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Heresy

paulgraham.com

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Re: Heresy

#571

Post by ambrozk »

jacobolus wrote: post #513
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…

Paul Graham grew up in a time when rich middle-aged white men with no relevant experience or credential could spout off about whatever topic they wanted, including pseudo-intellectual racism/misogyny, and everyone would be forced to listen to their nonsense unable to respond with more than an eye-roll for fear of reprisals. (For that matter, when Graham grew up those powerful white dudes could beat people up, sexuall…

This is a pretty shocking fairytale version of the past.

Re: Heresy

#572

Post by UncleMeat »

dnfa wrote: post #562
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've deliberately avoided mentioning any specific heresies here Yeah this bothered me. His stance on this seems so defensive and personal and he gives very few examples of heretical ideas. It makes this essay more of a boomer diatribe than anything else imo.

It allows anybody who reads the piece to apply their own specifics to it. It means that if they hold any "heretical" beliefs, they can assume that PG supports them.

Re: Heresy

#573

Post by bloaf »

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…

> 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 get to avoid consequences for the potential harm saying something might cause. Ultimately you are always talking to be heard by someone else, and all human interaction involves the risk of harming/angering someone else, but every day we control for that risk in how we say

I think this is the crux of the issue. The internet (including social media/the internet/blogosphere) originated in academia and was first populated by academics. People like PG (and myself) who grew up in that environment still feel like the internet is-and-ought-to-be a free marketplace of ideas, where academically-minded people can dispassionately debate on any topic. In our view, the Internet's virtues are the age-old virtues of the liberal arts, and that it would be a liberalizing and liberating force as it spread to the public.

But the internet has grown organically. It has been September for almost three decades now.

The internet is more representative of the population at large, and we are being reminded why academia is described as an ivory tower and concepts like tenure exist. Fundamentally, not everyone can be an academic, nor can they tolerate the existence of academics. The "towers" and "tenure" exist as a two way shield: it both mitigates self-censorship among academics by protecting them from mob backlash, and it prevents the "think with our gut" mob from getting indigestion and hurting themselves.

So I think both that you're right, and that it is a shame. The internet has not changed the public's unworthiness to engage in academic conversation despite the oceans of information it has made available. The public will misunderstand and misconstrue and mistrust and misuse academic ideas in ways that harm people, and that harm will be the fault of the academics for not knowing better than to keep their ideas to themselves. Just like it is the witches fault for admitting that they thought differently than their community.

Re: Heresy

#574

Post by ss108 »

Ancapistani wrote: post #421
mjburgess wrote: post #322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a "truth vs. order" debate. PG is in highly stable environments where order isnt an issue, so he is more concerned about truth. Generally, when "x-isms" are accused, the issue is the break down of social order in the environment in which the accusations are made. It really doesnt matter if your x-ist point is true, if saying it, is an action which destabilizes (eg.,) the workplace. Most spaces aren't for discuss…

> It's a "truth vs. order" debate. > It really doesnt matter if your x-ist point is true, if saying it, is an action which destabilizes (eg.,) the workplace. I think this is pretty insightful. There are two things at play here that I think are being conflated - one is challenging certain concepts, and the other is challenge the social order that is predicated upon them. Let’s take racism as an example. Arguing that r…

W/r/t your medical situation, I'm not advocating for just outright telling them, but I would say your trepidation, while understandable, may be a bit overwrought. I think most people understand that some people are medically ineligible for the vaccine.

Re: Heresy

#575

Post by batty »

tshaddox wrote: post #334

I wish he would just give examples or at least speak slightly more plainly about his complaint. I would understand his complaint more (and be able to decide whether I agree with him, although I’m fairly sure I don’t) if he would just say something very plainly like “I liked it better in 1985 when you could say X and have zero risk of losing your job.”

Relevant tweet: https://twitter.com/ndrew_lawrence/status/105039166355267174...

Re: Heresy

#576

Post by NoraCodes »

temp8964 wrote: post #569
NoraCodes wrote: post #538

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I doubt you could find a woman, disable person, or LGBTQ+ person who seriously would rather spend their life in 1970s America than 2020s America. That's not what I meant and, I think, not what I said. I did not say that we _had_ rolled back those rights, but that we were in the _process_ of doing so. Rather than moving in the direction of liberation for these groups, we are moving in the opposite direction, at leas…

Quoted post unavailable.

> pushing back against those dangerous radical ideas are not going to lead to "roll back" of any rights.

I am referring specifically to Thomas looking to overturn Obergefell [1], TN trying to legalize child marriage [2], and current Republican efforts to reduce the effectiveness of the ADA. These are concrete examples of the right attempting to roll back certain rights.

> do you agree 100% with critical race theory?

It's an academic framework, not a set of policy goals, and I didn't study that in my CS curriculum, so I can't really speak to it. Can you?

> do you agree 100% with LGBTQ activists?

The vast majority of the policies they propose seem quite reasonable, yes.

1: https://www.educationviews.org/clarence-thomas-signals-willi...

2: https://www.wlbt.com/2022/04/06/proposed-legislation-could-l...

Re: Heresy

#577

Post by rilezg »

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…

Great points. I would also highlight the following:

> 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.

I would offer the analogy of a broken (analog) clock. If a broken clock says the time is ten o’clock, and the time actually is ten o’clock, it is more important to note that the clock is broken than that the clock is correct. Similarly, if someone says something that is technically true, but they are a person who often lies or has goals that harm others, then it is more important to note that they should not be trusted than that they are correct.

Critics of 'intolerance'/'cancel culture'/'heresy' often invoke truth in their arguments. They miss that the phenomenon has nothing to do with the truth of an out-of-context statement, rather it is about whether a person should be trusted.

Re: Heresy

#578

Post by NoraCodes »

rilezg wrote: post #577
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…

Great points. I would also highlight the following: > 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. I would offer the analogy of a broken (analog) clock. If a broken clock says the time is ten o’clock, and the tim…

> Similarly, if someone says something that is technically true, but they are a person who often lies or has goals that harm others, then it is more important to note that they should not be trusted than that they are correct.

This is a great analogy, but I'd go even further than this; someone can say something which is true, but in context use it to signal harmful intent. Saying "you know, that last commit from Jane was awful" while venting about bad process over lunch with a good friend is very different than saying "the last code Jane committed was awful" in a meeting about hiring the team's second female employee - even if it's absolutely true.

Re: Heresy

#579

Post by UncleMeat »

teakettle42 wrote: post #381
Osmose wrote: post #258

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 jud…

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.

Not when evaluating truth. When evaluating speech.

Humans don't communicate by simply listing context-free facts at one another. Connotation, implication, and context all play a major role. The idea isn't that the words themselves become evil when said in a different context, but that we recognize that they do different things in different contexts.

Let's consider a totally different scenario: the justice system. In criminal cases, the standard of evidence is way higher than in civil cases. This is a recognition of the fact that the state is capable of causing far greater harm and it should hold itself to a higher standard. Nothing has changed about the truth of say, OJ Simpson's actions, that meant that he was found not guilty in a criminal trial but was able to be punished in a civil trial.

Similarly, we might recognize that somebody with a powerful voice and a large following has a greater responsibility to careful communication than the person working the counter at the local Starbucks.

Re: Heresy

#580

Post by Eli_Beeblebrox »

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…

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