291–300 of 1001 posts
> There are many on the far left who believe strongly in the reintegration of felons (as I do myself), and yet seem to feel that anyone guilty of certain heresies should never work again. This is a great point. I’ve seen the same with attitudes towards homeless people where they can harass people on the street all day long and get treated like they’re a poor victim who has no agency, but a “normal” person can get fir…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm really wondering why this is a problem. Sure, that might insulate him and put him in an echo chamber, but blocking is entirely his right, and he's the one who'll get the consequences from that. I also tend to do a similar thing in spaces I curate, and it's honestly better for mental health. Someone comes out from nowhere with something completely 180 degrees from what I say? That's not reality TV, that's my priva…
The problem is that he has way more influence in the world than you or I due to his status, money, connections, etc. The amount of harm resulting from him being in an echo chamber is much larger, especially since he actively posts in order to influence large amounts of people. People judging you for your blocking is one of the prices you're socially expected to pay in return for those privileges.
Someone popular being in an echo chamber causing problems for society is a larger issue that maybe we should address separately. It's not on him to solve problems created by social media at large. Maybe limit reach of Twitter accounts.
Even if it were kind of his responsibility, that doesn't preclude him from being fully in his right to block people when he doesn't want to interact directly in a social network. That should be an inalienable right.
You can criticise anything you want, and I'm not saying you're not in the right to do so. But saying this is a problem comparable to cancellation is making a gross exaggeration.
Can somebody list “heresies” which we are not allowed to say but they are ok? I cannot find a single one. But maybe I’m missing something.
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…
G.K. Chesterton boiled this down pretty well: “The Special mark of the modern world is not that it is skeptical, but that it is dogmatic without knowing it. It says, in mockery of old devotees, that they believed without knowing why they believed. But the moderns believe without knowing what they believe - and without even knowing that they do believe it. Their freedom consists in first freely assuming a creed, and t…
Too complicated. The culture war was explicitly born of a left-wing power grab through cultural means, and it was foisted on college students starting in like 2014, and has had remarkable success (for its proponents). College kids believe a lot of stuff without knowing what, or why, and cancel culture rules are no different.
G.K. Chesterton boiled this down pretty well: “The Special mark of the modern world is not that it is skeptical, but that it is dogmatic without knowing it. It says, in mockery of old devotees, that they believed without knowing why they believed. But the moderns believe without knowing what they believe - and without even knowing that they do believe it. Their freedom consists in first freely assuming a creed, and t…
Too complicated. The culture war was explicitly born of a left-wing power grab through cultural means, and it was foisted on college students starting in like 2014, and has had remarkable success (for its proponents). College kids believe a lot of stuff without knowing what, or why, and cancel culture rules are no different.
The current culture war got stoked in the early 90s by conservatives because it got them votes, and has been escalating since then because it still does. Or are you going full Buchanan to claim black and gay people getting equal treatment in the civil arena is a "left-wing power grab"?
Can somebody list “heresies” which we are not allowed to say but they are ok? I cannot find a single one. But maybe I’m missing something.
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.
Can somebody list “heresies” which we are not allowed to say but they are ok? I cannot find a single one. But maybe I’m missing something.
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…
I think a lot of the issue revolves around us celebrating our differences rather than trying to polarise them.
But clearly scientific evidence (ie lack of witchcraft) also play a part.
The vibe I get from the post is just that, being OK with people having a different point of view without having an adverse reaction. Maybe another component to it is the black box algorithms of major platforms that may magnify differences of opinion or 'filter bubbles' as it were.