing their mind? TBH my concern is that liberal parents, excited at the prospect that their little white boy will avoid a lifetime of abuse by transitioning to being a little white girl, will not even preach caution, but will hasten the transition to a better, more protected, identity.

> What is the liklihood of the child being confused, mistaken, or later changing their mind?

Definitely not 100%, but regardless of that: definitely not something I, a neutral part, can answer, let alone groups with an anti-trans/anti-LGBT agenda. This is a case-by-case thing to be decided by professionals.

Re: Heresy

#253

Post by beaconstudios » Sun, Apr 10, 2022, 3:40 PM UTC

xqcgrek2 wrote: post #244

cs702 wrote: post #213

We should all strive to keep an open mind, especially to ideas contrary to our own. But it’s not easy, because every group, in every society, organically develops its own heresies – things you cannot say without consequences. For example, here are some heresies common in the Silicon Valley startup community: * Heresy: “Government regulations are, on the whole, a net force for the good of humanity.” * Heresy: “All ent…

All of those statements can be easily refuted factually, so no, they are not heresies.

This is the thing - everybody thinks the heresies they are opposed to are also false. Many of which are based purely on ideology.

Re: Heresy

#254

Post by subjectsigma » Sun, Apr 10, 2022, 3:40 PM UTC

happytoexplain wrote: post #195

subjectsigma wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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!?

"Implicitly sexist" does not mean "sexist by default". "Implicitly" is a reasonable qualifier here. You would essentially have to be a robot to make this statement without purposefully implying that women are less capable of running a Fortune 500 company. In English, "very few" implies "very much fewer than the alternative", but in strict logical construction, it does not , hence the parent's point and my remark abou…

> You would essentially have to be a robot to make this statement without purposefully implying that women are less capable of running a Fortune 500 company.

It depends on context. You and I are not robots, so we see an individual sentence by itself and add context. But this isn't good.

What if the follow is "And that needs to change. Which is why I'm proud to announce our first scholarship program for female entrepreneurs!" Do you still think the statement is sexist? Do you think the person making the statement is sexist?

Re: Heresy

#255

Post by yojo » Sun, Apr 10, 2022, 3:40 PM UTC

ByteJockey wrote: post #203

yojo wrote: post #67

Woo boy. Generally liked the concept for the essay, but this piece jumps out as problematic (or just poorly written): > The clearest evidence of this is that whether a statement is considered x-ist often depends on who said it. Truth doesn't work that way. The same statement can't be true when one person says it, but x-ist, and therefore false, when another person does. Really? He can’t think of a statement that is r…

> Really? He can’t think of a statement that is racist when a white person says it and not a black person? He can't think of a statement that is false when a white person says it and true when a black person says it (or vice versa).

The literal quote is about the “x-ism” of the statement, not its veracity. He goes on to extrapolate about truth later.

Re: Heresy

#256

Post by malnourish » Sun, Apr 10, 2022, 3:40 PM UTC

lowkey_ wrote: post #122

tedivm wrote: 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…

> People are getting called out for denying the existence of people who aren't like them. I see this a lot and it makes no sense to me. What does it mean to deny the existence of someone? To pretend they do not exist? People who make that comment usually seem to be falling into a trap of viewing a disagreement or difference in opinion as something much more extreme.

Take this statement: "all trans people are misgendering themselves and _should_ conform to the gender assigned to them based on the sexual organs they had at birth".

This effectively denies the existence of people who believe or desire to be their non-assigned gender. The statement tells trans people that in the eyes of the speaker, their personal identity is a fabrication.

Re: Heresy

#257

Post by Aeolun » Sun, Apr 10, 2022, 3:41 PM UTC

pkulak wrote: post #10

When you say or do socially unacceptable things, there can be consequences. Is that “heresy”? I always associated that word with religion, myself, but it’s interesting that religion is so out of favor right now that you can use it as a comparison to argue that any action not explicitly illegal should be free of negative consequence.

> Is that “heresy”?

Depends on whether you get put to the stake for this socially unacceptable thing.

At some point it was socially unacceptable/heresy for a woman to float when thrown in a pond.

Re: Heresy

#258

Post by Osmose » Sun, Apr 10, 2022, 3:41 PM UTC

The behavior he's calling "heresy" here cannot be evaluated in a vacuum; these kinds of statements are all contextual, ESPECIALLY hinging on who is saying them. And the reason that is the case is because the consequences of saying something are different depending on who says them.

Paul Graham is wealthy and influential, and actively tries to influence folks with essays like this. So when he says something, it is judged in a harsher light because those words have a much stronger effect than if, say, some L2 software engineer on Twitter said them. If PG says something that _could_ be interpreted as racist, it threatens to normalize believing that in the minds of the people who follow him. If L2 says something that is on the fence, at worst some of their immediate friends will pile on to them about how uncool that was (barring the rare occasions of people going viral for bad takes, which is an outlier).

I think that's reasonable social policing to keep our discourse healthy. Having that influence over people demands a price in return. If PG wanted to stop getting pushback for approaching what society thinks is an acceptable line, he totally can, he just needs to rebrand and get out of the startup game.

Re: Heresy

#259

Post by skybrian » Sun, Apr 10, 2022, 3:41 PM UTC

The complete lack of examples means that essay doesn't work very well now, and I doubt it would work any better in the future. It's an extreme form of watering down your complaints via overgeneralization, to the point where it's very difficult to "read between the lines."

All that's left is a bunch of bare, generic assertions. It would be very difficult to convert them into falsifiable statements.

Re: Heresy

#260

Post by javajosh » Sun, Apr 10, 2022, 3:41 PM UTC

cs702 wrote: post #213

We should all strive to keep an open mind, especially to ideas contrary to our own. But it’s not easy, because every group, in every society, organically develops its own heresies – things you cannot say without consequences. For example, here are some heresies common in the Silicon Valley startup community: * Heresy: “Government regulations are, on the whole, a net force for the good of humanity.” * Heresy: “All ent…

I bet you could say those things (and other provocative things) at a dinner party with other CEOs. It is, after all, what they do at Davos: fling socialist talking points at those immensely wealthy, smiling, capitalist faces.