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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

#211

Post by watwut »

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.…

> Even Obama's statement would be taboo today, let alone passing such a bill.

People who literally believe and say that sort of thing are in government and literally running Republican party.

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

#212

Post by watwut »

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.

It is figurative speech. It is valid use of an English language.

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

#213

Post by inglor_cz »

laidoffamazon wrote: post #198
inglor_cz wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given that we now have tools that can fix some serious genetic errors, and enable even people who were dealt very bad cards in life, to live a healthy life - and given that this sector of biology is constantly evolving towards more capabilities, I would argue that it makes more sense to study genetic diseases and disorders than ever. 100 years ago, when genetics was unchangeable, the only solution to any genetic prob…

People like Charles Murray think people like me are subhuman for having low IQ and being non-white, the conversations I'm hearing aren't about curing disabilities they're about the "wrong type" of people procreating. Weird that you got "curing disabilities" from my comment on "scientific racism" though. That reaction kinda concerns me.

Not everywhere is America (in fact, 96% of humanity is outside the US) and local conditions, sensibilities and conflict topics vary.

Here I live in a nation that was considered non-Aryan by the Nazis and destined to become a nation of illiterate slaves for their Master Race. During their 6 years of rule here, their plans were only mitigated by their need to win the war first, for which they needed the local industry to be operable - hard to square such necessity with repressions against the workers themselves. But they did succeed in murdering parts of our intelligentsia.

So yeah, race-based repression is evil, I am with you on this.

But I am also close to a doctor who prescribes hearing aids for children and the main context in which I hear the word "eugenics" is her problems with the deafness advocates, who want to prevent deaf kids from hearing. And they play the "eugenics" card incessantly.

I am sick of them, they are at best severely misguided, at worst evil people. And if enough people say that "helping kids hear is eugenics", they will drown out the racialists in public discourse, at least locally.

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

#214

Post by watwut »

rhasterx wrote: post #158
david-gpu wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I will put every person in precisely one out of two boxes at my discretion, and they will be happy about it". Example: "I believe there are two kinds of people in the world, the righteous and the despicable. You belong with the despicable, I decided. If you disagree, you are woke".

The amount of inferences and insinuations you draw is a perfect example of why the Chatham House Rule is needed. I wonder how biologists discuss the issue if one hypothesis is outright forbidden. Note also that Ketanji Brown Jackson evaded the question when asked in a hearing.

Biologists would be the first one to correctly determine your sentence was not a biological hypotheses, but a political statement meant to declare your allegiance against trans rights and trans people.

They would consequently treat it exactly the way people in this thread do - with assumption that you have ideological and political goals against that group of people.

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

#215

Post by vr46 »

edanm wrote: post #199
vr46 wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed - This article is wrong at the beginning, Chatham House Rules are not a gag, they allow everyone to talk FREELY. I have been to many classes and forums under this rule, not least at Chatham House in St James Square, and it means that the speakers can speak freely, name names, without hedging or fudging or perambulating around the shrubbery. You can report whatever you like, but not who said it. I have heard so…

> Agreed - This article is wrong at the beginning, Chatham House Rules are not a gag FYI gag as in "gag order" not gag as in a joke. In case anyone else was confused about this as I was :)

I didn't mean gag as joke, it was a direct reference to the article, but I see that people might be confused.

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

#216

Post by watwut »

invalidname wrote: post #130
laidoffamazon wrote: post #90

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.

> 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…

Meh. I have seen these debates long enough to see that there is a lot of truth in that judgement. We are supposed to give infinite benefit of the doubt to people even after it is super clear what it is that they are saying. I have seen these paranoid SJW accusations to .... turn out truth enough times already.

Turns out, people who say these things are the ones who actually listen with comprehension to what is being said in those circles.

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

#217

Post by watwut »

Aloisius wrote: post #161
crooked-v wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mainstream Democrats are conservative, mainstream Republicans are regressive. There is no actual liberal-centric major political party in the US, let alone one that's genuinely leftist.

What do you consider liberal-centric policies? Or leftist? As far as I'm aware, Democrats are still rather strong proponents of liberalism. Even most Republicans are proponents, though generally more for classical liberalism than modern liberalism. Liberalism, arguably, isn't really on the left-right axis at all.

> Even most Republicans are proponents

If this was true, Republican policies and representation would look much differently.

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

#218

Post by watwut »

Aaargh20318 wrote: post #52
bawolff wrote: post #21

Earlier 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.

Free speech only means you are not prevented from expressing yourself. It does not mean freedom from consequences. While I don’t condone violence that is not the only possible consequence. If you call me an asshole that is your right, but if I disinvite you from the party I was planning as a result that is not a ‘free speech issue’.

> Free speech only means you are not prevented from expressing yourself. It does not mean freedom from consequences.

Honestly, I find this to be very manipulative rhetoric. Effectively, it makes the notion of free speech mean absolutely nothing. The problem here is that people want to pretend they are for absolute free speech, because saying something else is socially punished. But they are not in reality, sometimes for good reasons, so they resort to this sort of sophistry.

You can say what you want in North Korea, freely. It is just that you wont have freedom from consequence int he form of torture and death.

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

#219

Post by laidoffamazon »

invalidname wrote: post #204
laidoffamazon wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[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.

I brought up eugenics because I’ve seen this before and you stepped up to bravely defend it against accusations of wrongthink. I think you’re telling on yourself here.

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

#220

Post by benmmurphy »

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…

are you sure that is a solution? one party consent sounds like a default if the parties have not negotiated something else. but i wonder if it still stands if you have agreed to a different set of rules that would bar recording or at least bar the release of such recordings. for example the default rule is i can share what i want with a conversation i have with someone but if prior to the conversation i sign an NDA then i may face a civil tort if i share information barred by the NDA.
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