> there’s a liberating and freeing quality to the idea that this is a safe space for me to say unpopular things and not get labeled as a conservative or racist,” Lederer said. Tantalizing, now I really wonder what he said.
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Chatham House Rule is suddenly everywhere in the Bay Area
31–40 of 264 posts
Re: Chatham House Rule is suddenly everywhere in the Bay Area
#32Earlier quoted context omitted.
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How about South Africa not doing so well currently? It could be viewed through a racial lens but it means you can’t objectively discuss and hopefully help the situation. IMO this is exactly an example of where such closed rules may legitimately help. In the process of brainstorming you are bound to say something stupid or illegal but that’s the whole idea of brainstorming- to throw ideas and see what sticks
> South Africa not doing so well currently?
Unless it is group of South African expats why should we brainstorming?
Is South Africa asking for help ? Either for ideas or for money? Or is there genocide or other basic human rights abuses that we cannot but intervene.
The presumption that we can solve or think about their problems better than them is where it is offensive not what is being said, people are more than capable of finding their own solutions to their own problems.
Re: Chatham House Rule is suddenly everywhere in the Bay Area
#33Earlier quoted context omitted.
This isn't about people speaking candidly. It's about not hurting the feelings of people who do and work on bad things and allowing them to still get invited to events without fearing any consequences for their actions. It's the same reason Kissinger still got invites to Manhattan social events (and, bizarrely, Clinton campaign events) long after it was known that he was a traitor and a war criminal.
No, I think it’s about not having to fear being retweeted publicly for what you intended to be private discussions.
No. The Chatham House Rule only bars the attribution of the statements, not the sharing of the statements or the things they contain.
It’s not simply for privacy or nondisclosure. You are free to disclose, the discussions are not private.
Re: Chatham House Rule is suddenly everywhere in the Bay Area
#34I have no idea whether this is a good thing or a bad thing, but this is not freedom of speech, for the obvious reason that its based entirely on the limitation of speech, in this case, the freedom to truthfully state who said something. I’m not a free speech absolutist, so that’s not a negative for me, but it’s extremely annoying to see a lot of people pretend to be pro free speech by policing what others might say a…
"Free speech" is normally about a government restriction on speech. Most people don't take it to mean temporary restrictions during specific private events. For example, at a funeral, the norm is not to speak ill of the dead (or any other time, for that matter), and if you break that rule, you might find yourself socially excluded. But that has nothing to do with the concept of "free speech". The same goes for some k…
I don’t think it is just about government restriction. Free speech and censorship are general principles that apply to everything. But personally, I don’t think asking for confidentiality at a private event is a violation of free speech principles. On the other hand, large privately owned tech platforms that practice censorship disguised as moderation, should be criticized because they are effectively the new public square.
Re: Chatham House Rule is suddenly everywhere in the Bay Area
#35Earlier quoted context omitted.
In the usa context yes, but i think its wrong to hold that the concept in general is soley about governments. E.g. if someone beats you up due to a view you expressed, i consider that a free speech issue.
> E.g. if someone beats you up due to a view you expressed, i consider that a free speech issue. If the police beat you up, then that's a freedom of speech issue (as well as police abuse, etc), since one might argue that the government is suppressing your speech. If a private citizen beats you up, then I disagree; it's merely a matter of assault. That's illegal anyway and your speech had little to do with it. If some…
If you come to my house and express a view I disagree with, and I ask you to stop talking, I'm abridging your freedom of speech. (I'm not violating your First Amendment rights.)
> I think your concept is "creep" that has occurred over time for some subset of people, spawned by a principle that never originally included what you now include in the concept
You've got it backwards. The Athenians believed in both "isēgoriā, or equality of public speech, which was associated with formal political institutions and democratic deliberation; and parrhēsiā, the license to say anything, even (or especially) if it went against the current" [1].
The First Amendment is based on the freedom of speech in the English Parliament [2]. Millenia older. It isn't until the Warren Court, after WWII, that the modern interpretation that the First Amendment prohibits the government from censoring speech comes into focus [3].
[1] https://antigonejournal.com/2021/04/two-concepts-of-free-spe...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Declaration_of_Right,_1689#The...
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_speech_in_the_Unite...
Re: Chatham House Rule is suddenly everywhere in the Bay Area
#36So people feel free to speak candidly?
This isn't about people speaking candidly. It's about not hurting the feelings of people who do and work on bad things and allowing them to still get invited to events without fearing any consequences for their actions. It's the same reason Kissinger still got invites to Manhattan social events (and, bizarrely, Clinton campaign events) long after it was known that he was a traitor and a war criminal.
> not hurting the feelings of people who do and work on bad things
Yes, the Chatham House Rule is practically designed to exclude people who have an immutable black-and-white worldview.
Re: Chatham House Rule is suddenly everywhere in the Bay Area
#37I have no idea whether this is a good thing or a bad thing, but this is not freedom of speech, for the obvious reason that its based entirely on the limitation of speech, in this case, the freedom to truthfully state who said something. I’m not a free speech absolutist, so that’s not a negative for me, but it’s extremely annoying to see a lot of people pretend to be pro free speech by policing what others might say a…
The Chatham House Rule is about
\0 in the context of a specific meeting or gathering ..
\1 the freedom to speak one's mind and say whatever it is you wish to say,
\2 the constraint that no third party shall repeat your words without your permission, quote you out of context, report what you said and the company in which you said it, etc.
There's no legal binding or specific prosecution in the original context, simply a literal "Gentleman's Agreement" and the general social implication that should you make and then violate such an agreement then you will likely be excluded from similar events and such company in future.
It arose from diplomatic ranks and is a polite form of the parallel convention Snitches get Stitches.
In the UK Foreign Affairs sphere the rule is often exercised to advance a piece of policy via rumour and backtalk, nobody officially directly states that (for example) the military may be bought into play in some region, none the less word gets out that such a thing is being considered by those that can make it happen, subsequently someone folds their position and trade resumes (maybe).
Re: Chatham House Rule is suddenly everywhere in the Bay Area
#38Earlier quoted context omitted.
How about South Africa not doing so well currently? It could be viewed through a racial lens but it means you can’t objectively discuss and hopefully help the situation. IMO this is exactly an example of where such closed rules may legitimately help. In the process of brainstorming you are bound to say something stupid or illegal but that’s the whole idea of brainstorming- to throw ideas and see what sticks
>How about South Africa not doing so well currently? I recently read a book review that discussed South Africa today. One of the many points it made about the dire state of things is that the air force planes that flew overhead during Mandela's inauguration were, a decade later, completely inoperable. https://www.thepsmiths.com/p/review-south-africas-brave-new-... >.
Why is that shocking? It would be the case no matter how they do as a country
As a long it was a white government there was lot of monetary support and knowledge transfer to South Africa, all the way to building nuclear weapons those collaborations stopped once the racial profile changed.
overtime that means complex technologies like military aircraft which are difficult to keep flying anytime will stop working as South Africa was and is not equipped or can afford to maintain them on their own.
no nation which flies f-35s can keep them flying if they are not in trump’s good graces now.
This is why countries like china or India or few others who can afford to, invest heavily to build their domestic defense infrastructure.
Re: Chatham House Rule is suddenly everywhere in the Bay Area
#39> [At] an intimate dinner party in Los Altos Hills, Brex Supper Club salons, [...] the rules of the house are increasingly Chatham. What a strange comment. If after attending a dinner party people are repeating everything they heard, in public, with attribution - then that dinner party absolutely was not intimate.
> If after attending a dinner party people are repeating everything they heard, in public, with attribution - then that dinner party absolutely was not intimate
It's still helpful if you're bringing together groups of people who don't know (and thus may surprise) each other to lay the ground rules. I'd be quite upset if I held a birthday party, which may go to 30 or 40 people, and learned that something (possibly quite inappropriate) that had been said was being tweeted or whatever.
Re: Chatham House Rule is suddenly everywhere in the Bay Area
#40Earlier quoted context omitted.
How about South Africa not doing so well currently? It could be viewed through a racial lens but it means you can’t objectively discuss and hopefully help the situation. IMO this is exactly an example of where such closed rules may legitimately help. In the process of brainstorming you are bound to say something stupid or illegal but that’s the whole idea of brainstorming- to throw ideas and see what sticks
> South Africa not doing so well currently? Unless it is group of South African expats why should we brainstorming? Is South Africa asking for help ? Either for ideas or for money? Or is there genocide or other basic human rights abuses that we cannot but intervene. The presumption that we can solve or think about their problems better than them is where it is offensive not what is being said, people are more than ca…
> Unless it is group are South African expats why should we brainstorming?
Why is this an inappropriate topic to discuss?
> presumption that we can solve or think about their problems better than them
You're the only one who presumed this. (It's also presumptuous to assume that nobody outside your own context can be helpful to you.)