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Stuff You Can't Say in Silicon Valley

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Re: Stuff You Can't Say in Silicon Valley

#161

Post by mythrwy »

When I was a kid in a deeply religious community I never could keep my mouth shut and irritated a lot of folks until I was big enough to leave home which I did at the stroke of 18. This cost me a lot of effort and struggle and I had to make my own way and was behind others who just went along.

Because what I saw were a bunch of smug, self righteous hypocrites with a dubious moral code based on non-realistic understandings proffered by cynical opportunists who's real agenda was far from what they preached.

Remaining true to myself, to my understanding of objective reality, to not be afraid to give voice to that reality was every bit worth it then and it's worth it now.

Smug hypocrites suck and it isn't worth becoming one at any price, no matter what flavor the unrealistic hypocrisy and groupthink is.

Re: Stuff You Can't Say in Silicon Valley

#162

Post by awalton »

electrograv wrote: post #111
ender7 wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the contrary, silencing voices is a necessary thing. All societies have to determine what speech is allowed and what isn't. There are lots of things you can say in general American society that will get you censured. Claiming that black people are biologically inferior to white people, for example. Claiming that women are biologically inferior to men, though? Some still seem fond of that one. This all boils down t…

Wouldn’t it be far more effective (and safe) to defeat bad ideas with evidence and reason?

Utilitarianism will let you justify anything if you frame it right, including white supremacy, fascism, etc. This isn't something evidence and reason alone can handle.

Ethically and morally, as a society, we have to choose what behavior is okay and what isn't. What's happening right now is that we're verbalizing the changing of those definitions to include things like "'Grab them by the pussy' and other transparent actions of sexual harassment are not tolerable ways to treat women in 2017," in response to a wide number of people coming forward to complain about it all at once, for possibly the first time in history.

And understandably some conservative people who grew up in the "Mad Men" era (when these kinds of things were acceptable) are unhappy with those changes and inevitably writing articles like this one, thinking that the vast majority of people being upset with them for their now antiquated beliefs and speech is equal to the suppression of that speech. No, we aren't chilling your speech. Society is asking you to change your behavior and mocking you for not being able to. We went through this with women's suffrage, the civil rights movement in the 60s, and now we're going through it again with the #MeToo movement.

I'll defend to the death your right to say something stupid. That is your constitutional right in this country, and we have to stand by that to keep our democracy alive. But you had better believe I will call you stupid to your face for saying it, probably with a sarcastic and mocking tone befitting your stupid statement.

Re: Stuff You Can't Say in Silicon Valley

#163

Post by refurb »

wavefunction wrote: post #92
pretendscholar wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>his financial support of legislative efforts to prohibit the same civil rights enjoyed by some in this country for other fellow Americans depending on their sexual preference. ...So his political views.

His political actions. Views are just beliefs. Mozilla is a private organization where Brendan Eich served at the pleasure of its body. What if he was pushing to rescind suffrage for women or to re-instate Jim Crow? Pushing for the legalization of child cannibalism by funding legislative efforts in that direction?

So if a company decided to fire someone because they supported legalization of hard drugs (another controversial topic), including giving money to political organizations, you'd fully support them?

Or it crystal clear that legalization of hard drugs is one of those ideas that is so obviously right than any opposition to it should be squelched?

Re: Stuff You Can't Say in Silicon Valley

#164

Post by asabjorn »

ender7 wrote: post #103
electrograv wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I 100% agree with your premise that “the more voices the better” (i.e. the fewer voices that are silenced, the better). What you describe certainly covers much of what’s happening, but something else is happening too: Voices are being silenced. And to respond to your opening sentence, I don’t mean anyone is silenced physically (who does that?), but rather psychologically, culturally, and socially. That’s not a good t…

On the contrary, silencing voices is a necessary thing. All societies have to determine what speech is allowed and what isn't. There are lots of things you can say in general American society that will get you censured. Claiming that black people are biologically inferior to white people, for example. Claiming that women are biologically inferior to men, though? Some still seem fond of that one. This all boils down t…

I could not disagree more. You do not preserve your right to free speech by defending the popular opinions. The way you loose your rights is when someone that hold unpopular opinions gets their rights limited. Are you so sure that all the opinions you hold and will hold can be expected to be rightthink for as long as you live?

If you study history the decline of many great countries have started with a censorship of unpopular opinions and shaming as well as ostracizing of anyone that think wrong:

  - Struggle session in Communist China https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Struggle_session
The end destination for this kind of thinking is Orwellian thoughtcrime (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thoughtcrime).

Re: Stuff You Can't Say in Silicon Valley

#165

Post by chasing »

ghostcluster wrote: post #143
chasing wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Voices are being silenced. I think we've got to be cautious in defining what "being silenced" means. Because I see a world in which people are saying all sorts of things out loud. There was a protest with a bunch of people waving Nazi flags in a public park in Virginia a few months ago. I don't think people are being silenced. I think community norms are shifting quickly in many parts of the country and, again, it'…

So Stanford Medical School should retract this article about the overwhelming evidence of the biologically based cognitive differences between men and women then? http://stanmed.stanford.edu/2017spring/how-mens-and-womens-b... Science Denialism is just the new community norm, I guess.

?

I'm not sure what you're responding to in my comment.

Re: Stuff You Can't Say in Silicon Valley

#166

Post by woodruffw »

emerged wrote: post #150
woodruffw wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

See my response to 'fmihaila below. I want to be clear: it's bad to fire people just for expressing a different opinion. But that's not what my comment was about -- it was about how, as a society, we've learned to detect and avoid conversations that are probably faithless.

Where "probably" is a subjective sense being carried forward by a mob who presume to have an infallible sense of truth and have no qualms with applying their certainty toward shutting down anyone who Bad Speaks.

I'm not a mob. This is just me.

I don't shut anybody down. My time and attention are limited resources, and I don't like wasting them in a discussion that the other party is using in bad faith. To that end, I avoid starting questions that (through experience) tend to go down that path.

Like I said in the GP, I don't find the discussion itself objectionable. I've just applied a heuristic to determine who I have the discussion with.

Re: Stuff You Can't Say in Silicon Valley

#167

Post by Veelox »

rectang wrote: post #126
electrograv wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wouldn’t it be far more effective (and safe) to defeat bad ideas with evidence and reason?

That's what's happening: bad ideas are being defeated. But if those bad ideas are still near and dear to you even while society moves on, it feels bad. Not everyone has to be persuaded. Some will have to be left behind.

I think part of the issue is the tactics. The original post was pointing out that the way that bad ideas are being defeated is through force, not through reason. If the law says "Be happy or else" everyone is "happy". The problem being pointed out is that SV is becoming a place where you must believe the right things or else. The or else part is what makes it McCarthyistic.

Re: Stuff You Can't Say in Silicon Valley

#168

Post by [deleted] »

mikeash wrote: post #156
freedomben wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's pretty clear you didn't actually read it. I didn't at first either because I trusted the sources I was reading to give me a fair summary. That was a mistake. I didn't necessarily agree with what he said, but it was nowhere near as bad as what 90% of sources were reporting.

I read it and I think it was just as bad as people said. It just happened to be stated in friendly, neutral-sounding language.

[deleted]

Re: Stuff You Can't Say in Silicon Valley

#169

Post by dmode »

These "Silicon Valley and free speech" articles are so laughable that it is hard to believe that they are taken seriously in HN. It is literally a first world problem. Compare this to the other #1 article where Trump admin is literally banning words in CDC, Project Veritas is sending fake people to malign journalism, an out of control President is on constant tirade against media, mention of climate change is systemically purged from government websites. Those are serious issues

Re: Stuff You Can't Say in Silicon Valley

#170

Post by pretendscholar »

cannonedhamster wrote: post #87
pretendscholar wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>his financial support of legislative efforts to prohibit the same civil rights enjoyed by some in this country for other fellow Americans depending on their sexual preference. ...So his political views.

Political views only matter when your company markets itself on values. Oracle and Google aren't about freedom, Mozilla is, GNU/linux is. When you want to be the rudder for a company based on values your background needs to be unassailable, in other words, boring. You can't be boring when you take an active role in a cause that is directly against your employees.

Which is fine but the parent comment was trying to say he wasn't fired for his views. He was clearly fired for his political views.
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