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Chess Grandmaster Kasparov on Mob Mentality and Groupthink

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Re: Chess Grandmaster Kasparov on Mob Mentality and Groupthink

#61

Post by cool_dude85 »

systemvoltage wrote: post #37
glangdale wrote: post #17

> Schools are being pressured to remove books and cancel professors for spreading the “wrong” ideas. These sentiments are all too familiar to me, and to anyone who has survived life in a dictatorship. The only answer is more freedom, more speech, not less. This is a good sentiment, but it's worth noting that the overwhelming majority of pressure to "cancel" books and academics is directed at the left by the right, re…

You may be right about one instance, but I've never seen anything but pro-freedom of speech from the right. Leftism in colleges and academia is so rotten beyond belief. I am down with History of Racism, naked and in all its gory details. But, let's not confuse that with how fusion of Big Tech with Big Gov to move more and more towards totalitarianism - we've seen this happen in Australia in the name of COVID. Vast ma…

Isn't it at least a little bit embarrassing to you to start with:

"You may be right about one instance, but I've never seen anything but pro-freedom of speech from the right."

And then wind up saying sure, there are plenty of examples of right-wing censorship, but check out this article in the Economist?

Come on.

Re: Chess Grandmaster Kasparov on Mob Mentality and Groupthink

#62

Post by emn13 »

blub wrote: post #29
glangdale wrote: post #17

> Schools are being pressured to remove books and cancel professors for spreading the “wrong” ideas. These sentiments are all too familiar to me, and to anyone who has survived life in a dictatorship. The only answer is more freedom, more speech, not less. This is a good sentiment, but it's worth noting that the overwhelming majority of pressure to "cancel" books and academics is directed at the left by the right, re…

Don’t know about most pressure, but when it comes to succeeding at cancelling, conservatives don’t seem to be able to cancel anything. What or who was cancelled by conservatives in the past let’s say 2-3 years?

The idea that cancel culture isn't effective isn't limited to cancel culture by conservatives; many of the cancellations decried by conservatives seem ineffective too. Still, I wouldn't have wanted to be the person on the receiving end, and there have been a bunch nasty campaigns - including by conservatives.

But if cancel culture is synonymous with effective public harassment, then virtually every single non-trumpist republican is a victim. Various public servants related to voting and elections have told a few harrowing tales.

A quick bit of googling find a bunch of articles devoted to conservative cancel culture, e.g. https://edition.cnn.com/2020/07/07/politics/fact-check-trump..., https://www.salon.com/2021/05/01/conservatives-claim-to-hate..., https://www.vox.com/22384308/cancel-culture-free-speech-acco..., https://www.thenation.com/article/society/republicans-cancel...

And while cancel culture may typically be about retribution for perceived slights by the public (or a mob), if you take a slightly broader view and include any backlash against speaking out, well, then most whistleblowers unfortunately suffer consequences that qualify. Many whistleblowers are treated absolutely terribly, and some suffer really serious consequences - inflicted not just by liberals, corporations, or the politically agnostic, but also by conservatives. While this may be stretching the definition, the most reasonable criticism of cancel culture I've heard is that it stifles reasonable discourse, and from that perspective cancel culture and whistleblower punishments are in a similar ballpark.

(I don't really want to express an opinion on right or wrong here - because given today's hyper-partisan and highly combative atmosphere it seems to me that these kind of backslashes or mob outrages are inevitable; i.e. this is a symptom, not really a cause.)

Re: Chess Grandmaster Kasparov on Mob Mentality and Groupthink

#63

Post by JauntyHatAngle »

systemvoltage wrote: post #37
glangdale wrote: post #17

> Schools are being pressured to remove books and cancel professors for spreading the “wrong” ideas. These sentiments are all too familiar to me, and to anyone who has survived life in a dictatorship. The only answer is more freedom, more speech, not less. This is a good sentiment, but it's worth noting that the overwhelming majority of pressure to "cancel" books and academics is directed at the left by the right, re…

You may be right about one instance, but I've never seen anything but pro-freedom of speech from the right. Leftism in colleges and academia is so rotten beyond belief. I am down with History of Racism, naked and in all its gory details. But, let's not confuse that with how fusion of Big Tech with Big Gov to move more and more towards totalitarianism - we've seen this happen in Australia in the name of COVID. Vast ma…

Mate, you literally linked Australian legislation that was passed by the "Right" party in Australia.

They are just called the Liberals, but they are Economic Liberals, not social, and are considered our "right wing" party with an evangelical Christian as our Prime Minister.

Re: Chess Grandmaster Kasparov on Mob Mentality and Groupthink

#64

Post by salt-thrower »

tankenmate wrote: post #57
kadabra9 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We can and should teach about the history of racism in America. We should not however be telling children to use an “oppression matrix” to group and divide one another by identity, teaching children that if they are white they are automatically racist, or teaching historical fabrications like the 1619 project.

I thought oppression matrices were used to highlight the non linearities of groups that fall into multiple minority / categories; i.e. female Christian Dalit living in India. Using a sociological analysis tool that highlight corner cases of systemic racism to justify a statement that analysis is akin to saying that all white people are racist is in my eyes a straw-man logical fallacy. It is equating emergent behaviou…

This is the best rebuttal to the CRT panic I've ever read. Thank you.

I, too, used to think that "oppression matrix" = "all white men are evil," but putting aside the paranoia and simply thinking about it calmly helped me realize that it's not that radical of an idea.

Even as a kid I instinctively understood that as a white dude I have it easier in America than most other identities, even though I didn't have the words to express it. It's a pretty simple idea, and all the knee-jerk reactions against it just come from an emotional unwillingness to face that fact head on, I think. Which is its own deep issue that I won't pretend to fully understand or to be immune from.

Re: Chess Grandmaster Kasparov on Mob Mentality and Groupthink

#65

Post by drewcoo »

glangdale wrote: post #17

> Schools are being pressured to remove books and cancel professors for spreading the “wrong” ideas. These sentiments are all too familiar to me, and to anyone who has survived life in a dictatorship. The only answer is more freedom, more speech, not less. This is a good sentiment, but it's worth noting that the overwhelming majority of pressure to "cancel" books and academics is directed at the left by the right, re…

The American "left" is soft right wing. These disputes are the right squabbling with the other right. Much of the silencing of the hard right, for "decorum" and such, is not recognized as censure by the soft right. At least the hard right is honest about banning speech.

Because all of the focus is on soft and hard right wing cancellation, anything actually on the left is seen as extremist. Extremist speech can be silenced and, just like with the hard right, not acknowledged as being silenced.

Re: Chess Grandmaster Kasparov on Mob Mentality and Groupthink

#66

Post by watwut »

lhorie wrote: post #42
glangdale wrote: post #17

> Schools are being pressured to remove books and cancel professors for spreading the “wrong” ideas. These sentiments are all too familiar to me, and to anyone who has survived life in a dictatorship. The only answer is more freedom, more speech, not less. This is a good sentiment, but it's worth noting that the overwhelming majority of pressure to "cancel" books and academics is directed at the left by the right, re…

I think it's interesting phenomenon on its own that Kasparov is taking a fairly centrist stance here through a careful choice of words (cancelling books getting tends to be done by one side and cancelling professors is often done by the other side) and specifically calling out to promote more freedom regardless of what side you're on, but here in the comments people are looking at it from a bipartisan blame-shifting…

> "I don't care who started it, I only care that you stop fighting"

I stopped doing that when I realized this is systematically enabling aggressor. The kid that minds own business is on the defense and effectively forced always do what aggressor wants. Because if it protects or defends itself, adult steps in to tell him he is equally wrong.

Re: Chess Grandmaster Kasparov on Mob Mentality and Groupthink

#67

Post by wyager »

glangdale wrote: post #17

> Schools are being pressured to remove books and cancel professors for spreading the “wrong” ideas. These sentiments are all too familiar to me, and to anyone who has survived life in a dictatorship. The only answer is more freedom, more speech, not less. This is a good sentiment, but it's worth noting that the overwhelming majority of pressure to "cancel" books and academics is directed at the left by the right, re…

Academia - a notoriously right-wing institution.

Re: Chess Grandmaster Kasparov on Mob Mentality and Groupthink

#68

Post by downWidOutaFite »

lhorie wrote: post #42
glangdale wrote: post #17

> Schools are being pressured to remove books and cancel professors for spreading the “wrong” ideas. These sentiments are all too familiar to me, and to anyone who has survived life in a dictatorship. The only answer is more freedom, more speech, not less. This is a good sentiment, but it's worth noting that the overwhelming majority of pressure to "cancel" books and academics is directed at the left by the right, re…

I think it's interesting phenomenon on its own that Kasparov is taking a fairly centrist stance here through a careful choice of words (cancelling books getting tends to be done by one side and cancelling professors is often done by the other side) and specifically calling out to promote more freedom regardless of what side you're on, but here in the comments people are looking at it from a bipartisan blame-shifting…

"Cancel culture" is a recent term invented by the right as a pejorative for the left, so if you're going to use that loaded term you're signaling which side of the partisan divide you are on.

Re: Chess Grandmaster Kasparov on Mob Mentality and Groupthink

#69

Post by tut-urut-utut »

Kranar wrote: post #14
spoonjim wrote: post #4

What does Kasparov know about Mob Mentality and Groupthink more than anyone else?

The guy ran for political office in Russia and now lives in exile after having numerous threats to his life for holding certain political views.

He tried to make a coup ffs. Armed rebellion which was not successful. And he’s still alive.

Re: Chess Grandmaster Kasparov on Mob Mentality and Groupthink

#70

Post by BLKNSLVR »

dlp211 wrote: post #36
thoughtstheseus wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The “left” cancels everywhere. The “right” cancels in their own community. Big difference IMO. Pros and cons to both of those approaches but that’s how I see it.

People choosing to no longer listen to you because you have ideas that are currently considered reprehensible to the larger society is not being cancelled. That's called consequences for my actions. You are not entitled to consequence free speech & actions. This has never been a principle of free speech. Also, there is a massive difference between using government entities to ban books, and a bunch of people on Twitt…

That's exactly one of the benefits of free speech. A kind of inverse of the "remain silent and be thought a fool, or speak up and remove all doubt" saying.

Free and open discussion lets me know who's worthwhile listening to and who should be ignored.

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