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Heresy

paulgraham.com

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Re: Heresy

#921

Post by Skiiing »

dragonwriter wrote: post #860
zozbot234 wrote: post #797

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> When he writes about cancel culture, or maybe really culture of any sort: different story. Is there anyone at all who writes "happily" about cancel culture? Even SJW's themselves can only give an impression of being perpetually angry and frustrated; they try to present their inner frustration wrt. the world at large as some sort of zeal for superior justice and universal social liberation, but don't quite manage to…

> Is there anyone at all who writes "happily" about cancel culture? It is something that, like the Devil, exists primarily in the minds of people for whom it is a central part of the opposition in their mythological construction of the world, so no.

Cancel Culture has become one of the defining aspects of modern culture. Arguing it doesn't exist is going to be difficult when the elephant is clearly sitting here in the room with us.

Re: Heresy

#922

Post by Skiiing »

philosopher1234 wrote: post #669

The issue isn’t consequences for speech. Conservatives like Paul Graham are perfectly fine with consequences for certain kinds of speech (speaking out against a company in his portfolio, for instance.) The issue under debate is what kind of speech merits what kind of consequence. The idea that there should be no consequences for speech oils only remotely believable when you are a member of the white, cis, wealthy cla…

The article was about heresy which he defines as something which is factually true, not generic notions of free speech.

If I can respectfully say something here: you're making sweeping statements about people based on their race etc. It's going to be difficult to make persuasive arguments if that is your debating starting point.

Re: Heresy

#923

Post by Skiiing »

scarecrowbob wrote: post #592

Feeling that there are more "heresies" now than, say, 25 years ago says a lot more about the orthodoxy of ones' opinion than it says about the state of the world.

I don't think you need to put "heresies" in vague quotes. He's defined it quite clearly as factually correct statements which will destroy your career and social life if stated.

Re: Heresy

#924

Post by fsociety999 »

breck wrote: post #620
Ancapistani wrote: post #421

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Its intriguing that PG used the term “anti-vaxers”, in this article. Being interested in the truth about vaccines will get you fired and the term “anti-vaxers” is used by the aggressively conventional minded to shut down debate. So I wonder if there’s subtext and those parts are him not meaning what he’s saying on the surface? Anyway, the truth is if you’ve had COVID-19 you are far more protected than someone who got…

Came here to say the same thing. It is pretty ironic that in an essay that is basically criticizing people who can’t put up with heretics, he is doing the same thing with regards to "anti-vaxxers" without even realizing it. It doesn’t help that the term specifically (according to Merriam-Webster) is defined as:

> a person who opposes the use of vaccines or regulations mandating vaccination

It is a loaded term that is used mostly as a means to vilify people. There must be a lot of people who are pro vaccine, but against government mandates, so where does that leave them? Also, it is possible to be generally pro vaccines, but also skeptical of new vaccine technologies rushed through development and regulatory approvals in record time where the companies leading the push have a history of putting profits ahead of public health.

The fact that your comment shows up in gray here is further proof of the exact dynamic that he is referring to in the essay:

> But occasionally, like a vector field whose elements become aligned, a large number of aggressively conventional-minded people unite behind some ideology all at once. Then they become much more of a problem, because a mob dynamic takes over, where the enthusiasm of each participant is increased by the enthusiasm of the others.

Re: Heresy

#925

Post by Skiiing »

softwaredoug wrote: post #454

In the 90s and 2000s it would be “heresy” to be a gay or transgendered person. I remember sadly how people in hushed tones would talk about coworkers. There was a bro-y norm to engineering culture that you didn’t defy very easily. I'm a bit surprised how easily people forget these things.

Are you talking from a US/European perspective? Being gay was entirely open and mainstream in the 90s/2000s. Although I'm not sure what that has to do with heresy which was the topic of the essay.

Re: Heresy

#926

Post by Skiiing »

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.

The article was about heresy, not attitudes to gay people. I'm not sure why people are trying to conflate the two.

Re: Heresy

#927

Post by Skiiing »

ineptech wrote: post #549

> 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. I think that whether this is or true or not depends a lot on how you define your terms. If cancel culture only means "I expressed an unpopular opinion about gay rights on TV and the…

The article was about heresy which he defined as a factually correct statement that will destroy your life if stated. It wasn't about being an unpleasant person with unpopular opinions.

Re: Heresy

#928

Post by invalidOrTaken »

tshaddox wrote: post #872
invalidOrTaken wrote: post #868

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He can't do this because of the topic of the essay. If he could, it wouldn't need to be written.

Unfortunately any argument of that form can be rejected immediately on epistemological grounds. Take for instance the argument “we can’t say certain words any more because speaking them will summon an ogre who will immediately kill and eat the speaker…and I can’t give any evidence of this occurring, or give an example of any of these words for obvious reasons.”

There's something to be said for priors here. I personally know three (yeah, I hang out w/a fun crowd) people who have lost their jobs over social media heresy. I don't know (and have never heard of) anyone getting eaten by an ogre.

So yes, I am inclined to believe that modern heresy is a phenomenon, and I am not inclined to believe in ogres.

Re: Heresy

#929

Post by 1vuio0pswjnm7 »

There seems to be some irony in this essay since the viability of today's "heresy" is particularly dependent on the use of computer networks, individuals, software and websites that are actively promoted by or otherwise connected to the author, e.g., through investments, mentoring and the like. Because the "business" of these websites is to generate web traffic for the benefit of web advertising, the operators can profit from the traffic that "heresy" generates. Imagine a "social media" or similar UGC-based website today that forbade the use of the website to identifiy "heretics". If that was the norm, would this essay have been written. Using the internet to pursue "vigilante justice" comprises such a large portion of UGC and associated traffic that it is arguably crucial to the "tech" company "business model." There are other uses of the internet. They might not be as profitable in terms of generating large amounts of traffic, satisfying advertisers and lining the pockets of "tech" companies and investors, but they might be equally or more beneficial to users.

Re: Heresy

#930

Post by Skiiing »

tomrod wrote: post #351

I don't read too much of PG's recent work. Does he attack classism with the same vigor as he does the left?

It's telling that you interpret an attack on heresy as an attack on the left.
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