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Speaking Freely: Why I resigned from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation

tarahenley.substack.com

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Re: Speaking Freely: Why I resigned from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation

#251

Post by lazyasciiart »

CoastalCoder wrote: post #76
badRNG wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The strong opposition to diversity efforts has been a pretty common trait associated with the tech community/silicon valley. It seems reasonable that a subset of the culture that produced the work environment at Blizzard [1] or has historically rallied behind alt-right thought leaders would also be here on HN. Talk to any woman software engineer, I 100% guarantee they have multiple stories about dealing with a...spec…

> The strong opposition to diversity efforts has been a pretty common trait associated with the tech community/silicon valley. I'm surprised to hear that. My impression was that D&I initiatives are far more prevalent in tech/SV companies than elsewhere. I probably got that from personal experience + news about Google (Damore), Facebook, etc. But maybe in reality D&I has become commonplace in many U.S. companies, and…

D&I is definitely commonplace across the corporate world, and similar opposition is too. My brother and sister once worked at the same company for a while - my brother complained that everyone wanted to promote women and he was disadvantaged, while my sister got groped in a taxi by a colleague and was told by her male manager that if she wanted to get promoted she should make sure senior managers knew that she didn't want to have kids (not actually the case).

Re: Speaking Freely: Why I resigned from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation

#252

Post by pessimizer »

notreallyserio wrote: post #79
coolso wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pronouns are merely virtue signaling acts of control. By specifying pronouns if they are obvious (99% of the time) you are signaling you are part of a non-bigoted, non-hateful club. Surely you don’t hate people right? So why don’t you have your pronouns visible, fellow citizen? It’s also a form of control in redefining the obvious. You want to just live your life? Nope, sorry, you need to consciously be aware of my p…

It's just an extension of using someone's name. Is that virtue signaling, too? Or is the problem really that it's new and scary?

I frequently use pronouns for people whose names I have no interest in knowing, so it's definitely an extension. I just think it's an onerous one.

Re: Speaking Freely: Why I resigned from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation

#253

Post by [deleted] »

olivermarks wrote: post #163

Strange thread here ignoring the very important points about the media Tara is making. 'Those of us on the inside know just how swiftly — and how dramatically — the politics of the public broadcaster have shifted. It used to be that I was the one furthest to the left in any newsroom, occasionally causing strain in story meetings with my views on issues like the housing crisis. I am now easily the most conservative, f…

[deleted]

Re: Speaking Freely: Why I resigned from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation

#254

Post by rectang »

ithkuil wrote: post #179
snarf21 wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One thing I learned in my many years in this life: you can't fix inequity by inching slowly in the "right" direction. However, the "right" stopping point is too often controlled by the same oppressors. You have to be like a pendulum and swing waaayyy too far past "equity". Then the pendulum will eventually energy out at a more reasonable equitable point. This is a lot of anchoring point bias built in. This overcomes…

What would be in your opinion the best historical example of a inequity that wasn't righted by moving slowly and one of an inequity that was righted by overshooting the target?

Not the OP, but I'd cite the US Civil Rights Act of 1964, whose enforcement provisions would not be necessary in an idealized democratic society which has come to terms with diversity.

(Sadly, the consequences of the Roberts Court gutting the act demonstrate that those enforcement provisions are still very much needed today.)

Re: Speaking Freely: Why I resigned from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation

#255

Post by AlexandrB »

citilife wrote: post #229
CapitalistCartr wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the United States the Overton Window is so far right even the Democratic Party is center-right. In a Scandinavian Country I'd be a fairly moderate, conservative social democrat. Here, if people knew my thoughts, I'd be seen as a Wild-Eyed Radical. But given the politics in my country, I've given up compromise and actually moved further Left. And more militant, less quiet. Luckily, the organization I'm currently in…

> In the United States the Overton Window is so far right even the Democratic Party is center-right. I'm sorry, but what? Within the party, they've promoted universal basic income (marxisim), state healthcare, universal education, etc. It's almost completely authoritarian marxist. They're far left of most of Europe in terms of social policy (LGBTQ+ rights, abortion, drugs, etc) and economic (complete universal educat…

Let's take the example of state healthcare. The Democratic Party talks a big game about universal healthcare at election time, but only ever proposes modest reforms (like the ACA) when it's time to craft policy. Meanwhile many (all?) European countries actually have some form of state-run or state-funded universal healthcare.

The Democrat Party is only "far left" if you believe their wildest election rhetoric and don't judge them on their actions. To call them authoritarian marxist is ridiculous when they fail time and time again to reign in corporate power and are financially beholden to that same power.

Re: Speaking Freely: Why I resigned from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation

#256

Post by mananaysiempre »

john_moscow wrote: post #60
badRNG wrote: post #22

I'm not sure these sorts of articles provide much value on HN. By "these sorts of articles", I mean the ones that have claimed that "diversity efforts have gone too far this time ." Regardless of your support or opposition to diversity, I think one would agree that these rapidly turn into unproductive, highly divisive comment sections that are out of place with the rest of HN.

I would argue that the article highlights the biggest problem of the West. It used to be a society of strong independent and happy individuals, capitalizing on their strengths and trading with each other in search of prosperity. We traded it in for a steady paycheck in exchange for mindlessly fulfilling standardized corporate jobs, and are now surprised that the human ambition got redirected from finding ways to crea…

I’m not sure this idyllic West ever actually existed, or if it did, that it wasn’t inherently transient. (Genuinely not sure, not trying to make an unequivocal disagreement sound more palatable.) As in, the spirit of entrepreneurship and personal liberty did exist and wonderful things were built, but the most likely life for someone born in the advanced part of Western Europe or the US between say 1830 and 1930 seems to have been to slave away at a single factory for the entirety of your life, hardly ever encountering any money fit for general circulation, living in housing hardly worth the name amidst typhus and tuberculosis.

“Social democracy” seems to entail a creeping illiberalism, and I’m not sure what we admire was anything but a brief period after the start of the former but before the onset of the latter. Yet it also solved a real problem and, indeed, is the best currently-known solution to it.

Am I ever unhappy about that.

Re: Speaking Freely: Why I resigned from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation

#257

Post by onphonenow »

CapitalistCartr wrote: post #30

Except at political groups to which I belong, I am almost always the left-most person in the room. The Lefts greatest weakness is an enthusiasm for splintering over small matters of doctrine. Identity politics, tribalism over principle, virtue signaling, whatever fad this is, it's deeply hurting progress.

Max dem donor, historically very "left" as well. This is an issue on both sides in the extreme. On the right just look at what to outsiders are TINY doctrinal differences in things like faith issues - have historically driven major internal divisions.

I always thought the American left would really endure / have the advantage long term because of what seemed like a healthier exchange of ideas (free speech support etc).

That has changed it feels like a bit. If you don't support the cause de jour (abolish ice / defund the police / violence at protests) or other orthodoxy there really isn't a place for you.

And despite the talk of love and acceptance, the left really seems to be driven by hate and outrage now more than I remember plus a very healthy dose of hypocrisy. Ie, defund police, unless a poor person shoes up on my doorstep - then I'm calling!

AOC jetting off to florida in the midst of a massive surge in NY? The irony (she made fun of others jetting off during crisis, and florida is the anti-NY in terms of COVID approach). Newsome and his lobbyist dinner unmasked inside while ordering lockdowns? It's annoying to have such harsh rhetoric from leaders (ie, they promised to destroy any doctor who gave vaccine to anyone but the anointed few) but then relatively unprincipled action by them (they go out and party, dine, get vaccines for themselves).

I'm hoping the next generation has a good take on this.

Re: Speaking Freely: Why I resigned from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation

#258

Post by Dig1t »

I honestly believe that bringing back the FCC fairness doctrine (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FCC_fairness_doctrine) would help alleviate some of the divisiveness in America. Being presented both sides of an argument really helps people empathize and come to compromises. It also makes people less angry.

Re: Speaking Freely: Why I resigned from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation

#259

Post by InTheArena »

olivermarks wrote: post #163

Strange thread here ignoring the very important points about the media Tara is making. 'Those of us on the inside know just how swiftly — and how dramatically — the politics of the public broadcaster have shifted. It used to be that I was the one furthest to the left in any newsroom, occasionally causing strain in story meetings with my views on issues like the housing crisis. I am now easily the most conservative, f…

This is the Overton window at work: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window In the US, it goes far beyond broadcasting. Note how lin manuel miranda's Hamilton has gone from Obama era cultural gold to "cringe-worthy" - https://www.vox.com/22641501/hamilton-parks-rec-harry-potter...

Or how JKR on Harry Potter went from being vilified by conservative voices to the modern "She who will not be named" of Lefty HBO.

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