Heresy • Hacker News Board

Re: Heresy

#461

Post by photochemsyn » Sun, Apr 10, 2022, 5:01 PM UTC

Osmose wrote: post #416

teakettle42 wrote: post #381

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have invented a “harm principle” to be used when evaluating truth , and the fact that you think this is a cogent argument is scarier than anything Paul Graham might have said. One’s right to say something isn’t curtailed just because their saying it might intrude on your dogma more strongly than if it was said by someone with less social power.

If I'm following you correctly, you're implying that in order to debate with others to determine what truth is, you must have the freedom to say things without being bound by how the act of saying them would affect other people, right? And I'm disagreeing and saying that, unless you have some sort of prior agreement with the people involved (which social media/the internet/readers of your blog don't have), you don't…

I'd just note here that 'truth through debate' is an ancient concept (Socrates - Aristotle - Plato etc.) that has been replaced with 'truth through experiment and observation' (Galileo - Newton - Maxwell - Einstein etc.). Of course many have attempted to use science to justify their behavior or to justify some arbitray human social organizations (i.e. Francis Galton and Social Darwinism, or Lysenko in the USSR and Phenotypic Modification, or more simply, nature vs. nurture).

However, science isn't the final arbiter for marking out the optimal societal norms, whatever those may be, although this seems to be the meaning of 'truth' as you use it in this context. An authoriarian state with zero personal freedom might be just as capable of feeding its human population as a libertarian state with a minimal set of legal restrictions, for example.

Re: Heresy

#462

Post by samatman » Sun, Apr 10, 2022, 5:01 PM UTC

mcronce wrote: post #29

baggy_trough wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's one: I don't believe that gender identity is a valid concept. Does that make for a hostile work environment or "deny the existence" of anyone? I submit to you that the answer is no, except for die-hard adherents of the new ideology. Well, that simply isn't my religion, and I resent attempts to force it on me.

Yes, it does. You don't get to decide for other people who or what they are.

In many normal circumstances, I am entitled to disagree with people about who or what they are.

Someone might think they're charming, and I might find them a great bore.

It's obvious in this example that equivocating that with deciding for that person, anything at all, is asinine.

Most social settings, and all professional ones, require that I be more polite to this "charming" person than I would otherwise be inclined to, given my own feelings on that subject.

There is something to be learned here.

Re: Heresy

#463

Post by jimkleiber » Sun, Apr 10, 2022, 5:01 PM UTC

tootie wrote: post #403

alignItems wrote: post #377

The fundamental fallacy at play here is the human mental bias that we are at the peak of ethical advancement - and the corollary meta-bias that the historical witch hunters didn’t have this exact same bias themselves. It doesn’t help that drama likes to portray them as intentionally evil. In reality, most Christian zealots (or any historical enforcers of heresy) must have been very confident that they are doing the r…

The fallacy that Graham is espousing seems to be that moral superiority (or even moral improvement) is utterly impossible and any attempt to raise the level of discourse is oppression. The change in tone in the 80s he refers to is the ascendance of civil rights, feminism and gay rights. All incredibly worthy movements. The fact that some adherents make mistakes is human nature. The notion that they can't be debated i…

How I understood his essay was that he actually wants more debate about things and finds statements such as "that is X-ist" to end debate.

Did you read that differently?

Re: Heresy

#464

Post by the8472 » Sun, Apr 10, 2022, 5:02 PM UTC

Osmose wrote: post #416

teakettle42 wrote: post #381

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have invented a “harm principle” to be used when evaluating truth , and the fact that you think this is a cogent argument is scarier than anything Paul Graham might have said. One’s right to say something isn’t curtailed just because their saying it might intrude on your dogma more strongly than if it was said by someone with less social power.

If I'm following you correctly, you're implying that in order to debate with others to determine what truth is, you must have the freedom to say things without being bound by how the act of saying them would affect other people, right? And I'm disagreeing and saying that, unless you have some sort of prior agreement with the people involved (which social media/the internet/readers of your blog don't have), you don't…

Truth is harmful and people need to be shielded from it? If we hold the speakers responsible, rather the people who take up their words and turn them into actions? Then isn't that incompatible with democracy which relies on informed citizens that aren't easily captured?

Re: Heresy

#465

Post by twofornone » Sun, Apr 10, 2022, 5:02 PM UTC

Osmose wrote: post #416

teakettle42 wrote: post #381

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have invented a “harm principle” to be used when evaluating truth , and the fact that you think this is a cogent argument is scarier than anything Paul Graham might have said. One’s right to say something isn’t curtailed just because their saying it might intrude on your dogma more strongly than if it was said by someone with less social power.

If I'm following you correctly, you're implying that in order to debate with others to determine what truth is, you must have the freedom to say things without being bound by how the act of saying them would affect other people, right? And I'm disagreeing and saying that, unless you have some sort of prior agreement with the people involved (which social media/the internet/readers of your blog don't have), you don't…

This is carte blanche to silence any opinion you (or your mob) doesn't like and its absurd that people think its valid. Completely flies in the face of the spirit of freedom of expression.

There are arguments that need to be expressed even though ideologues may think that they are harmful. That's the point of open discussion. There are questions that need to be asked even if others believe they may have inconvenient answers. That's the point of objective science. Because of sentiment like yours, we increasingly have neither, and we are all worse off for it.

Re: Heresy

#466

Post by pfortuny » Sun, Apr 10, 2022, 5:02 PM UTC

Osmose wrote: post #416

teakettle42 wrote: post #381

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have invented a “harm principle” to be used when evaluating truth , and the fact that you think this is a cogent argument is scarier than anything Paul Graham might have said. One’s right to say something isn’t curtailed just because their saying it might intrude on your dogma more strongly than if it was said by someone with less social power.

If I'm following you correctly, you're implying that in order to debate with others to determine what truth is, you must have the freedom to say things without being bound by how the act of saying them would affect other people, right? And I'm disagreeing and saying that, unless you have some sort of prior agreement with the people involved (which social media/the internet/readers of your blog don't have), you don't…

Pain is not harm.

Suffering is not necessarily bad.

One can live a full life in the midst of hurting.

The fact that Santa does not exist angers a lot of people each year…

Re: Heresy

#467

Post by Koshkin » Sun, Apr 10, 2022, 5:03 PM UTC

shadowgovt wrote: post #9

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 has forgotten his own

"If a person is not a liberal when he is twenty, he has no heart; if he is not a conservative when he is forty, he has no head."

Re: Heresy

#468

Post by darepublic » Sun, Apr 10, 2022, 5:03 PM UTC

Make sure to use main instead of m*****

Re: Heresy

#469

Post by eternalban » Sun, Apr 10, 2022, 5:04 PM UTC

nonrandomstring wrote: post #366

Beltalowda wrote: post #155

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…

The speed with which society is moving is also a factor. Tacitus or Voltaire are variously credited with the notion that in any epoch, to know who is in power, ask who you may not criticise. I think Graham is slightly missing the point about our period. It's not that heresy is on the up, so much as it's on the move. Outrage is a homeless beast. We're in an Orwellian age where it changes with the seasons, so what is h…

> Outrage is a homeless beast.

Well said and true.

> it is no longer power that metes out punishment, but the fanboi acolytes or loyal minor apparatchik.

Pretty sure this modality of power has been with us since ancient days. (The beast may be homeless but there is always a beast master.)

Re: Heresy

#470

Post by skippyboxedhero » Sun, Apr 10, 2022, 5:04 PM UTC

frazbin wrote: post #398

skippyboxedhero wrote: post #356

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Religion isn't out of favour. We are currently in one of the most religious periods of human history but the gods and authorities have just changed.

This is a crappy hot take. Monetary and labor contributions to religious endeavors are way down and have been for a while. I understand the desire to call any strongly held organized belief 'religion' but you're misrepresenting most of human history when you do so.

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