The latest campus cancellation is different • Hacker News Board

Re: The latest campus cancellation is different

#351

Post by dmitrygr » Sun, Oct 10, 2021, 5:23 PM UTC

umvi wrote: post #3

How do we neuter the power of Twitter mobs? Seems like they can bully and intimidate any organization from universities to corporations to GitHub projects to kowtow to their demands. Their demands are usually to fire, boycott, or boot people with opinions that run afoul of the mob. Not a healthy precedent to set. We will regret this later if we continue down this path.

Delay showing a public post P from person X to viewer Y until time T has passed, T defined as a time proportional how long a physical letter from X to Y would take to travel.

Re: The latest campus cancellation is different

#352

Post by tsss » Sun, Oct 10, 2021, 5:26 PM UTC

throwaway984393 wrote: post #270

Actually it's not different. University lecturers have been protested or cancelled for decades for reasons unrelated to their topic, usually due to political beliefs or corporate interests that clashed with students' ideals. "Cancel culture" is specifically about "personal" societal reforms, which is what makes it different than the older complaints about general politics. Back in the day it was "edgy" to protest or…

It was wrong then and it is wrong now. The Vietnam war protesters were free to protest, but they can not demand to restrict the freedom of speech of others.

Re: The latest campus cancellation is different

#353

Post by fighterpilot » Sun, Oct 10, 2021, 5:31 PM UTC

peterangular wrote: post #317

mawise wrote: post #118

Seems like there were two things Abbot did "wrong", one was to argue against affirmative action, and the other was to use a nazi reference to make his point. Does anyone have first-hand knowledge of what the mob said on Twitter? I'm curious if they differentiated between the two. For anyone who hasn't seen it, Netflix's fiction THE CHAIR satires cancel culture in liberal institutions and their story includes someone…

> Seems like there were two things Abbot did "wrong", one was to argue against affirmative action, and the other was to use a nazi reference to make his point. Which in the current political climate is a horrible look for the school. I get why they dropped him - for better or worse lots of people are fed up with the promise of an ideal meritocracy... especially younger folks. And, for better or worse, those younger f…

.

Re: The latest campus cancellation is different

#354

Post by sokoloff » Sun, Oct 10, 2021, 5:32 PM UTC

Jensson wrote: post #210

yummypaint wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This post, like many in this thread, misrepresents what free speech is. Free speech protects us from government retribution, nothing more. I agree that it's bad form to lobby the university directly, but it's their right to do so, and the university has a right to change which speakers it invites. Having it any other way would be an attack on free speech. Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of reli…

Free speech is an ideal where you are judged by what you do and not by what thoughts you express. USA named one of its laws after that ideal, but the American law isn't what the ideal is. The ideal would be that the first amendment applied to everyone, so nobody could punish anyone for views they express. But that is in no way enforceable so it doesn't exist. It means that a guy can say X. Then twitter mobs can say t…

I disagree that free speech is/ought to be free from other people judging you on the contents of that speech.

I openly and intentionally judge people based on their speech/thoughts they express. Say smart, curiosity-invoking things and I think more highly of you. Say closed-minded, racist things, and I think less highly of you. I find it hard to imagine that most other people don't do exactly the same thing (possibly with a different fitness function, but updating their opinion of someone based on thoughts expressed nonetheless).

If I say something that makes you think I'm an asshole, I think you should update your opinion of me in that direction without waiting for me to make some physical action to that effect.

Re: The latest campus cancellation is different

#355

Post by klyrs » Sun, Oct 10, 2021, 5:32 PM UTC

bluescrn wrote: post #316

throwaway984393 wrote: post #270

Actually it's not different. University lecturers have been protested or cancelled for decades for reasons unrelated to their topic, usually due to political beliefs or corporate interests that clashed with students' ideals. "Cancel culture" is specifically about "personal" societal reforms, which is what makes it different than the older complaints about general politics. Back in the day it was "edgy" to protest or…

Social media has completely transformed this type of protest. People who have nothing to do with the university can now join a 'cancel mob' to attack a political opponent on the other side of the world.

Oldsters remember when this was a slower process, where people would write angry letters. They would undertake letter-writing campaigns, persuading others to take up the literary torch. They'd write to newspapers and magazines, where "free speech" was subject to the gatekeeping editor. Shorter screeds would appear in classified ads, again, to be censored if the editor didn't want to print what you had to say. It's faster, it's more transparent, the gatekeeping is more often post-facto and more there are more platforms to try if one blocks you. Writing quality and wit has definitely declined, though. But I wouldn't say that this is a complete transformation. My dad would fume over his letters for days before sending them.

Re: The latest campus cancellation is different

#356

Post by fighterpilot » Sun, Oct 10, 2021, 5:34 PM UTC

tomerv wrote: post #309

prepend wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seemed like the nazi reference was appropriate though. In this case, the university system in Germany was ruined by a move away from merit toward an incorrect and abhorrent philosophy. I think that doesn’t mean that affirmative action = nazism. It means that focusing on things other than merit has negative consequences and should be avoided. A recent comedy, Death of Stalin, points this out on the micro level when…

It doesn't really matter if the nazi reference was appropriate or not, using nazism as a comparison point is taboo for any kind of serious discussion. Once you compare anything to nazism you pretty much forfeit the discussion, even if it's a valid comparison.

I agree with you if we're talking about analogies, but not if we're talking about actual historical precedent.

Re: The latest campus cancellation is different

#357

Post by mrosett » Sun, Oct 10, 2021, 5:35 PM UTC

judahmeek wrote: post #350

milesvp wrote: post #343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not sure you’re correct that nothing is different. I saw a lecture recently by someone whose organization does mediation between student groups and universities with regards to free speech. He was saying that a few years ago for the first time his organization was starting to mediate in the opposite direction. Was a very interesting talk. The speaker had tried to commit suicide and in the process of recovering fr…

Any particular reason you choose not to name the speaker you're supposedly talking about?

Quite clearly Greg Lukianoff who is with FIRE and wrote The Coddling of the American Mind

Re: The latest campus cancellation is different

#358

Post by milesvp » Sun, Oct 10, 2021, 5:35 PM UTC

judahmeek wrote: post #350

milesvp wrote: post #343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not sure you’re correct that nothing is different. I saw a lecture recently by someone whose organization does mediation between student groups and universities with regards to free speech. He was saying that a few years ago for the first time his organization was starting to mediate in the opposite direction. Was a very interesting talk. The speaker had tried to commit suicide and in the process of recovering fr…

Any particular reason you choose not to name the speaker you're supposedly talking about?

Apologies, I don’t think I can easily find the talk. I did some cursory looking based on what I could remember of the talk before posting. I like to link to things when I can.

Worse, is the topic is a current lightning rod for alt-right, so there’s a lot of garbage to sift through. I will see if I can get lucky and find the talk again.

Edit: mrosett answered this. Yes it was a lecture by Greg Lukianoff of FIRE. I might have been click-baited to watch it, but he seemed credible enough to quote, and seemed to genuinely care about actual free speech.

Re: The latest campus cancellation is different

#359

Post by poetaster » Sun, Oct 10, 2021, 5:36 PM UTC

civilized wrote: post #191

metagame wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here, I'll give a rebuttal, even though I don't think every internet comment deserves a reply, your comment included. It is an outreach event. The majority of people in developed nations live in progressive cities, and hold center-liberal to outright progressive views. Now, if you're trying to spread propaganda, good or bad, you want to do it in the most efficient way possible. Just as you wouldn't put a radical Sata…

The activists who demanded this aren't the ones who need to be persuaded on climate change. MIT just handed the center and right-of-center, full of actual climate skeptics who need to be persuaded, another cancel culture event. Your whole post hinges on the assumption that the prospects of fighting climate change hinge on the approval of college town progressives. In reality, their approval is the least important thi…

Sea of words was being generous. At about the first mention of satanism, my tolerance dropped to zero.

Re: The latest campus cancellation is different

#360

Post by clairity » Sun, Oct 10, 2021, 5:37 PM UTC

motohagiography wrote: post #180

ren_engineer wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the problem is that prestigious institutions are run by bureaucrats wearing its skin. For example this article says "MIT buckled", when in reality some campus admin buckled because to them it's not worth risking their comfy job over a speaker. The bureaucrats have no skin in the game, they don't benefit from thinking about long term damage to MIT or society in general. From their perspective it's logical to bow to Tw…

A pervasive lack of backbone among individuals in institutions is key to this. The shunning and shaming tactics used by online mobs are a very particular form of human aggression. Speculating on a correlating factor among the people in these institutions who seem so consistently vulnerable to it may be itself, problematic, but it's as though the organizations are missing anyone with the instinct to challenge or defle…

> “A pervasive lack of backbone among individuals in institutions is key to this.”

the raison d'être of most organizations, particularly bureaucracies, is to hide decisions behind a shield of indirection, to deflect individual responsibility elsewhere, which selects for and conditions the spineless. that those folks, when the spotlight shines on them, will cave, is thoroughly unsurprising.