Heresy • Hacker News Board

Re: Heresy

#761

Post by choppaface » Sun, Apr 10, 2022, 9:51 PM UTC

keithwhor wrote: post #698

The biggest problem I have with Paul’s writing on these topics is the misanthropic undertones. The classification of folks as “conventional minded” mirrors other socially reductive language like referring to people as “simps,” “NPCs,” and more. Paul believes he is partly responsible for engaging a social immune response to the intolerance he perceives — forgetting that immune responses are inflammatory by nature and…

COVID has changed a lot because it brought into public debate how to evaluate deeply held beliefs about predicting the future. The discussion is high-strung because it covers a life-or-death topic, and it’s so diverse (e.g. science vs region vs conspiracy vs liberty etc) that it forced the quantization of opinions. Once you swap an opinion for a symbol, game theory takes over the conversation.

What could help solve this? Real reconciliation of the different perspectives. There’s a common overlap: we all want to live, and we all have nonzero ignorance.

The tragedy is that the inordinately rich like paulg continue to divide with these self-serving essays instead of helping other to grapple with the K-shaped recovery we’re in now. The place to innovate now is not in blue-sky futurism but to innovate the recovery of those who COVID hit the hardest.

Re: Heresy

#762

Post by rayiner » Sun, Apr 10, 2022, 9:52 PM UTC

tootie wrote: post #544

twofornone wrote: post #497

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The anti-progress faction is still very very powerful. Plenty of unequivocal sexists and racists face no punishment. If I dared to push back on diversity and inclusion mandates in my workplace I'd lose my job. That includes explicitly racist talk about not hiring any more white guys. These "anti-progress" sentiments may exist but effectively in a parallel society, relegated mostly to blue collar work. It's dishonest…

For one that's a sample bias of HN being primarily affluent coastal elites. Half the country voted for the anti-progress candidate. Second, I do not at all believe that you'd be fired for a reasonable objection to diversity policy. Saying "I don't want diversity at all" might.

The anti-progress candidate—as defined by “affluent coastal elites”: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/18/opinion/biden-latino-vote...

E.g. they called Trump a racist for saying things that most minorities themselves agreed with.

> We began by asking eligible voters how “convincing” they found a dog-whistle message lifted from Republican talking points. Among other elements, the message condemned “illegal immigration from places overrun with drugs and criminal gangs” and called for “fully funding the police, so our communities are not threatened by people who refuse to follow our laws.”

> Almost three out of five white respondents judged the message convincing. More surprising, exactly the same percentage of African-Americans agreed, as did an even higher percentage of Latinos.

Re: Heresy

#763

Post by FerociousTimes » Sun, Apr 10, 2022, 9:55 PM UTC

fassssst wrote: post #635

This is an essay about what is largely a social media phenomenon. You can avoid the whole thing by just not participating. Seems like a waste of energy to even discuss vs just realizing that arguing publicly on a global scale is not a good use of your limited time on Earth.

Except that the conversations on social media seeps into and spills over into other facets of real life and affects public discourse on traditional mass media and public policy in general.

Re: Heresy

#764

Post by bendbro » Sun, Apr 10, 2022, 9:55 PM UTC

zimpenfish wrote: post #749

bendbro wrote: post #741

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I said: 1. "Fuck Jesus, fuck America, kill all men." 2. "Fuck BLM, fuck diversity." Which one do you think would get me cancelled? Conservatives have comically little social power. Further, you can basically say anything you want around them, while conversations with the average liberal are a careful affair. Perhaps though I am blind. Are there contemporary instances of conservative driven cancellations? The defin…

> Are there contemporary instances of conservative driven cancellations? Would teachers being fired merely for being gay count? https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/gay-teache... https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/education/2021/10/27/gay-... https://www.edweek.org/policy-politics/opinion-teacher-i-was... (three different ones there, there's more in the googles.) > Teachers can say whatever they like Exc…

Fired for being gay at public school: absolutely cancellation, and wrong.

Fired for discussing sex and gender with students: debatable.

Fired for being gay at a Catholic school: much like I'm fine with Hasidic Jews, Mormons, or Muslims doing "backward" things to maintain their enclaves, so too am I fine with Catholics doing it. Do I want all of society to be like this: please god no.

Whether all of this changes my opinion: no, but I will keep my mind more open. I think more examples, especially ones in public schools could change my mind.

I can also hear an argument against enclaves of the sort I spoke of above having less freedom. I don't have a great one in support of it to begin with. The topic is very messy.

Re: Heresy

#765

Post by taneq » Sun, Apr 10, 2022, 9:55 PM UTC

titzer wrote: post #750

I was nodding along up until this: > 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. [2] I think there is a ton of nuance that contradicts this. For example, a white, upper-middleclass college graduate could proclai…

I agree with what you're saying here, just want to add that your example also kind of upholds the original line. Delivery, audience, tone, implication/insinuation factors all matter a ton... but in a text medium, barring access to any of the above, we kinda assume that if someone's white, upper-middle class and well educated, they're at least a little prejudiced against black people. Which was the original point.

(For bonus points I likewise kinda assumed with nothing to go on except the broader context that our "white, upper-middleclass college graduate" is going to be male and likely middle-aged or older.)

Re: Heresy

#766

Post by AnimalMuppet » Sun, Apr 10, 2022, 9:56 PM UTC

erikpukinskis wrote: post #707

rendang wrote: post #626

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does Graham say people who make those statements should be ostracized and fired? I don't see the parallel at all.

No, he’s not saying that. I interpreted it as saying, for him, as soon as he hears one of those words, the conversation is over. Which… sounds like… if not heresy, then taboo?

No, he's not saying that.

He's saying that, when person A says something, and person B says that the statement is x-ist, person B intends that to end the conversation. In particular, person B intends that they not have to actually refute person A's statement.

PG's reaction isn't the point at all. The point is the speaker's intent.

Re: Heresy

#767

Post by taneq » Sun, Apr 10, 2022, 9:57 PM UTC

aidenn0 wrote: post #753

titzer wrote: post #750

I was nodding along up until this: > 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. [2] I think there is a ton of nuance that contradicts this. For example, a white, upper-middleclass college graduate could proclai…

In addition, all communication is context sensitive. When a politician who needs nei-nazi votes to get elected says something questionable, it's not unreasonable to assume it was intentional. Dog whistles are why we can't have nice things.

Just struck me that the term 'dog whistle' to the general population just means something you toot to get a dog's attention, whereas to a select target audience it has far more sinister implications and acts as a call to action of sorts. Ironic.

Re: Heresy

#768

Post by kemayo » Sun, Apr 10, 2022, 9:59 PM UTC

chernevik wrote: post #695

jounker wrote: post #641

> Up till about 1985 the window [of what you can say without being cancelled] had been growing ever wider. Anyone looking into the future in 1985 would have expected freedom of expression to continue to increase. Instead it has decreased. In 1985 in most places in the USA a public school teacher openly supporting gay rights in the classroom would have been risking their job and possibly their entire career.

Why a high school teacher needs a position on gay rights in the classroom, in 1985 or 2022, is beyond me.

Ignoring for a second that it's perfectly legitimate for a teacher to do something like have a rainbow flag bumper sticker on their car, or be openly gay and mention their same-sex spouse in class, all of which would not go well in many places in 1985... you can't think of a reason to discuss gay rights in, say, high school level social studies, history, or literature classes?

Re: Heresy

#769

Post by causality0 » Sun, Apr 10, 2022, 10:01 PM UTC

freebuju wrote: post #760

causality0 wrote: post #733

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's one of the more depressing parts. Even the people I agree with never engage with the actual argument of their opponents. For example, I'm pro-choice. The people who are anti-choice believe that abortion is the murder of a child. The people who agree with me, however, never engage with that argument. They just point out ways in which the anti-choice people are sexist or otherwise hate women. Similarly, the anti…

Strange observation indeed. Must be difficult to live in a world where everything is black or white to you. Is body autonomy absolute when you have a living organism inside of you? Is the "hate for women" justified for the sake of saving life? Is life even that important to us if we can allow a pregnant woman to arbitrarily take it? If so, what is our definition of life then? Excuse my little tirade. I love the age-o…

Must be difficult to live in a world where everything is black or white to you.

Oh hardly. I'm of the least-popular opinion, that intelligent human minds are what make people valuable and that the death of a newborn isn't significantly different from the death of a fetus.

Re: Heresy

#770

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

plorkyeran wrote: post #594

UncleMeat wrote: post #572

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Or on the flip side, it means that the reader can assume that PG holds whatever unflattering "heretical" beliefs they are opposed to.

I'm not sure that's true. There's enough insinuation here that I don't think that my grandma would assume PG is advocating for anti-religiosity, for example.