The latest campus cancellation is different • Hacker News Board

Re: The latest campus cancellation is different

#381

Post by ZeroGravitas » Sun, Oct 10, 2021, 5:54 PM UTC

zimpenfish wrote: post #102

snek_case wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would be good to pass laws that make it illegal to fire someone over a twitter mob (or any kind of mob action). Anti-mob or anti-bullying laws. And/or initiate class-action lawsuits against twitter for encouraging this kind of behavior or failing to prevent it, resulting in significant damage to people's careers. It's far from being the first time this happens, so there's definitely a case to be made that twitter…

> llegal to fire someone over a twitter mob [...] Anti-lynching laws Are you really comparing getting fired from your job to a lynching? Because one of them seems a whole lot less serious than the other...

I think there some subliminal need for people to mention lynching when it's innapropriate. Happens far too much to be coincidence.

Guy gets protested because he says 'providing support for historically discriminated-against groups in America is just like the Nazi regime' and you can almost guarantee someone is going to call it a lynching. I initially thought people were doing it to be intentionally provocative, but it appears to be some unintended impulse, probably the same 'imp of the perverse' thing that drove the initial guy to bring the Nazis into a discussion about affirmative-action as if that was going to add some clarity to his approach to the topic.

Re: The latest campus cancellation is different

#382

Post by fighterpilot » Sun, Oct 10, 2021, 5:55 PM UTC

k__ wrote: post #290

q1w2 wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Affirmative action is explicitly NOT admitting people due to merit.

I know. My reasoning is: If your member of an underrepresented group, chances are you didn't grow up to develop merit. Affirmative action allows you to access institutions that help you to develop merit.

If someone isn't of MIT-calibre merit (ie competence), then it's no good to them to pop them into an electrical engineering course that they can't handle, and it's especially no good for the ultra smart Asian American who was just racially discriminated against. They'll be better off at an easier institution where they'll have plenty of room to develop, and that unfairly excluded Asian will be better off at MIT.

Re: The latest campus cancellation is different

#383

Post by whatshisface » Sun, Oct 10, 2021, 5:55 PM UTC

unclebucknasty wrote: post #365

civilized wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I get the historical analogy with anti-Vietnam War protesters. I just don't agree that they are actually the moral equivalent of anti-anti-racial-preference protesters. And I definitely don't believe that the majority will see it that way in a few decades. The moral foundations for Vietnam War opposition are much intellectually deeper and ideologically broader than those supporting racial preferences. A medieval Cath…

> ...much intellectually deeper and ideologically broader than those supporting racial preferences. A medieval Catholic... Sure, if you narrow the topic of racial preferences down to the literal instantiation of exactly that mechanism, then broaden the topic of the Vietnam War out to historical philosophies of War in general, then of course the latter reads "intellectually deeper" and "broader". But, these are all ju…

I have no idea what people are meaning when they say "racial preferences" in this thread but the Vietnam war was objectively awful and gets more awful with every detail you learn.

Re: The latest campus cancellation is different

#384

Post by joshuamorton » Sun, Oct 10, 2021, 5:57 PM UTC

coldtea wrote: post #292

ghaff wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In general, in the US, there doesn't need to be a "just cause." Someone has become a headache or embarrassment for us--for whatever unprotected reason--is sufficient.

In the US sodomy was a crime too. Laws can change. Labour law is not written in stone. And even with current laws, where there "need not be a just cause", there are protections against unjust causes (e.g. because they found out you're jewish, or you're fat, or whatever) and "because a mob campaigned against one" can be added to that. "But, under current law the business could just say they fired them for their own ne…

You're arguing for something that in all likelihood requires a constitutional amendment.

Anti discrimination clauses only overrule the first amendments freedom of association due to the equal protection clause, and there's no reading that suggests that firing someone due to public pressure is implicitly discrimination.

Re: The latest campus cancellation is different

#385

Post by chmod600 » Sun, Oct 10, 2021, 5:57 PM UTC

The Atlantic is an interesting publication. I subscribed and appreciated it for years as an independent-minded outlet, even though it is usually far left of my perspectives.

In 2016, I unsubscribed because, well, the whole media went haywire and The Atlantic went down with them. I thought it was unrecoverable.

But it's nice to see a nuanced piece here that is capable of criticizing an idea while also criticizing the tactics of those who disagree with it. Maybe I should give it another chance.

Re: The latest campus cancellation is different

#386

Post by poetaster » Sun, Oct 10, 2021, 5:58 PM UTC

jordanpg wrote: post #239

So much hand-wringing as the nature of power mutates and changes hands. I generally agree that the outcomes of "cancel culture" are undesirable, but I am glad to see that in our little democratic experiment, a new form of power has found a voice and is causing those previously in power to quake in their boots. I am confident that a new equilibrium will eventually be reached that won't have such occasional appalling o…

An ex of mine was back stabbed so viciously in a feminist culture producing context funding play (the 1990s), that I have become very sceptical. I used to run around wearing a badge, Ich bin gegen mich, (I am against myself). I have stopped this.

Re: The latest campus cancellation is different

#387

Post by whatshisface » Sun, Oct 10, 2021, 5:59 PM UTC

jwond wrote: post #225

pessimizer wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They don't have any power, other than to annoy the institution. The only power here is the power that MIT has over the people they book to speak, and since MIT doesn't want to be annoyed, they canceled the speaker. The problem with cancel culture is a problem with bad employment law, and a problem with cultural institutions without any core ethical beliefs.

> They don't have any power, other than to annoy the institution. The only power here is the power that MIT has over the people they book to speak, and since MIT doesn't want to be annoyed, they canceled the speaker. The ability to get others to do what you want them to is absolutely a form of power.

I can't believe that Twitter culture has this much power but they're using it all on cancelling MIT speakers and not even trying to improve US policy.

Re: The latest campus cancellation is different

#388

Post by josteink » Sun, Oct 10, 2021, 5:59 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.

> 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.

Don’t play the losing game. Just don’t be on Twitter.

Re: The latest campus cancellation is different

#389

Post by angelzen » Sun, Oct 10, 2021, 6:00 PM UTC

dmitrygr wrote: post #351

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.

Bring back friction into the world.

Re: The latest campus cancellation is different

#390

Post by h2odragon » Sun, Oct 10, 2021, 6:01 PM UTC

freebreakfast wrote: post #307

motohagiography wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The most memorable example of "lack of backbone" for myself was Evergreen State College president, George Bridges. There was a large protest in 2017. The administration met to discuss the situation. Students prevented the administrators from leaving the meeting room unless they had an escort to ensure the administrators came to a resolution. The president mentioned his need to use the restroom to one of the protest l…

At that point, somebody should get pissed on.