Sir Kazuo Ishiguro warns of young authors self-censoring out of 'fear' • Hacker News Board

Re: Sir Kazuo Ishiguro warns of young authors self-censoring out of 'fear'

#691

Post by WillPostForFood » Thu, Mar 04, 2021, 5:03 PM UTC

KittenInABox wrote: post #486

WillPostForFood wrote: post #482

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pointing out one incident almost 20 years ago isn't evidence of a long standing problem. The world is a different place with social media today, making the problem both more widespread, and more damaging to people. There have always been boycotts and attempts at cancellation, but the power of the mob is amplified in the current moment.

Multiple incidents were pointed out, and I legitimately don't know if it's more damaging today than it was before. This is a country that burned black wall street to the ground over an accusation. I actually, seriously don't know if the problem is more widespread or more damaging given the history in the USA. I will say it is most certainly a problem, and I think it likely has much deeper roots than "social media exi…

They edited in a second example after my comment. But it is a telling edit, they clearly looked for a second example, and the one they found is in no way a good one. There was no mob rallying against that professor. The school fired her (stupidly), and protests were in her favor.

There has always been a mob mentality, but it was hard to gather a mob. You had to get people to gather in person, and get them angry. Now you just get them angry, and you can do it sitting at home throwing together some memes and posting on Twitter. The bar didn't just drop a little, it dropped like 99%.

Re: Sir Kazuo Ishiguro warns of young authors self-censoring out of 'fear'

#692

Post by wrycoder » Thu, Mar 04, 2021, 10:22 PM UTC

klyrs wrote: post #340

wrycoder wrote: post #323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s a clear violation of freedom of the press, but never mind.

It's an idea that hasn't gained traction. Fox News isn't cancelled, and the freedom of the press has not been infriged, even if some folks want that to happen. Fox is so popular as to be undeniably mainstream, but still pushes a persecution narrative that they're on the brink of cancellation. It hasn't happened. There's no bill, no law, no executive order. Perhaps onesuch could violate the freedom of the press, if en…

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/02/22/capitol-riots-democrats-ask-...

Re: Sir Kazuo Ishiguro warns of young authors self-censoring out of 'fear'

#693

Post by int_19h » Fri, Mar 05, 2021, 12:59 AM UTC

hannasanarion wrote: post #660

int_19h wrote: post #506

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> disempowerment of the majority and tyranny of the minority These are two different things, though. You can disempower the majority without empowering the minority. Power is not a zero-sum game - you can disclaim it without handing it over to someone else.

So what, take the right of speech away from everybody? If the majority can't decide how the public feels about a person or company, and the minority can't decide how the public feels about a person or company, than who does?

The obvious response is to not take the right of speech from anybody, regardless of how democratically the decision to do so is arrived at.

More broadly, just because some power can be exercised by somebody, doesn't mean that it has to be exercised by anybody. To the extent that it may be necessary for a functioning society, it's generally best to decentralize power to the extent possible - think council democracy and similar arrangements, where decisions are made at the lowest applicable levels, and delegation of power flows upwards, not downwards. Some real-world approximations of these can be seen with the Zapatistas, and more recently in Rojava. In both cases, there are local governments that can democratically ban certain things as you've described - but, being local, their power is inherently limited in scope. Thus, it's tyranny of the local majority, and dissenters are free to move away and organize their own communities that do not implement such bans (but still federate with others that do).

Re: Sir Kazuo Ishiguro warns of young authors self-censoring out of 'fear'

#694

Post by pseingatl » Sat, Mar 06, 2021, 9:29 AM UTC

taurath wrote: post #611

Igelau wrote: post #607

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you don't understand, you're not paying attention. There's a big difference between saying a word and using a word. He was answering a question about someone else's use of the word and trying to clarify. What he essentially said was "Did she actually say 'n_____'?" It sounds to me like a few kids at this conference were butthurt for being told they were wrong about completely unrelated questions, and pounced like…

I’m paying attention, but my filter is different than yours. I am pretty liable to think that sheltered college students can be very overly sensitive to usages of words, but on the other hand the accusations (according to the daily beast article) don’t seem to center around the usage of a word, and the NYT investigated. If it fits ones narrative then they’ll believe it one way. If it fits ones narrative that old repo…

Older reporters are expensive. It was an easy way to force early retirement and save on payroll; an economic decision.