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Heresy

paulgraham.com

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Re: Heresy

#901

Post by incompatible »

voakbasda wrote: post #718
infiniteL0Op wrote: post #625

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ask Thai citizens if they can imagine that. Or Russians. In democracies, society has moved a bit into a direction where many harmless things said will trigger an upset in some very uptight people. It's enforced socially rather than by the government. Back when you could not say things openly against governments, at least you could speak your mind on anything else. Today, you can say whatever you want against the gove…

Freedom of speech is a principle that transcends political policies. In theory, it is a clear and unambiguous concept; in practice, governments ruin it with nearly arbitrary rules that run counter to that fundamental principle.

There are plenty of exceptions to freedom of speech in countries I'm familiar with. Things like advocacy of terrorism, hate speech, threats, disturbing the peace, obscenity in public, blasphemy, pornography of certain kinds, providing financial advice without a license, leaking secrets, copyright.

Edit: fraud, incitement. Who knows how many others?

Re: Heresy

#902

Post by PeterisP »

tomp wrote: post #545
ScarletEmerald wrote: post #411

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

For some weird reason, the same people can be OK with Cloudflare or Twitter banning someone for their political views, but wouldn't be OK with a bank or electricity provider banning someone for their political views.

In my mind there is a big difference between banning particular views versus banning someone for their particular views.

Like, Cloudflare or Twitter should be free to choose what speech they publish and what they prohibit, but they (and banks and electricity providers) should not be banning someone because of who they are as a person or for their political views expressed elsewhere. Cloudflare should be free to ban Daily Stormer as they did, but if the same people from Daily Stormer were just running a cat picture site through Cloudflare (and publishing their neo-Nazi stuff elsewhere) then IMHO Cloudflare should not ban their cat picture site.

To choose an extreme (but less-political?) example of paedophilia, it's obviously okay to ban distribution of child sexual abuse material, but IMHO someone who's just came out from prison after being convicted for child rape should not get automatically banned from platforms (or banks, or electricity providers) as a person despite being a paedophile child abuser, they should be able to participate in the society unless/until their ongoing acts become criminal and they get removed from the society by the courts. And if that's the case, then it also applies to the less extreme views.

Re: Heresy

#903

Post by PeterisP »

twofornone wrote: post #481
UnpossibleJim wrote: post #355

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the problem with this argument is the free speech "is at an all time high if you zoom out a bit". This is much like the argument, "gun violence is at an all time low if you zoom out a bit" argument. Both of these statements are true in the macro, but if you look at the trends, they point to a very disturbing line. The call for the restriction of free speech on the right(1) and the left (2) have increased in v…

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.

When teachers are agents of the state, they are bound by the restrictions on what the state is allowed to do, being required to afford equal protections to all people.

While I agree that the people should have a say in what gets taught, and that includes culture, in certain cases that say is (and needs to be) inherently limited. For example, if 90% of people would vote that some 10% minority should have limited rights, they should not (and do not) get a say about that, that minority deserves equal protection from state action no matter what the taxpayers or voters want.

And arguably (though the exact details matter) "don't say gay" legislation violates that by having state agents (i.e. teachers and administrators) apply unequal discriminatory treatment to those employees and students who are gay.

Re: Heresy

#904

Post by sleightofmind »

tptacek wrote: post #774
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…

Well put. I don't think this is new for him; there's always been a vein in his writing of someone scarred, late into life, by bad experiences in high school. Maybe it's not deliberate, but it is a vibe he sometimes manages to give off. When he writes about Lisp, or (for the most part) about startups, or about being a dad, he seems happy and well-adjusted (I'm looking for a better term but let's roll with that). When…

"He should..."

As my great aunt (born circa 1899) said, "Sometimes the 'You shoulds are the shits.'"

I'd like to see more on topics of enduring interest from Paul than on the ever-evanescent fluff of tech. That his concern lies with teaching his kids not to be social gangsters rather than teaching them some current tech meets with my approval.

Re: Heresy

#905

Post by cmrdporcupine »

Avshalom wrote: post #516

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodomy_laws_in_the_United_Stat... just sayin'. maybe 1985 sucked a lot for a lot of people that weren't paul graham.

Totally. I have no idea about Paul Graham's upbringing, but back in the 80s and 90s I was a "fag" threatened with violence just for being a slightly effeminate nerd obsessed with computers and weird music, etc.. One didn't even have to be gay to be subject to homophobic hate and intolerance. I have teenagers now -- one self-identified queer high schooler and the other a middle schooler in a tiny rural school not unlike where I grew up -- and today's society is an amazingly tolerant dream compared to what I grew up with.

Re: Heresy

#906

Post by wutbrodo »

MisterBastahrd wrote: post #839
temp8964 wrote: post #746

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> lots of folks lost their jobs for vocally opposing the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq in the early 2000's I am not aware of this history. Is there any data or document? What kind of jobs, private? governmental? academic?

Everyone crying about people being cancelled sure didn't have a lot of words to defend the Dixie Chicks when they were against the Iraq war.

Gosh, this is utter nonsense. Pretty much every anti-woke person on the left was just as critical of illiberalism when the right was flexing its cultural muscles. Are you under the impression that Paul Graham was in support of post-9/11 restrictions on speech? Or that eg the comedians now complaining about cancel culture were totally cool with people losing their jobs for insufficient "patriotism"? For God's sake, Bill Maher lost his show under precisely the same norms that he criticizes now, except that the illiberalism at the time was right-coded.

Are you so unable to conceive of a person holding a principle that you need to create an alternate timeline to resolve the cognitive dissonance? It's always truly horrifying to be reminded that people like this exist.

Re: Heresy

#908

Post by cornel_io »

MisterBastahrd wrote: post #839
temp8964 wrote: post #746

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> lots of folks lost their jobs for vocally opposing the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq in the early 2000's I am not aware of this history. Is there any data or document? What kind of jobs, private? governmental? academic?

Everyone crying about people being cancelled sure didn't have a lot of words to defend the Dixie Chicks when they were against the Iraq war.

Actually a whole lot of us did. There are dumbasses on both the right and the left constantly trying to forcefully silence people who they don't like, and there's a rather larger group of us in the center who have been screaming bloody fucking murder about it for over a decade now, but you all keep pretending that we're inconsistent and actually just Republicans (or libtards/groomers, if you're of the other persuasion). It's maddening.

Re: Heresy

#909

Post by valand »

keithwhor wrote: post #819
tomcam wrote: post #807

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think Paul may inadvertently be adding to the actual biggest problem in civilized discourse these days — weaponized victimization and othering. Would you mind giving me quotes from the post to back up these assertions?

Simply categorizing human beings as conventional vs unconventional and passive vs aggressive, and then establishing an enemy in one quadrant is an example. Unconventional people are the victims, aggressively conventional people are the others. I think the thing Paul really has a problem with is social brigading and mobs attacking people unfairly. Which is fine; but you can make that argument without painting yourself…

How would you explain an assailant-victim relationship without describing both the assailant and the victim though?

Re: Heresy

#910

Post by hindsightbias »

MisterBastahrd wrote: post #839
temp8964 wrote: post #746

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> lots of folks lost their jobs for vocally opposing the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq in the early 2000's I am not aware of this history. Is there any data or document? What kind of jobs, private? governmental? academic?

Everyone crying about people being cancelled sure didn't have a lot of words to defend the Dixie Chicks when they were against the Iraq war.

I often wonder if anyone on HN remembers Bill Mahers first show…

Politically Incorrect was literally the name of that show, and it wasn’t cancelled by leftists.

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