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Heresy

paulgraham.com

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Re: Heresy

#551

Post by tomp »

NoraCodes wrote: post #521
twofornone wrote: post #481

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These claims that the "don't say gay" legislation stifles free speech are dishonest. These are teachers, agents of the state, in a professional setting, not private citizens expressing opinions off the clock. If I'm paying taxes for public education then I should have a say in what gets taught, and that includes culture.

Now, wait a second - either it's bad that people get fired for expressing opinions, as Graham states in the essay, or it's not and people _should_ get fired for expressing opinions that you don't like. I don't think you can have it both ways. It's not even as if there's a conflict of interest here, as in the case of public officials being banned from certain kinds of political speech; these teachers are not hurting a…

Would you want to take your kid into a kindergarten where the teacher would be showing (or reading) them porn?

If "no", how do you square that with "teachers can say anything they like"? I mean literally no employment is like that (try publicly saying your employer is evil, see how long you last...). Private speech != employee speech.

Re: Heresy

#552

Post by ss108 »

Biologist123 wrote: post #220

This essay was somewhat high on opinion, somewhat low on evidence. Paul Graham tweets a lot about this issue, and cancel culture is something he is apparently very sensitive too. It makes me wonder what happened - as given his lack of evidence - it appears to be an emotional reaction rather than a logical one. As an aside, most examples of people being fired for expressing opinions seem to come from academia. I’ve wo…

I am not generally pro cancel culture, but a lot of the opposition to it is certainly whiney and low on evidence.

For example, there's this notion that the advancement of knowledge is somehow being suppressed and that naked, barely-regulated free speech has been essential to Western dominance, and that, accordingly, to backpedal on the principle would have some material affect on society.

However, no nexus between the kinds of speech and people being "cancelled" and any sort of practical benefit of the speech is ever identified. Nor do they consider the fact that the proper result of intellectual discourse is that some ideas get discarded, and that to constantly have to rehash debates, reestablish the credibility of basic authorities, etc, drags down intellectual discourse and in fact moves us backwards.

Re: Heresy

#553

Post by steve76 »

NoraCodes wrote: post #498

> The reason the current wave of intolerance comes from the left is simply because the new unifying ideology happened to come from the left. The next one might come from the right. Imagine what that would be like. I'm curious how Mr. Graham can look at a country that is in the process of reversing much of the last half-century's progress on women's rights, LGBTQ+ rights, and disability rights, and _not_ see a politic…

No post body was provided.

Re: Heresy

#554

Post by maccolgan »

leephillips wrote: post #341
tlogan wrote: post #271

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.

(1) The concept of an inherent “gender” makes no biological nor logical sense. You can’t have been born in the “wrong body.” (2) Socrates was mostly right about democracy. (3) Seriously violent criminals, once convicted, should never bet let out of prison. (4) The US (and all nations) should have essentially open borders. (5) The US should make health insurance illegal and provide health care as a function of governm…

Post 3, it's quite the inverse in my experience.

Re: Heresy

#555

Post by odonnellryan »

I know this is going to sound insane, but what is the obsession with truth? Things can be true and harmful.

People should be judged for saying harmful things.

Re: Heresy

#556

Post by UncleMeat »

wskinner wrote: post #534
NoraCodes wrote: post #498

> The reason the current wave of intolerance comes from the left is simply because the new unifying ideology happened to come from the left. The next one might come from the right. Imagine what that would be like. I'm curious how Mr. Graham can look at a country that is in the process of reversing much of the last half-century's progress on women's rights, LGBTQ+ rights, and disability rights, and _not_ see a politic…

> a country that is in the process of reversing much of the last half-century's progress on women's rights, LGBTQ+ rights, and disability rights If this is intended to refer to the United States, it is highly exaggerated. I doubt you could find a woman, disabled person, or LGBTQ+ person who seriously would rather spend their life in 1970s America than 2020s America. The normalization of rights and tolerance for these…

"In the process of reversing much of..." does not mean that things are worse than in the 70s. It means that things are being undone.

The right to abortion has been threatened more now than in the past many decades, for example.

Re: Heresy

#557

Post by FerociousTimes »

NoraCodes wrote: post #531
rayiner wrote: post #524

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

How's that? The point being made here is that he is used to people in his position in society having a certain freedom from criticism, and therefore sees any vulnerability to criticism as a loss of freedom. This is an equally valid point whether the commenter is white or black, man or woman, old or young.

Can't you see the irony of your statement accusing PG of not tolerating criticism on his business' online public forum and under the topic of one of his essays and with a thread headed by your unequivocal rejection of his views on the issue at hand?

I sincerely can't see your conclusion about the immunity from criticism that PG purportedly enjoys in all of this and that's the root cause of his disapproval and denouncement of cancel culture.

Re: Heresy

#558

Post by zozbot234 »

ryanobjc wrote: post #547
zozbot234 wrote: post #476

Earlier quoted context omitted.

James Damore was a lowly software engineer and that did not save him from being canceled by the mob and losing his job. All the more outrageous because his working paper was an honest and forthright - and broadly accurate - response to an express request for feedback about how to improve working conditions. Shades of "let a thousand flowers bloom".

His paper was definitively broadly inaccurate. A number of dissections online have illustrated at how he grasps at evidence that doesn’t say what he claims it to say. He over emphasizes the nature of statistical evidence, and ignores the minimal strength of effect as well. Besides which this wasn’t a “all of a sudden I wrote a paper and then I got fired” - he had been posting similar ideas into internal forums and wa…

Most of these "dissections" online simply omit his references, which gives a very misleading impression of the actual paper. Strength of effect is always minimal in psych and social science: you aren't going to find any seven-sigma results. So this is a biased criticism as well.

Re: Heresy

#559

Post by rayiner »

NoraCodes wrote: post #531
rayiner wrote: post #524

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

How's that? The point being made here is that he is used to people in his position in society having a certain freedom from criticism, and therefore sees any vulnerability to criticism as a loss of freedom. This is an equally valid point whether the commenter is white or black, man or woman, old or young.

White people articulating what they view as universal principles is vastly preferable to the current trend of white people complaining about other white people and speaking on behalf of minorities.

Re: Heresy

#560

Post by UncleMeat »

rayiner wrote: post #539
NoraCodes wrote: post #498

> The reason the current wave of intolerance comes from the left is simply because the new unifying ideology happened to come from the left. The next one might come from the right. Imagine what that would be like. I'm curious how Mr. Graham can look at a country that is in the process of reversing much of the last half-century's progress on women's rights, LGBTQ+ rights, and disability rights, and _not_ see a politic…

> reversing much of the last half-century's progress on women's rights, LGBTQ+ rights, and disability rights, and _not_ see a politics of heresy emerging from the right. Gee, how would anyone look at a Republican administration whose first Supreme Court appointee penned a seminal decision on LGBT employment protections as not trying to turn back LGBT rights? One wonders. Attempting to argue that the battles being fou…

The GOP's national platform still says that they intend to overturn Obergefell. Laws that explicitly target the LGBT community (both gay and trans people) are being passed in numerous states, which are uniformly red states. And it isn't hard to see a partisan split in the Supreme Court on the topic of gay rights, even if individual Republican-appointed justices have been on the right side of several cases.
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