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Chatham House Rule is suddenly everywhere in the Bay Area

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Re: Chatham House Rule is suddenly everywhere in the Bay Area

#201

Post by ArnoVW »

echelon wrote: post #138
dcrazy wrote: post #128

Denunciations of the Chatham House Rule seem underdeveloped. According to the history on Wikipedia, it was invented to let members of post-WW1 English civic society discuss and debate potential reforms, and then get as much of that discussion into the public record as desired without having individual members pilloried for things they said during the discussion, even if the rest of the group disagreed with them. This…

The easy solution to this in my state is to just wear a recording device. I live in a one party consent state for the recording of conversations [1,2], whether on the phone or in person. I don't know how y'all get away without it in California. It pairs really well with free speech, and it feels wrong to not have this legal feature available. [1] https://www.justia.com/50-state-surveys/recording-phone-call... [2] htt…

IANAL but it would seem to me that one party consent just means you can record it. It does not automatically mean you can divulge.

And since you agreed to the chatham rules not to (i.e. you entered into a contract) you can still be liable for breach of contract in a civil court, with potential penalties and damages if those were part of the contract.

Of course anything you record can still be used in criminal or civil proceedings (e.g. if your interlocutor admits to a crime or utters illegal or tortuous speech, such as fraud, harassment, or verbal abuse).

Re: Chatham House Rule is suddenly everywhere in the Bay Area

#202

Post by EliRivers »

It can be so very valuable. I was at a conference in the last quarter discussing the effects of the Houthis on shipping in the Red Sea. There has long been rumour that it's possible to pay a few hundred thousand dollars, funneled to the Houthis, for which your ship will be granted safe passage through the Red Sea without being shot at with anti-ship missiles, or attacked by drones. There was rumour that some of the insurers in the Lloyds shipping insurance markets were open to these negotiations. Not long ago the UN pushed out a report discussing this sort of payment.

A bod there whose situation in life made him one of the most likely people in the world to know if anyone in the Lloyds markets was engaging (except anyone actually doing it), and has a long reputation of saying truthful things under the Chatham House rules in such conferences, said he'd not seen any of that and not heard of anyone doing it. It's not the same as fact, but with his long-term reputation and his position in life, it signficantly changed my working calculus on the subject. He didn't want to be professionally quoted on it, hence the CH rule.

Nothing at all to do with having the freedom to be a dickhead or anything like that. Nothing to do with wanting to lie to people without consequence.

Re: Chatham House Rule is suddenly everywhere in the Bay Area

#203

Post by EliRivers »

echelon wrote: post #138
dcrazy wrote: post #128

Denunciations of the Chatham House Rule seem underdeveloped. According to the history on Wikipedia, it was invented to let members of post-WW1 English civic society discuss and debate potential reforms, and then get as much of that discussion into the public record as desired without having individual members pilloried for things they said during the discussion, even if the rest of the group disagreed with them. This…

The easy solution to this in my state is to just wear a recording device. I live in a one party consent state for the recording of conversations [1,2], whether on the phone or in person. I don't know how y'all get away without it in California. It pairs really well with free speech, and it feels wrong to not have this legal feature available. [1] https://www.justia.com/50-state-surveys/recording-phone-call... [2] htt…

It pairs really well with free speech

How does it pair well with free speech? If I think that you might be recording me without telling me, I'll stop talking.

Re: Chatham House Rule is suddenly everywhere in the Bay Area

#204

Post by invalidname »

laidoffamazon wrote: post #187
invalidname wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If I were to guess, the types of conversations that happen in these places that aren't gutter racism (they're eating the dogs etc) are going to be eugenics-adjacent, "enlightened" scientific racism instead. At least, that's what I've noticed among rationalists online. This statement is proof for the need of this rule. Everyone who disagrees with the "one truth" is obviously a racist who is aligned with the worst of…

[flagged]

> As a person that would be considered dysgenic, yes, I think eugenics is bad, I guess you got me there.

Implying that I support Eugenics because I want to listen to people and not pre-judge them is pretty much the exact thing I'm complaining about.

Re: Chatham House Rule is suddenly everywhere in the Bay Area

#205

Post by blitzar »

dcrazy wrote: post #152
echelon wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It feels incompatible with how the rest of the legal framework works. You can be recorded in public. In most of the US states you can be recorded in private so long as the one recording is a party to the conversation. Why does California do this separate weird thing? It doesn't feel like my rights should go away when I cross into your state. It feels like a glitch.

The Chatham House Rule is not a legal principle. If you violate it by recording a meeting in a one-party consent state, the most likely consequence is that you wouldn’t be invited back. (Someone else posited legal consequences under contract law, but I’m not a lawyer.) And for the record, California is not the only two-party consent state. There are twelve others.

It is code of honour - those that break it have no honour and lose any standing in these places.

Re: Chatham House Rule is suddenly everywhere in the Bay Area

#206

Post by BryantD »

josephcsible wrote: post #159
ryandrake wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yea. The "What's going to be taboo in 30 years" question is a good one. I don't know and I don't have a good answer to that. I personally don't worry about it because it's never occurred to me to walk up close to the line of what's acceptable. I have pretty vanilla opinions. But, for today, I always wonder when someone says they are going to be harassed for their opinions. Just what opinions are we talking about, her…

> Yea. The "What's going to be taboo in 30 years" question is a good one. I don't know and I don't have a good answer to that. I personally don't worry about it because it's never occurred to me to walk up close to the line of what's acceptable. I have pretty vanilla opinions. 30 years is a long time. Even the most vanilla of opinions can become entirely taboo in less time than that. Take gay marriage as an example.…

Not that taboo —- the Speaker of the House declined to apologize for saying same sex marriage would destroy the Republic.

Re: Chatham House Rule is suddenly everywhere in the Bay Area

#207

Post by BryantD »

ryandrake wrote: post #150
TheBruceHimself wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, there is a matter of safety, and not wanting to be harassed for your opinions. Some debates are so heated that an opinion stated either way is going to expose you to potential violence if not, just verbal abuse through various channels. I think even though you should be honest about your opinion, it’s obviously better to avoid that harm so why not be anonymous? Personally, I’ve also found that stating your opin…

Yea. The "What's going to be taboo in 30 years" question is a good one. I don't know and I don't have a good answer to that. I personally don't worry about it because it's never occurred to me to walk up close to the line of what's acceptable. I have pretty vanilla opinions. But, for today, I always wonder when someone says they are going to be harassed for their opinions. Just what opinions are we talking about, her…

If you’re an Ivy League college professor, it is extremely risky to say that Palestine has a legitimate grievance against Israel. If you’re a small town high school coach, it would be smart to be careful about advocating for trans girls to be able to play on the girls team. You can be punished for opinions on various sides of the political spectrum.

Re: Chatham House Rule is suddenly everywhere in the Bay Area

#208

Post by blitzar »

llamaimperative wrote: post #121
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You should expect verbal pushback on your shitty ideas There is also shitty pushback to decent, or inchoate, ideas. I strongly push back against the notion that there shouldn’t be spaces where one can say something dumb and not be crucified for it.

Again: “crucified.” Say what you actually want, I don’t know how to interpret this idea. I haven’t heard of a crucifixion in recent times if I’m being honest.

crucify /ˈkruːsɪfʌɪ/ verb past tense: crucified; past participle: crucified

1. put (someone) to death by nailing or binding them to a cross, especially as an ancient punishment. "two thieves were crucified with Jesus"

2. INFORMAL criticize (someone) severely and unrelentingly. "our fans would crucify us if we lost"

Re: Chatham House Rule is suddenly everywhere in the Bay Area

#209

Post by watwut »

josephcsible wrote: post #118
ethbr1 wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Somewhere along the way (my belief is that it was around the time social media took off, but I don't have proof for that), we forgot that we're more alike than we are different, and that people can grow and learn and change, and that both of those things are good, actually. The difference between The Before Times and now is that it was historically hard to curate and communicate with a group of people who exclusive…

> Now, living in a bubble is trivial. It's also the subtle default on a lot of social platforms. Indeed. IMO, social media should have very limited facilities for blocking/muting (e.g., maximum number of accounts to block, no blocking accounts that have never previously interacted with you, and no import functionality), so that it could only be used to stop true harassment, and not to intentionally live in such a bub…

True harassment is VERY easy if you can create infinite amount of new accounts and each new account can harass the person and cant be blocked. True harassment is very easy if you are someone with many followers who will target whoever you choose to.

What you suggests is setup designed so that large scale harassment is easy. Alex Jones will love it, psychopaths will love it.

Re: Chatham House Rule is suddenly everywhere in the Bay Area

#210

Post by watwut »

AlexandrB wrote: post #174
throw112312 wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not what I observed in the last 8 years. People with power (both D and R) get away with anything while individuals suffer for the slightest infractions. Any given senate hearing or political speech would lead to dozens of expulsions in a standard censored software company. It is the small people who need protection.

Yup. The most obvious example is Donald Trump himself. Instead of suffering consequences for any of the things he's said, he has been elected to president of the United States. Twice! Meanwhile if you repeated what he says verbatim in your workplace you might find yourself gone by next week.

I think that reality check is that in many social groups and in many workplaces, guys who say and do "things like Donald Trump" are rewarded again and again and again.

To claim otherwise is just a lie designed to make it so it stays that way.

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