Convopage
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1,000 replies and sub-replies as of Dec 16 2017
Just curious. Why do you write on your blog or site instead of on Facebook or here on Twitter?
"Physician, heal thyself" -- Hacker News is unfriendly to minority opinions as well. Arguably the domesticated atmosphere you cultivate there bleeds over to the San Francisco culture in general.
"And yet it moves" is a phrase attributed to the Italian mathematician, physicist and philosopher Galileo Galilei in 1633 after being forced to recant his claims that the Earth moves around the immovable Sun rather than the converse during the Galileo affair.
HUGE part of why I left the Bay Area for Austin, TX... @tferriss too.
What were you unable to safely express in the Bay Area?
That minorities suck
Yea; to me it seems like that's what's implied (and the article references inability to say that gay people are evil as it's example).
Exactly, which is strange
If your ability to innovate is impaired by your perceived inability to express racism, homophobia or sexism then 🤷🏼♀️ you're weak.
Totally agree.
Oh! You’re the fellas that ruined it then! As a native Texan and Austinite for over a decade I’ll say it’s meeting people like this that I were a primary reason to leave. 👎
That people who are suspicious of speech of others (like you right here) -- tend to suck.
“people like you suck” ah, this is innovative
I can expand in on this in detail in several paragraphs -- would you like to read it?
no, thank you
So then you must take my word for it when I say briefly and concisely that Alyse Killeen sucks.
I’ll use my own judgment.
Ferriss is a crybaby and no one cares. See ya.
If you honestly believe that Adam, you are a fool.
He's a self-promoter and promotes bullshit to build his crappy personal brand. Total of zero impact on our economy or culture here. Also, I seriously doubt at any point your ideas were marginalized Brian.
Have you met him?
Nope, I am glad I have not & do not wish to. He screwed over a friend of mine who was planning an event (bailed at last min). Also got mad at me for daring to question his "ketosis cures cancer" post as I was having treatments at Stanford Oncology. Seems like a great guy.
I lost respect for him after he mansplained in one of his books how to give a woman an orgasm. It was laughable how sure of himself he was.
Adam/Sarah/Everyone Who Shares Similarly Negative Opinions Of Tim: My words can't change your opinions; however, if you're open to new info., this might: The latest episode of @richroll's podcast, "The Evolution Of Tim Ferriss" → youtu.be/S9qeJ5oKfbo #RRP Mr.🐺Of Compassion
The Evolution Of Tim Ferriss
If you think you know Tim Ferriss, think again – this is Tim like you’ve never seen him before. This is exactly the kind of conversation I have been patientl...
youtube.com
Brian, I don't have any bad feelings to you personally & apologies if I bothered you. But, not sure I have the patience to watch 3 hour interview with someone who RT'd me to have his followers troll me for 2 days and then blocked me. Prob enough. Have good day.
If you moved to Austin so you could gay-bash and be narcissistically unconcerned with ethical behavior, it'd really be better if you left.
In the 3 years I lived in SF, I felt it go from a culture of "no idea is crazy" to "not having a fully baked, tested, and polished idea is ludicrous". I moved out for the ability to experiment without consequence.
This is psychological not culture. Our thoughts lead to feelings. Feelings lead to action. Action leads to results. And only results can reprogram our brain which leads to feelings again. You can’t change someone’s programming by telling. They have to see the results for themsev
The 2015 mid-to-late-stage funding environment was incredibly frothy, and now it's more disciplined and focused on provable metrics, for better and for worse.
Hmm, but this makes it sound like a function of capital seeking better control on ROI rather than a rein of terror by rabid SJWs.
Surely no one could find that a more plausible explanation.
People moving there 3 years ago caused that.
BS you are in sales, you move where the money took you
Really good, thanks for writing!
"Usually mainstream ideas are right and heterodox ideas are wrong" -- imagine telling that to Galileo during the reign of the Catholic Church. I think you underestimate just how much improvement is possible to the current status quo.
As the old Chinese proverb says “ decide on three things at the start: the rules of the game, the stakes, and the quitting time” ...
the autoimmune disease that political correctness has become
It was orthodox dogma to begin with (whatever the intention): correctness is rightness. And I too can picture Galileo looking up to the sky above him, whispering "eppur si muove". But he isn't referring to planetary rotation: winnower.org/papers/5270-lo…
Being outside of the Bay,I wonder once you move out, you’d realize, naysayers or not, you may not even be able to find people who’s interested enough to disagree with you. This is the tough part for founders. We can’t reprogram someone if they disagree w/ us, unless we prove it.
I find the analogy far fetched
Absolute bullshit. Conflating ‘political correctness’ (ie. not being able sexually harass women, not being able to make wild racial slurs, being decent to LGBT people) with thought policing that doesn’t allow people to come up with good tech ideas is both bad logic and dangerous.
Honestly, I’d say exactly the opposite of your argument is more true. If you want a larger diversity of ideas and people willing to work for them, perhaps you should be fighting for the things that allow a greater diversity of people to stand up and participate.
(By the way your comment about no reasonable person being be persuaded that gay people are evil by stuff on the internet. Half of Alabama just voted for a man who said gay people were evil. Great chunks of Republicans believe gay people are evil.)
(It has taken us decades of concerted work to demonstrate to ‘reasonable people’ that we are not evil. And while we’re at it, people still send us vile homophobic abuse if we speak up in public. Your sense that these battles are done and dusted is simply wrong.)
Nah, we also run some of the world’s largest companies, fight in wars, defend our countries, run for politics, have TV shows and many many other things. The people who bitch and whine all the times are the people left in our dust xx
We have to listen to you bitch about heteronormativity all the time and you're obsessed with our children.
journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.117…
You don't seem to be able to stay in your lane.
Not you.
They don't seem to understand that it was not long ago that "whatever you do in your own bedroom your own business" to we have to smash heteronormativity.
Perhaps 1 of the contributing factors.
That's because the lesbian fascists kided them out of their own movement! GLBT > LGBT > LGBTQIA+ > Gay altright
Speaking up verses parading around almost nude or getting caught having sex in public which in many cities is quite common are not the same.
You probably work with the assumption that the pursuit of social and economic goods is a 0-sum game: any inequality in outcome between groups MUST be due to injustice. This orthodoxy is false and can only lead to suboptimal outcomes.
Nope I don't believe that. Thanks for your time though.
Do you think that the opinions expressed in the #googlememo have no scientific validity and should be condemned as racist and sexist?
I think without question if I worked as a woman at Google and that guy had any say in hiring or firing, that I would be seriously concerned that he would treat me fairly, promote me fairly, treat me equally.
As to scientific validity, most discussions about what women are better or worse at than men AT THE VERY LEAST have vast exceptions and speak of generalities, if they have any validity at all.
Google guy WAS talking about generalities. He wasn’t saying women shouldn’t be employed in tech. He was saying it’s wrong to expect parity in the life outcomes of any two demographics. That is a statement of generalities.
Seriously I’m not going back six months or whenever it was to argue this again. Find someone else to debate this with.
So if you weren't misrepresenting his position six months ago why are you starting now?
I’ve said I’m not engaging.
As someone hired and paid to code, how was it his business to talk about 'women in general' and circulate it around the office in the first place? He was fired for his lack of professionalism and work ethic. No wonder nobody is hiring him.
It's increasingly like saying that no person could be persuaded by, say, a Book.
Half of the country voted for a woman that started a modern day slave trade in Libya, that must mean they support slavery
I'm gay and I'd rather live in Alabama than SF.
An opinion you’re free to hold, even though it makes you sound like a bloody idiot (or a fraud)
I just caught you lying in a post. Who’s the fraud ?
While I don't believe gay people are evil, I do tend to believe it is often a learned behavior or a result of childhood conditions that lead young people to place greater value their same sex parent (or long to replace a missing one.) That is not really considered PC either.
Even relatively logical opinions like mine are marginalized as being not politically correct, even though there tend to be great amounts of evidence to back this analysis. I don't think homosexuality is good or bad, but I don't think it is always a 'born this way,' thing.
That’s up to you to believe, but actually there is remarkably little evidence for what you’ve just said. Last I looked, the most likely scientific consensus was that causally in utero hormone expression was the most likely scenario and it spread down peoples lines genetically.
The point is though, whatever the causality, gay people exist, there is no evidence that they can stop being gay (in fact much counter evidence), they can lead perfectly happy lives, and on the whole do not wish to be “cured”.
With that in mind, many gay people, myself included, believe arguing that homosexuality is a defect or a problem is unnecessary medicalising, disrespectful and often a pretext for saying we’re broken or unwell in some way, itself used as a pretext for saying we’re dangerous.
These kinds of arguments are traditionally used to stop gay people having jobs, or adopting, or getting married, or being open about their partners, or running for Office and any number of other things - which is why we get angry when people argue them.
What to you may seem a fairly abstract conversation, to us is supporting narratives that have damaged gay people’s actual lives. So we would argue very strongly for you to stop making these arguments!
Oh please. Enough with this shit. Stop pretending gays are marginalised. They have the same rights and if anything, are mollycoddled by society nowadays. I have nothing against them but I do get shitty when they play the victim card & try to enforce a PC culture on everyone else.
There you go, Sam - these are the people your statement encouraged. These are the people who read your piece and nodded approvingly.
Of course. What else do you expect from these twits?
Your and idiot.
Where do you live?
Down under
Then you dont know middle america
That's a broad stroke of the brush.
Gays are marginalized in middle America. Anywhere outside of metropolitan areas
Sounds like typical liberal propaganda that's bubbling in the echo chambers of the coastal cities.
In my line of work I deal with gay people on a daily basis. They all moved to cities becuase middle America does not accept them. You have no basis for your remark or your beliefs that they are not marginalized. You haven't experienced it. So shut up
Well with 'impeach Trump' splattered across your profile, the people in your 'line of work' would be well advised to keep their distance from an unbalanced mind such as yours.
Hey asshole. You want a fight behind your twitter keys. Big Man?
If anyone is unbalanced it's you. I didn't reply to you with the intent of starting a fucking twitter war douchebag.
retard can't even have a debate. Resorts to insults when his point is proven wrong. Poor triggered little snowflake.
Yes, Billy, how dare you to have an opinion much less ever SAY it, that is different than Tom! As an American that happens to identify as gay, I tend to believe that your argument is valid & quite frankly, accurate. For years we have heard about a gay gene that's never been found
Notice that Tom starts off claiming that not being mean to LGB people is different than thought policing and they should not be conflated. Billy states a non-malicious opinion & then Tom goes on to rant how that opinion is used to oppress & should be railed against or "policed"!
Appeal to emotions fallacy.
You’re so deep in the closet you’re in Narnia.
“logical”
Right.
I agree. And it clearly isn’t healthy. But now I’m a bigot. And posting AIDS statistics will get you banned on face book.
Your and idiot.
I highly doubt that the INTERNET was the cause of their hatred. I think it's got more to do with religious fundamentalism than mean comments.
Possibly. But then how many liberals think all conservatives are racists? Goes both ways.
My point is ... blocked!
For good reason. LGBT and other left-leaning constituencies by and large share a cultural and political outlook hostile to a way of life practiced by many in Alabama and beyond. If we cannot reconcile, we might as well treat one another as abominations.
Yet they just elected a man that has been for gay marriage recognition longer than national-stage Democrat politician...
Thanks @tomcoates for putting my thoughts into words.
Saying pc is just anti slur and anti harassment is dishonest
Saying it’s not about slurs and harassment is the dishonest bit. Using the term as a label for right wing caricatures of decent treatment of people is dishonest.
Do you judge people by their ideas or their skin colour or gender? Do you agree with the sentiment that white males need to listen to POC and women before they speak themselves?
Your idea of diversity is different skin color but think same extremist leftist ideologies..
ppl like you are the biggest racists and the threat to intellectual freedom. No wonder ppl are noticing your bigotry and extremism.
You literally make my argument for me. These are the kinds of people that respond positively to the original posters point. Basic, straight down the line bigots who think fighting for different races, genders and sexualities is an affront to their freedoms.
But as diversity increases, intelligence decreases. What a waste of time that would be.
Entirely disproven. In fact, organizations with quotas of women have been demonstrated to be more successful, because on the whole the less competent men were replaced by more competent women
1. Identity diversity =/= intellectual diversity
2. Leftist I.D. politics create just as loisonous an atmosphere for discussion as fundie Christians.
Well not for me they don’t. For me, because of leftist identity politics, people like me can now married, people like me are visible everywhere, public opinion has swayed positively in our favor and lots of other good stuff. In return, you’ve lost the ability to call me names
Insinuating that Ibwoukd use slurs against you is a cheap passive aggresive ploy. Grow up.
Yah, I know how passionate you guys are about including conservative ideas. The humanities, based on current data. in college is roughly 45 professors on the left to 1 professor on the right. Maybe, just maybe, if you knew so cons you wouldn't
set the debate up as "ppl arguing that you can't harrass women, etc..." As is if anyone is fucking arguing that. That's the equivalent of me saying the abortion debate argument is between people who want to save lives, and ppl who have a fetish for murdering babies. Jesus Christ
[RhetoricalExpert, nonpartisan
but never voted GOP]
Policing speech according to dictates
designed to conform to druthers
of the most easily offended (who have
been taught how offended to be by
the speech policers) tends to be
called “political correctness”
Conflation is common
I was taught to be offended by the torrent of anti-gay abuse that was commonplace around the late 1980s and the HIV scare and the pretty solid continual insults and statements that gay people are pedophiles or sex offenders that I’ve experienced regularly since.
Plus also the twice I’ve been attacked on the street. The several times friends of mine have been attacked on the streets and the variety of laws that discriminated against LGBT people that we’ve worked for fifty years to gradually repeal and fix.
If political correctness means that people who say appalling homophobic things are shamed and embarrassed by it, and anti-gay laws and discrimination are slowly dismantled then as far as I’m concerned it has been an unmitigated success.
But you are aware that you are cherry picking...
of course. that's the problem of social media - expertise, "lived experience" and advocacy fornicate beyond all recognition or intelligibility.
Nope. That’s what the phrase means to a vast number of people. If you’re talking about the abuse of these principles, be precise about what you’re objecting to.
And frankly if you ask people what things they think are political correctness gone mad, they will often talk about gay marriage or anti-discrimination laws or the like - things that are actually about basic respect and equality.
Respect and equality are fine. But it is wrong to criminalize calling a fat person fatso, a gay person fag, or a Christian a religious nut job. None are nice. But if one is a crime, then all are. If all are, then you are in for some serious criminalization of just about everyone.
Used an ethnic slur / said something offensive / said something sexist / pissed off a whole bunch of vulnerable people entitled to protest
Mad PC and "unassailable facts"
📌 Man caused climate change is settled science
📌Islam is a religion of peace
📌Human male and female minds operate identically
(1) Yes it is, (2) Most muslims are completely peaceful (and Christianity has some crazy shit in it too) (3) Men and women’s brains and bodies are clearly different from one another, but we can evaluate individuals on what they can do rather than prejudge them by their sex.
Ding! Ding! Ding! Tom rails against current PC orthodoxy in point # 3. Kudos to you Tom, knew you had it in you!
If you’d rather have arguments with your own beliefs about what liberals believe then go ahead.
Other than (1), these responses are simplistic. Most people would agree on (3), for example. But is the reason that there are fewer women in tech due to discrimination or differing preferences? There's genuine debate on that point.
Yes, there is. (And these responses are far less simplistic than your original ones.) However, since right now - as in media and politics - tech is being rocked by a number of sexual harassment scandals, it seems fair to guess that there is at least some discrimination at play.
Beyond that, I’m sorry I’m simply not interested in engaging with this discussion. I have dozens of people responding to me and I don’t have time to debate every one to their satisfaction.
Beyond that, I’m sorry I’m simply not interested in engaging with this discussion. I have dozens of people responding to me and I don’t have time to debate every one to their satisfaction.
What are the principles you are referring to?
I'm not objecting to any specific view, but rather the current climate that makes discussion of many important (and interesting) topics difficult. To name a few: immigration, religion, gender roles, national identity, and culture
You really are using a narrow definition of 'political correctness' (though I fully admit, it's an overused term prone to diff definitions). It's entirely possible to oppose bigotry and incivility while also opposing the imposition of a narrow political line on race, gender, etc.
Sure. In which case be specific about what you’re fighting. I would point out you might want to talk to the people who have responded to me today saying they hate PC because it stops them saying black people are criminals, gay people are disease carriers, women are less capable
Those people clearly believe PC means what I think it means. If you mean something else, then be clear about it and we’ll all be better off.
The issue is that too often, political correctness is applied to people who have done or said nothing wrong. Imagine implementing “guilty until proven innocent” because it would put more bad guys away. Sure it would.. but it would also put more good guys away.
Sam knows what political correctness means. I think he’s trying to point out how a culture based on it isn’t good for innovation. One will certainly offend while changing the world.
I’m sorry, but I simply don’t believe one needs to be able to express racist, homophobic and sexist opinions to build a good business or create new technology. You are free to your opinion, of course.
My views are none of those things, but people label my views that way sometimes. What do you make of that?
That they are free to their opinions and to express them.
Yea, but they stop listening. You seem to be more ok with people putting their fingers in their ears than people sharing views you disagree with. I think both are ok, but there’s an irony with one.
If someone’s view is that gay people are disgusting, immoral, disease spreading monsters that shouldn’t be able to marry or be let near kids, then yes, I would prefer they didn’t share that.
What if their view was that the straight lifestyle was what we should generally encourage because it seems to be what most people fall into? And their view was that that religious marriage shouldn’t have government intervention? But are ok with gay people and gay civil unions?
Our assumption here appears to be that it’s more acceptable for someone to express racist views than for people to condemn their racist views. I find this unfathomable, illogical and oddly uninterested in the people whose lives are compromised by pervasive bigotry.
Scrutinize their racist idea :)
Imagine if I called the view you expressed above as racist as a way to justify not listening to you, or deplatforming you. Maybe I just misunderstand your view, but a bunch of us believe your view is something it isn’t, and get you fired from your job, and shame you publicly.
So your position is that because on rare occasions someone gets mischaracterised as a racist, we should not ever hold people who express racist views to account?
It’s not that rare in my experience, but yes. It’s like innocent until proven guilty. We need to risk some idiots getting away so that we don’t accidentally punish non-idiots.
The criticism about PC culture is that we’re not listening to non-idiots.
We’ve decided who is and isn’t worth listening to, by popular opinion, and dismiss them, their bad ideas and their good ideas.
Good people have bad ideas; bad people have good ideas. We can’t debate the ideas if we are afraid to hear them.
In SF Bay Area tech it's not that rare. It's actually a widespread smear to accuse someone of all manner of racism or esp/ misogyny. Larry Garfield, for example, was utterly defamed by people with a crappy agenda. Nor is James Damore the evil incarnate that he's made out to be.
Oh Jesus. I’m not even getting involved in this.
You seem so interested in the topic, but when someone expresses an experience that isn’t yours, you dip out. Feminists have rightfully criticized me for doing the same thing pretty recently. I think these experiences aren’t yours, but they’re valid.
No, you bloody idiot. I’ve had hundreds of people replying to me over the last couple of days. Many have been supportive, some have trotted out the same arguments and examples over and over. I have discussed Damore several times with People in the last twenty four hours...
... and I’m not going to go through the whole rigmarole again because you did not happen to be around for it. From your perspective, this is just a quick chat between people. From mine, it is the one hundredth time I’ve had this exact discussion in the last day.
For Christ’s sake, if you can’t understand basic things - racism is bad, condemning racists is good, it is different from condemning black people because racism is a bad thing and black people aren’t, that minorities experience consistent abuse and that while...
... there are always excesses and there are things liberals and people do in the name of equality I don’t agree with, generally it is battles like these that have won minorities very overdue basic rights ...
... and that while we’re at it, if it’s not okay to argue that views are unacceptable WHY THE HELL ARE YOU EVEN ARGUING YOU CURRENT POSITION which is presumably you arguing my views are unacceptable, then I can do literally nothing for you.
I am DONE. Go and find someone else to have a ‘reasonable debate’ about whether or not it should be okay to call someone out publicly for attempting to deny me and people like me basic rights. Just do not give a crap any more.
My point is that not everyone being argued with is doing that. James Damore is only one of many examples.
I said I am not interested in debating this any more. Please do not make me block you.
Alright. Debate over. Have a good day Tom. It wasn’t my intention to make it anything less than a good day.
Just wish he could have gotten past the straw man arguments.
And I'd still like to find where he actually addressed the point about Damore. I did search for it.
Nobody ever said it’s not ok to argue that views are unacceptable. There’s a major disconnect here.
Fair enough. I discuss this stuff regularly too. There’s a disconnect if you think my or Sam’s view is that people who call out racism or sexism need to stop. Call it out please, but accept the scrutiny when you’re wrong. I doubt you’re sexist or racist. Do you doubt I am?
OK, I'd like to see your views on the topic. Could you at least point me in that direction, because a search doesn't bring up where you've actually addressed that point.
True I underestimate how many people you probably have messaging you about this. That can be overwhelming. I’d appreciate less name calling :P text is a really difficult way to have meaningful conversation, huh? We need a better way.
OK, fine, people getting fired for their political views is hunky dory. :-P
When your views lose popularity, you may be see things a tad differently.
You live in a fantasyworld.
You should definitely seek some professional help.
Thank you for your opinion. I hope your evening is going well.
But don't you feel that there's a line between human courtesy and thought regulation? Sure, LGBT deserve civil rights protection. I don't think banning racial/sexual/homophobic slurs helps in the long run.
They’re not banned. People can say them. And then people can argue about the person who says them.
That's fair.
That doesn't give you right to tell people what they should think or say. PC is a Trojan Horse for fascism. Anyway, Gays are doing so well in the West a lot of them are conservatives. Wanna fight for LGBTQWatheveetterows... Look at Islam. Ginger men are the bigger victims today😁
“Plus also” 🤔 ?
Wow, Shanbeth, you’ve really cut me to the quick here with your insightful identification of the TRUE issue that confronts us here today.
"Gay people used to be attacked more often, therefore we should give the government tonnes more power to use violence to lock people in cages because they don't agree with a male fighting in MMA against a female"
You in a nutshell.
Bullshit
HIV wasn't a scare. It killed millions. I saw an epidemiologist on TV in NYC in ~83 being shouted down by gay activists when he suggested closing the bathhouses. This was before HTLV4/HIV was identified as the cause of AIDS. He was right, and their PC killed.
But Tom, you must realize that this isn't the 70's or 80's. We've experienced a seismic shift in acceptance of LGTB rights. The question arises that the pendulum may have swung too far to the left. Thinking of the engr. fired at Google. Asinine.
Not asinine at all. Google engineers interview people all the time. After his piece declaring women inferior software developers, anyone he’s interviewed and rejected could sue for discriminatory practices, any woman he manages would question her treatment, etc etc
I don't know why people keep parroting this. The memo is publicly available. Why the boldfaced lie?
It’s simply not a lie. But I’m not prepared to relitigate this one. I have other things to do. Believe what you choose.
"Believe what you choose". It's hardly a choice. The text is there in black and white, and I've never been able to believe things I know to be false. Not that I'd want to...
Again, I’m not relitigating this. I’ve gone through this with other people before. I don’t have the time to do it again. Good night.
Wasn't asking you to "relitigate" anything. Frankly I'm not interested in any more "artful interpretations" of the Google Memo.
Well I’ve said good night several times now, so now I’m done. Blocked.
Tom is like an infant having a temper tantrum. Reasoning with him or presenting actual evidence is completely futile.
[RhetoricalExpert Note]
AFTER replying rationally with 3 tweets of
useful clarification,
Coates THEN blocked
An illustration of the problem of
speech policing by silencing
As your life experience bears witness,
there are certainly necessary corrections
to society’s habitual evils.
The unfortunate aspect of [#conflating]
all aspects of [“PC”]: LGBT attacks, sexual
harassment/assault [mostly vs women],
workplace equality, race
is offense overload.
Nah, son. Being tired of arguing with mendacious or myopic self-proclaimed experts who open their salvoes with bas rhetoric isn’t denying you anything but the favor of his attention.
😏He replied with three
280-character tweets,
then blocked.
That’s the nature of the
speech-only-for-me folks😉
And yet here you are, still speaking.
I’m replying to you
as I replied to him.
😎🎸🎶🇺🇸 It’s called conversation.🙂🎈
😏But speech police don’t like that😉
You overpaid for your education.
Whenever someone complains about political correctness all I see is a white guy angry that he can’t use the n-word.
Because you're dumb and racist.
Glad to know I get to be white now lol
"All i see" is the tell that you're living in a bubble. I see women and men of all colours that are against PC fascism Like this guy
Patrice O'Neal destroys feminist
Patrice O'Neal debates politically correct feminist. HELP FUND DOCUMENTARY ABOUT PATRICE O'NEAL: https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/better-than-you-the-patri...
youtube.com
Flag on the play. 5000 point deduction. Ike, you're using a black person credibly making a statement against political correctness. This goes against the argument that implied anti-pc is a white thing. It is therefore racist and inadmissible by decree of the "Tolerant" Left. lol
all while ignore the black, Asian, Indian, Arab, & Hispanic men & women who hate PC.
Why do you pretend POC of both genders who are against PC culture don’t exist? Pretty racist tbh.
PC is the BS. Nothing less then total freedom of speech is acceptable. Your sacred cow is burning. Might as well roast a weiner. OH OH I said weiner. LOL
So you support my ability to yell at you and campaign against people saying anti-gay and minority stuff. Awesome! I will enjoy exercise my free speech in campaigning for people who say terrible things to be fired xx
be careful,, those who digs ditches for others fall into the same one.
that's not what political correctness means. like at all.
Yes it is. That literally is what it means. It’s the way people who fight for people’s rights understand it. What you understand it to mean may be a bastardization or caricature of that, but it’s goal has always been to understand, treat and respect people different from yourself
I agree that people who want political correctness use "politeness" to justify it, but that's not it's purpose. it's purpose is too silence the truth.
That's not why it exist at all. Where the hell did you cook That lie up? What's next, you're going to say racial profiling is OK even if it ended up costing minorities their jobs? Stop and frisk could easily make someone late to work etc
where did I cook it up? that's literally what it means. Political correctness means "not correct but politically palatable". What are you fruits on about?
I'm not even gay you skidmark. Your lying by saying politically correct means hiding the truth. What kind of loon equates being told not to use slurs with bring forced to lie.
How do you solve a problem of 50% homicides committed by 13% of the population? How do you solve that problem without profiling of any type? What if more minorities are killed because one can't profile a criminal?
there is an excellent example of political correctness that involves no racial slurs @Lt_Smashv1 .
Blacks commit far more crime but we can't talk about it, but the occasional bad shoot by a cop must be repeated ad infinitum without mentioning crime rates.
Because of where people try to take that discussion aka trying to legalize racial profiling which is discrimination. Not to mention poverty plays a huge part in crime and a lot of racist practices made generational wealth disparities affect minorities more.
It's the left's economic policies that hurt/create the poor in the long run, government welfare for example, subsidizes idleness, + minimum wage laws make it so people(especially young people) with no skills or/and a criminal record can't compete.
You realize minimum wage laws came into place because of racism and in general the average person not being paid well at all right? The generous job creator looking out for their employees is actually not a common thing. You've been lied to.
The employer is not a father, its not their job to look after you, its their job to make sure you're equipped for the job in hand, anything else is an incentive to stay there.
Minimum wage laws were introduced because black workers were undercutting white workers, the result has been black unemployment, welfare continues this trend that keeps people on the bottom row of the economic ladder.
They were not undercutting white workers. Don't be dumb. Racist were paying them less to undercut white prior because they knew black people had to take what they could get
What you mentioned had nothing to do with whether or not the statement is PC. The issue is the lack of context followed by scapegoating into racist law proposals. And people getting killed when it's not necessary by the government is an attack on civil liberty
no, pretty sure I was right the first time when I called it political correctness.
Must suck to be so sure and still do wrong. But you're probably not black so you don't actually have to think about how this stuff affects you. Nor will you be.
It literally does not mean that
“What are you fruits on about” blocked
Your and idiot.
If you get punched in the face after saying that to gay people, dont bitch
So what is it to you?
No it isn’t. Political correctness is firing James Damore for citing findings about gender differences that are well within the scientific mainstream.
Well, that didn't take long, did it?
I've been blocked by far more well known twits.
So when will you start to understand, treat and respect people different from yourself
*other descriptions of political correctness are available
In which case, be precise. If you want to respect basic human decency to minorities then don’t decry ‘political correctness’ which explicitly means in its dictionary definition:
If you’re going to only mean the extremes, then say what you mean. Otherwise people are going to think you mean the general practice of avoiding causing unnecessary offense to minorities.
Avoiding unnecessary offence is ‘politeness’ or ‘good taste’. PCness is using terminology deemed appropriate/ expedient/ popular in a given political situation. What’s PC (& offensive) in the US today differs from that in Saudi, China, let alone 50s USSR, 30s Germany etc
In *a* dictionary definition. Wikipedia by the look of it (is that a dictionary? Define dictionary..). Prefer this:
Definition of POLITICALLY CORRECT
conforming to a belief that language and practices which could offend political sensibilities (as in matters of sex or race) should be eliminated… See the full definition
merriam-webster.com
oh look another motte and baily. Do you believe men and women are different? Well that must mean you endorse sexual harassment
Yeah damore totally wasn’t fired for what i just said
Sexual harassment and racial slurs are illegal. PC culture is much more insidious than that. Example. It’s not PC to be a conservative.
In fact racial slurs are not illegal. And PC is only considered insidious by people who caricature being decent to people because they don’t actually believe gay people, Black People or women deserve equal treatment
Thanks for your opinion.
Calm down dear.
Political correctness is an extension of the Soviet model used to curtail speech that is deemed dangerous or offensive to the political order. Indeed, the very notion of "hate speech" was first peddled by the Soviets as a means of subverting dissent.
Brendan O'Neill - hate speech laws & censorship make people stupid
Full video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kLFehCMUQqk
youtube.com
Look I’m sorry - despite what many people have said to me today about how PC isn’t just decency, I’ve had a whole bunch of assholes all afternoon telling me black people do all the crime, gay people spread disease, women aren’t as capable as men and frankly I’m just bored of it.
All of them say - with astonishment - that PC is so bad they can’t even say these kinds of things without being labeled bigots. Well, I’m sorry, but good. They are bigots. They deserve to be ashamed of making such arguments.
None of what you just said addresses my point. That some people are ignorant or just plain assholes doesn't change the actual intent of political correctness as a means of controlling or denying legitimate discourse, which is how it is often used.
Bluntly, not being able to say something awful about gay people without being shut down and embarrassed by people who think you’re a fucking asshole is a feature, not a bug. I’m sorry you can’t see that, but as a gay guy who has fought for equality for twenty five years, I can.
Now, as I said, I’ve had a whole bunch of people picking fights with me around this all afternoon. I am tired and bored and I am not going to relitigate the same question to every single person’s satisfaction over and over again.
So please, drop it. Walk away. Have a beer. Watch some TV. Don’t make me block you. I’d really rather not.
I'm not picking a fight, I'm merely having a discussion, actually while also drinking a beer and watching a movie. But if we can leave it here.
Being gay isn't a particularly useful line of argument in that it neither addresses my points, nor does it mean some universality of opinion. For instance, here, a gay man, derides the notion of political correctness:
Douglas Murray W/ Sam Harris - Political Correctness [Racism/ Yale Students]
Douglas Murray discusses with Sam Harris on his podcast issues relating to political correctness including the controversy on American campuses over the Hall...
youtube.com
Okay you didn’t listen. Good night. {blocked}
Correct on your first point. Your second point is a ridiculous absolute that not only demonstrates how principled you actually are when it comes to the mindless labeling & smearing of entire groups, but also undermines your credibility as a serious interlocutor.
Meaningless.
What country do you live in (non-rhetorical)? Racial slurs are not illegal, nor is racism for that matter—or being a bigot, sexist, misandrist or any other degenerate attitude or set of opinions—or their verbal expression. Many behaviors stemming from these attitudes are illegal.
Pedant.
Sounds like you’re having a hard time with intellectual depth this morning.
You are confused dear sir
That tweet had more self-aggrandizing empty virtue signalling than my stomach can handle in one day.
You read it all?
Logic. "You Keep Using That Word, I Do Not Think It Means What You Think It Means" More Frankfurt School BS from a borg leftist.
You obviously have little to no understandings of peoples actual criticisms and dangers of Political Correctness
Did I get you right? Deviant opinions can only permitted if it is about “tech ideas“?
You are of course a reactionary and you also prove his point. That is generally what unreasonable people do. Keep it up.
Reactionary means “someone who fights to preserve a conservative status quo and doesn’t like change”
so that definition you read in the wikipedia ?
Tommy. Grab your pussy hat and go home to Mommy and your safe space. Douche.
Your and idiot.
you are so gay!
Yup. And proud of it.
Willful ignorance.
This runs counter to @mjaeckel experience as a woman who was ostracized for running afoul of the tech thought police . If you think PC just means not harassing women, then build your case that she harassed women, or used racial slurs.
The Empress Has No Clothes: The Dark Underbelly of Women Who Code and Google Women Techmakers
In a letter from 1796, George Washington, First President of the United States, stated that “to speak evil of any one, unless there is…
medium.com
I guess if you want to make up your own definition for terms, you might as well make up your own system of logic as well.
As you well know, the Wikipedia entry is more nuanced than the impression given by your Wiki excerpt and does not support your original definition of political correctness.
oh the wikipedia, the most trusted source of the world.
tell me what feminism, affordable care act, plant parenthood, antifa means. please please ..
check wikipedia definition of political correctness in say 2004, before it is whitewashed by sjw views. here en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?ti…
Outstanding. People who cite Wikipedia...
Ironically proving @sama 's point.
Btw, U R conflating a crime w/ being offended abt minor genetic attributes.
You apparently cannot conceive of people who do NOT associate genetic attributes with their identity.
Strength of Character: Sticks&Stones, but words will not hurt me
What you know about strength of character would fit into a matchbox, without taking the matches out first.
And you can tell... because?
The only one conflating is you, tendentiously to serve your political purpose
Do you have any idea where the phrase "politically correct" came from?
Forced PC is fascism. You are describing manners and tact.
I don’t believe you care about manners and tact. I believe you want to force people to do as you say to feel power over them, aka PC.
Or...not being able to criticize religion, or disagree with a third wave feminist, or getting fired for refusing to call a little boy a little girl in elementary school...
Political correctness is about what offends people, NOT necessarily what is morally sound. In the Victorian Era, it was politically correct to see women as giant children who were prone to insanity and suicide. That is not fair, true, nor sensitive, but it was, at one point, PC.
PC culture overlapping into everyday people's lives is what's troubling. I don't care if someone's feelings are hurt because I disagree with them. How about we let people say what they want and as long as they don't call for violence you know actual violence, we leave them alone.
Your man, it is made of straw
You've defined political correctness so that it automatically leads to your conclusion.
Others aren't defining it to mean that.
Note he's tweeting this publicly from San Francisco.
I've spent enough time in the bay to know how self-proclaimed PC policemen talk when they feel safe, with no women or minorities around.
This kind of tweet is all about building up enough 'PC cred' in case he needs it later.
Me? I am a gay man. I've experienced considerable personal harassment and physical and verbal attacks. I'm not really interested in engaging with you further if this is your argument.
Nobody has the right not be offended. PC is an attack on free speech. Eg telling a woman she is beautiful is now harassment.
Well, people have the right to be offended. They don't have a right to pretend that means anything to anyone else.
Your definition of political correctness is ridiculous
Says who, you didnt even include a source.
You are capable of google search I assume
Your definition of political correctness is tendentious. Yes, pc does sometimes overlap with basic manners & kindness. But much of it goes way beyond that. Think of James Damore losing job at Google for reasonable (though debatable) arguments about male/female differences.
Tom Coates on Twitter
“@sama Absolute bullshit. Conflating ‘political correctness’ (ie. not being able sexually harass women, not being able to make wild racial slurs, being decent to LGBT people) with thought policing that doesn’t allow people to come up with good tech ideas is both bad logic and dangerous.”
twitter.com
It somehow still astounds me that corny, boring, right-wing white-boy shits (of the sort seen in these comments) seem to honestly believe they're gifting the world with scintillating, original intellectual vigor, and not what they're *actually* doing, +
which is vomiting forth the exact same corny, boring, right-wing white-boy shittery that has been the sum total of what their flabby, amoral little "intellects" have *ever* been able to produce.
Your "tolerance" is duly noted.
If this meme were a baseball bat, I'd have broken it over someone's head by now.
Your “intellectual vigor” seems to include frequent verbal variations of feces (shit, shutters, etc...). Stay classy, left.
Don’t forget to wear your brown shirt and carry your little red book tonight.
Nice. Blocked.
What nonsense. What people refer to as "political correctness" had nothing to do with any of those things. And I'm pretty sure you know that.
Literally if you looked at my replies for the last twelve hours you would see People explicitly saying that PC stops them saying black people are criminals, gay people spread disease and women aren’t as capable as men.
It also doesn't allow you to publicly debate bad ideas and demonstrate why they are bad. Instead that fester under the surface, leaving people to secretly believe them true because they aren't allowed to talk about them.
You at a fool.
That’s not been the experience of history. The experience of history has been when people make racist comments without fear of shame or embarrassment, they do racist things with impunity
It's what's going on, right now.
You likely also feel more comfortable speaking freely of your real views/desires in a frat house in ways you check yourself on in a business setting. Sorry that BS frat mentality isn’t spreading farther than vomit-stained bro hallways. It says a lot to be comparing SF to China 🙄
Isn't it interesting that under your definition of PC, conservatives, supporters of the President, as well as the man himself, get slandered, threatened, insulted & called evil daily? All these nice, politically correct haters...
#clueless
Yup. We hold people who discriminate to account. Tolerant people do not have to sit by and respectfully disagree with People who want to take their basic rights.
You poor delusional beta male moron. You have my pity.
Somehow I’ll cope.
The phrase "politically correct" originated in totalitarian systems, to express that something was approved to be talked about, by the politics of the day.
Something not "PC" would be akin to treason. The very origin concept of PC is though policing!
Easily factually disprovable.
I’ve blocked a couple of hundred people this afternoon. It’s not my job to argue with every idiot out there until they feel satisfied they’ve had a good enough argument.
Yes, that’s exactly what I’m doing.
Your definition of political correctness is tendentious. Yes, PC does sometimes overlap with basic manners & kindness. But much of it goes way beyond that. Think of @JamesADamore losing job at Google for reasonable (though debatable) arguments about male/female differences.
This is basically a copy and paste of someone else’s tweet. I’m not relitigating this debate. Have a nice evening.
Makes sense.
You regressives have a lot in common with fundamentalist Christians when it comes to key facets of your belief formation and rationalization processes
Thanks for your feedback. I’m sorry, but I’ve had this conversation dozens of times today already and I have no interest in doing it again.
He actually thinks James "did not think women were inherently as good at software engineering as men", proving he didn't even skim the memo.
Sexually harassing women is against the law. Why would you equate not being able to sexually harass women with being decent to gays?
Not engaging any more. Have a nice evening.
It’s also accurate and it’s pin head like you that pushed political correctness so far.
Thanks for your idiotic opinion. (Again, Sam you must be so proud of the people who come out to agree with your piece)
That's not at all what political correctness is lol. Political correctness is the part line. The outer limits of the Overton Window. That which can not be spoken of despite there being truth because that truth undermines an ideological framework
The free #KindleUnlimited book “SJW Always Lie” by @voxday distinguishes #PoliticalCorrectness (denying reality) from #GoodManners (do unto thy neighbor). It’s a quick read & free
SJWs Always Lie: Taking Down the Thought Police (The Laws of Social Justice Book 1) - Kindle edition by Vox Day, Milo Yiannopoulos. Politics & Social Sciences Kindle eBooks @ Amazon.com.
SJWs Always Lie: Taking Down the Thought Police (The Laws of Social Justice Book 1) - Kindle edition by Vox Day, Milo Yiannopoulos. Download it once and read it on your Kindle device, PC, phones or tablets. Use features like bookmarks, note taking and highlighting while reading SJWs Always Lie: Taking Down the Thought Police (The Laws of Social Justice Book 1).
amazon.com
And it’s also not what is commonly understood by the term. When people decry political correctness (as I have seen first hand all afternoon) a good proportion of them do so explicitly because they want to say shitty things about gay people, women or ethnic minorities
Now please go away. I’m so bored of having this idiotic conversation with people like you while other people literally just tell me gay people don’t deserve rights but that they can’t say anything because of PC
In my experience brilliant people can be brilliant without being racists.
Thank you. Again, Sam, these are the people who read your piece and go “I couldn’t agree more”
You blocked Christina Hoff Sommers because she disagreed with you? Granted she pointed out how asinine your tweet is, and that must have stung, but you should learn from that experience.
I have blocked about a hundred people today because I have had the same damn conversation over and over all day and I see absolutely no reason why I should be required to engage with them until the other party feels satisfied.
I don’t care if you’re aggrieved by this or whether it makes you think worse of me. I simply have no interest in spending another twelve hours debating this crap.
You block list is your business, really. Have fun.
I agree. Night.
Lol, you blocked her because she's right and you're wrong.
Coward.
Political correctness IS thought policing. We don’t need it to determine that sexual harassment is wrong. We need it when someone says something controversial and we need an excuse to attack them about it.
it must be nice to straw-man the argument. To even pretend that's the debate is either highly unethical, or mindbogglingly stupid.
Unblock the Queen
Are you a complete fool?
Open with an insult. No argument. Blocked x
How? People do not think in linear terms, without the ability to tangent or fuck up, who knows what you will end up suppressing. All thoughts (even bad ones) are in need of open air and a voice. If nothing else, it lets us see who the evil people are.
And when we know who they are? I mean people can be quiet today about their anti-semitism and racism. But if they speak up and we know who they are what then? Logically, we stop doing business with them. Employers fire them. People express their horror. How is that different?
Because then, if you choose to not interact with a person, it is your choice as an individual. Not by fiat, declaration or mandate from an authority. If we capitulate our ability to decide for ourselves with whom to associate, we lose our agency as individuals.
Employers should never fire anyone on grounds that are not directly related to, or impede upon the ability of a person to perform, the duties for which they were employed. Wrongthink is a slippery slope and the soft implementation of controlling minds, is to first control speech.
How about for example if any woman they've interviewed could sue for likely discrimination
Ffs this idea that Sf techies cant speak their minds to share their shitty racist/sexist thoughts is so stupid. Name one of your funders who’s been run out of town on a rail for their toxic beliefs. You aren’t the marginalized group you’re the babies who can’t take disagreement.
Thank you for saying this @sarahkunst! the level playing field that SF techies idolize restricted many marginalized people and ideas; they just didn’t realize it.
Is there some kind of ID card that certifies someone is “marginalized”? Does anyone one have to petition a judge, or self proclaiming good enough? Does someone keep official ranked ordered list?
Not particularly relevant, but I feel compelled to share that I work out at the same gym as Sam Altman—and I squat more than him.
I weigh 115 lbs.
I feel a little like an asshole putting him on blast like this, but....
body shaming is cool i guess, but i haven’t been to a gym in like 2 years...maybe somebody else?
Oops! Doppelgänger! Either way, your take is asinine.
Lol this is what he engaged with. Ded.
We all have our triggers!
And I bet I can still squat more than him.
“It’s possible we have to allow people to say disparaging things about [Sam Altman] if we want them to be able to say novel things about physics.”
I didn’t even do that on purpose. 💃🏻
We can all agree on:
- there is spurious commentary solely meant to harm (see above)
- there are legitimate issues (like immigration) on which there is concerted effort to make any discussion of them off limits on the pretense that it causes "harm"
If you support immigration -- that's great -- but there are many other issues (like use of language, pronouns, genetic engineering, social aspects of AI), discussion on which is becoming more and more difficult.
Immigration of the legal or illegal variety? Legal variety merit based or visa lottery for future welfare recipients? Illegal variety for day laborers or for MS-13 gangbangers? Is goal continued “apartheid California” btwn Coast & CentralValley as described by @VDHanson or what?
This is perfection.
I mean. I don’t know @cali_schmidt but clearly this is okay because it’s entirely possible she might do something significant some day. Sorry thems the breaks. Guess you need to deal?
I guess you can't take disagreement since this is the only thing you replied to and none of the people making actual counterarguments
Come on sam take a joke my friend :P
Sam is voicing a perspective shared by many. It's only fitting that those who disagree would do so by making comments about his inability to lift weights
Look me up if you’re ever in Kansas City. Def could use your advice. Enjoyed the session at #tcdisrupt SF btw 👊🏾
And they can’t even imagine a world in which gay people are unable to contribute in a world where people are going out of their way to disparage and marginalize them. It’s telling.
isn't arguing for everyone to think like him. He's arguing for the right to respectful and intellectual disagreement.
Erm.. have you heard of @JamesADamore ?
LMFAO
The article specifically talks about discussion around "pharmaceuticals for intelligence augmentation, genetic engineering, and radical life extension" being shut down. Where did you get the shitty "racist/sexist thoughts" from?
You, wannabe tech influencer, should read the rest of it where he talks about the gays.
Believe he is suggesting that criticism of gay people is an example of a downside to free speech (but with the upside of more potential for innovation)... Not an airtight argument, but certainly not an impugnment of "the gays" as you suggest
Brendan Eich
I don't expect to learn much from a disagreement with someone who isn't curious. Maybe Sam is the same way.
They are not only intellectual babies but also spoiled brats only concerned about their "freedom," never concerned about community, ethics, morals, duties, and obligations. Talk about claiming entitlement!
You simply and completely prove his point. People who are reactionary have never been taught to listen first then speak rationally. Keep it up.
don't be so gay!
You made his point dear!
Case close, next . . .
The CEO of Mozilla?
And he was funded by YC when? (Pro tip: read the question)
Again, it;s great that you get to set, Sarah, what's racist, sexist, etc...Because a lot of ppl feel what comes from the far-left falls under that, but that's ok, because they're not setting the tone of the debate. Keep arguing those straw mans. You'll be right every time.
And think of all the virtue signaling you can do, basking in your moral superiority, of arguing those relevant topics of 'gay ppl being evil' For FUCK sakes.
Why do you see opposition from the “politically correct” as heresy-calling, but conversations that make you feel comfortable as “debating controversial ideas?” You accuse PC of not wanting to have hard conversations, but it sounds like you want your views confirmed just as much.
Your whole post is like rain on a wedding day.
Isn't that ironic
I dunno if China is the shining example of "free speech" and "lack of political correctness" we should be striving for. Remember Liu Xiaobo, the labor camps, the golden shield? I remember.
China: Democratic Voice Liu Xiaobo Dies in Custody
The death of Chinese dissident and public intellectual Liu Xiaobo, winner of the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize, lays bare the Chinese government’s ruthlessness toward peaceful proponents of human rights and democracy.
hrw.org
Oh, and they actually banned Christmas there this year!
Yeah, this really seems delusional. China has some of the worst censorship in the world (just look at their "great firewall" or their suppression of protests). But apparently that's all cool to @sama, because he can talk about business ideas without getting funny looks?
Nope, it's cool because he can use hate speech against oppressed groups, there. That's really the only free speech in the country.
how do you ppl not get he wasn't arguing this is a whole. He was saying in the area that's infested with identity politics. How are you guys no getting this?
While I support religious freedom, and am sad about the Christmas tree, banning Western festivals is arguably good for China -- otherwise it may become run over by the mass mental illness currently afflicting the West.
seems like they banned christmas... at one University. not in all of China.
You can’t say “they” in reference to China, then give one example of a university lol. Btw - I live in Nanjing, China. They didn’t “ban” Christmas 😉
Susan, that's the fucking point. FUCK.
Puzzles me why Americans don't care about China. The paranoia we had of a Japanese takeover in the 80s isn't adequate alarm for China respect to U.S. interests and values
The most gender imbalanced country in the world is probably a very comfortable place... unless your the other gender.
You see the thing is he doesn't remember because he dropped out of a college not even interested in teaching engineers the liberal arts. "Oh it's not important you don't need to know that."
you know nothing about China.
I don't know. Do you?
I trust the experts on this.
Congratulations on missing the point...either purposefully or ignorantly. He didn't claim China was a "beacon" of free speech. His point is the opposite...His point is that's it's NOT, but still freer then the cultural climate of progressive San Francisco.
Yeah, it's so much more "comfortable" expressing unpopular opinions in China.
Record number of journalists jailed as Turkey, China, Egypt pay scant price for repression
For the second year in a row, the number of journalists imprisoned for their work hit a historical high, as the U.S. and other Western powers failed to pressure the world’s worst jailers--Turkey, China, and Egypt--into improving the bleak climate for press freedom. A CPJ special report by Elana...
cpj.org
> if you believe that both groups have equivalently important "ideas".
What makes you so sure they don't?
You don't perceive that there is a certain zero-sum dynamic happening here, do you? You also don't perceive that "exclusion," whether on a morally sound or morally corrupt basis, can be a starting point for real-world corruption?
you're a billionaire technocrat--what are you afraid of? which "controversial" ideas are you terrified of voicing?
"To learn who rules over you, simply find out who you are not allowed to criticize" - Voltaire
You're allowed to criticize Sam -- in fact, if you're a journo, the NYT will welcome your critical piece on Sam with open arms.
Ergo: is it Sam who's in power or the NYT consensus?
This is good Sam. Keep going.
I like how stuff like this ALWAYS comes from people who will be the least harmed by the bad & harmful ideas that'll be allowed to spread
He's LGBT. How won't he get harmed?
here's a controversial opinion, you are way too fucking rich and have completely lost touch with humanity. you think your douchebag techbro buddies getting called on their shit is an actual problem. you're not an innovator, youre a parasite.
Sam. Really? Genetic engineering is a controversial idea. Bitcoin is a controversial idea. Putting them on the same footing as "gay people are evil" legitimizes the latter as something that is worthy of consideration and debate.
Absolutely 100% this. Well said.
+💯 to what @EricaJoy said. Also, I strongly disagree with your comments about China. Try getting a group together there to talk about govt misuse of tech, for example.
None of this is to say that @sama doesn't have a point about ensuring support and space for healthy debate where it is useful (see e.g. media.mit.edu/events/forbidd…) but we also need to discourage our acquaintances from normalizing a bunch of really ugly and harmful stuff too.
The ugly stuff is exactly what sam and his funders want normalized and want to be able to shout from the rooftops.
That wasn't my experience but, when I started in SV, I did have a less developed sense of what was out there & how harmful it was in real life to people. My experience working with Trust & Safety teams, outside advocates & people taught + continues to teach me a lot.
You’re a wildly powerful, presumably white dude. Of COURSE that wasn’t your experience. That’s the entire point. I’m 100% confident that Harvey Weinstein wouldn’t have jerked off on you either.
fair point.
All this racism and shitposting is why Sam is right. You can’t have an opinion that doesn’t fit the “fuck-whitey” stereotype. Watch that shit drown you out completely. Big mistake.
That was not a fair point. That was a buch of bullshit projection and sjw garbage
Kevin Spacey might have done though.
Nah, I’m pretty sure Sam just wants stuff like life extension and genetic engineering.
He literally said the opposite but ok cool insist he’s innocent.
At the least charitable he wants it to be possible to shout from the rooftops in order to have the opposite also be possible to shout from the rooftops. He said he feared that in a place with chilling effects on discourse, things like “gay people are okay” are also forbidden.
I think they want both things: run any kind of business without considering the moral consequences, and shout the ugly stuff while doing it. Citing a scientist who was silenced by bigots while justifying bigotry is pure gold, too. Poor Galileo.
It's great that the far-left is deciding what the 'ugly stuff' is. You guys are visionaries, apparently, arguing against all those ppl who believe "being gay is evil". Are you sure you're not talking about the 15 member of the West Boro Baptist Church?
Now, i'll let you guys get back to the 'non-ugly stuff' like telling me based on my melanin and genitals what topics I can have an opinion on.
I've worked in startups since the 1980s. I have NEVER been in a business discussion where it was necessary to use bigotry. Period. If HIS discussions go there, with enough frequency that he sees being asked NOT to go there as an issue, then he has a BIG problem.
You people are crazy. Nobody suggested bigotry is OK but u lefties shout down anyone with a conservative point of view. Wow, the tyranny of the progressives continues....
nice straw man to argue against. Yah, that huge faction that argues "gay people are evil"-wtf. Even the small factions of fundamentalist Christians don't believe that. Who's making that argument?
try to argue about sound biological science in tech in the US. Your views get misrepresented, causes a huge backlash, and you're blacklisted, even if you;re one the brightest ppl in the world.
Genetic engineering is precisely the next thing to become on the same footing as "gay people are evil" -- if more people like Sam don't speak up. So bravo to Sam.
Policing speech is a direct path to totalitarianism because it acts as a "one-way ratchet."
Our press is incredibly good at "guilt by association." While genetic engineering seems like something many people should engage in a debate on, it is very easy for media to point to "a Bad Person (tm)" talking about and therefore defame the entire topic as off limits.
Your solution is that we should have a class above designated as those that determine what issues are worthy of consideration and debate? To think for us on all issues?
And if a stance is ridiculous, wouldn't it be exposed as such in consideration and debate?
I think Sam is saying some ppl ALREADY FEEL that genetic engineering is so evil as to not be worthy of debate. I agree his connection to PC is *really* bad and ill-advised. But his idea that PC Shutdown Culture is enabling Genetic Engineering Shutdown Culture is obviously true.
Although I want to be clear that there is a distinction here. Activists try to move the culture more towards PC for literal social justice. People who shut down GE discussion because "it's evil," do so bc of thoughtlessness. Unfair to blame PC Culture for their failings
IMO it's a slippery slope to start writing things off (as terrible as they may be) as unworthy of consideration & debate. I believe bad ideas will die if they get aired out.
Your triggered response is exactly the problem with the valley.
It's not a triggered response, it's an accurate assessment.
You’ve managed simultaneously to miss his point and illustrate it.
please illustrate the point more eloquently since she missed it, because I don't want to miss it as well...
The response to @sama’s post confirms that, in the current climate, one risks character assassination just for entertaining the possibility that we’d be better off being more tolerant of those with unorthodox viewpoints.
Unorthodox viewpoints isn't the problem. It's bigoted ones that are & there needs to be a separation of the two. @sama pointed out a lot of bigoted ones that he wants us to be tolerant of & that's the issue. Embracing Bitcoin as the future is unorthodox, saying gays r evil isn't.
Embracing Bitcoin/blockchain as the future USED to be unorthodox, now mainstream. Embracing plural marriage is unorthodox. Being against it is not CURRENTLY classed as bigotry. @sama used anti-gay as an example, but it could just as well be any other controversial stance.
Ok so by this logic, the notion that blacks are inferior to whites in any aspect should be still up for debate because someone believes this to be true and it'll advance technological advancement, correct?
Everything should be up for debate
There's plenty of ignorance in that line of thinking because it in itself opens up a path for ignorance. So Earth being flat, slavery never happening, gravity not being real, oxygen not being necessary to live, cannibalism and incest being ok, rape being legalized all debatable?
Someone who is confident in their beliefs shouldn’t be afraid of debating any of those things. Btw, cannibalism isn’t just ok, it’s morally required in many cases.
Being confident in ur beliefs isn't the issue. Giving people the leeway to discuss scientific fact is dangerous because it's givin their falsehoods validity when it's been proven false. BTW I'm talking cannibalism as in u going down the hall & randomly chewing a friend's hand off
Its not the cannibalism that’s the problem in your example, it’s the assault. The victim likely doesn’t care what happens to his hand after it’s been chewed off - unless there’s the possibility of reattaching it.
You can't say victim and then say they don't care...by the mere definition of the word alone, they had no choice in the matter and a crime has been committed in some form if the person is a victim.
Victim of assault
That would make it a crime, no?
So if it's a crime then what is the debate, according to you, whether it should be a crime to randomly go around chewing people?
Chewing doesn’t necessarily equal cannibalism
Cannibalism (n): a person who eats the flesh of other human beings... So unless you're trying to say as long as he didn't swallow it, he's good then I'm confused...
You can’t eat something without swallowing it.
Ok so let's say he swallowed, what's the debate here?
I’m just saying that actually eating the hand is arguably not immoral because that action is victimless
How is the action victimless?
It doesn’t hurt anyone
It doesn't hurt the person whose body the arm of attached to?
If the hand is no longer attached, chewing and swallowing it isn’t going to hurt the assault victim
I never said it wasn't attached though... So if it's attached then what's the debate?
You said “chewing a friend’s hand off”
Yes "chewing it off" the friend. Not chewing one that's already off
You can’t swallow it without chewing it completely off though
I'm confused by what you just said, but for the sake of argument...you bite the arm that's attached to the body, chew the arm, then swallow... What's the argument then?
If I chew your hand off, what difference does it make to you if I throw it down the disposal or eat it with fava beans and a nice chianti?
You're skipping ahead and that's not the question I posited. From what I stated, what's the debate there in terms of the crime committed?
There are at least 2 crimes committed: assault and cannibalism.
So if we both agree that a crime has been committed, what should be up for debate? The gravity of it? The punishment?
We weren’t talking about criminal liability though but instead morality.
No one specified what we were speaking about though, I just gave you an example.
I think Sam is right. The direction we’re headed is one where speech is stifled. The speech censors are bullies and the environment they’ve created limits and contracts the universe of acceptable discourse in a detrimental way.
So I would assume that you would be a person who is like "We have to let people Cat call women and sexually harass them if they can say something smart about healthcare"
What about when it's not a club? The #metoo phenomenon is a product of this moment of political correctness (if that's what you want to call it). Behaviors & speech that had been tolerated now aren't. Isn't that progress too? Lotta baby in that bathwater.
bad example the me too movement is already being used as a club and has taken down people for trivial stuff.. its all hysteria really.. u didnt need PC to bring down weinstein and actual predators
I think it's a better strategy to simply talk about the specific things you think are being censored but shouldn't be (intelligence augmentation, genetic engineering, etc.) rather than just say political correctness has gone mad. People will just assume you like hate speech.
"I am not worried that letting some people on the internet say things like “gay people are evil” is going to convince any reasonable people that such a statement is true." -> worth noting this is basically the Daily Stormer style guide/strategy:
This Is The Daily Stormer's Playbook
A leaked style guide reveals they’re Nazis about grammar (and about Jews).
huffingtonpost.com
It is worth noting that many authoritarian governments has used a boogeyman (Hitler if on the left, Lenin if on the right) to suppress free expression. Can't let people express themselves freely because that's what <supporters of said boogeyman> are doing!
The irony about your statement is that Hitler was a socialist and on the Left. Hitler was a national socialist and Lenin was a Marxist socialist. The two were/are very much alike. Both killed millions. Next in line? Progressive Socialists. They will be the new Nazi Party.
or those who say White privilege is the problem...or blacks, Hispanics, etc. When we talk about ideas we win. When we talk about who provided the idea we lose.
How do you know gay people aren't evil?
This feels like a strawman to me. The issue is housing and the fact that diversity is impossible. What are the opinions you felt uncomfortable voicing in SF specifically?
This is stupid and wrong
Privilege is when you're only ever attacked for your shitty ideas, and it only ever happens online.
"...and so on". That's a great coupon to have in your censorious pocket.
This post is bad and you should feel bad. You cannot just generalize "controversial ideas" - clearly your ideas are politicized in ways that fit in better in the authoritarian Beijing than the left-leaning SF. Social consequences are not authoritarianism!
It's naive to assume that authoritarianism is something that is solely imposed by the state. Every authoritarian government has relied on support of a segment of population, whose vicious disapproval can always be framed as "mere social consequences."
If you can present evidence of a single instance of government censorship or authoritarianism related to "SJWs" then I would oppose it. But it doesn't exist - "SJW authoritarianism" is just a boogeyman to keep people in fear and to the right of center.
"If you can present evidence of a single instance "
Worth noting that government in Western countries *delegates* authority to institutions such as universities. In that light...
What is C-16? Who is Lindsay Shepherd?
Lindsay Shepherd is a couragious young woman who's shown wisdom and tenacity.
Laws which protect gender minorities from discrimination are no more authoritarian than laws which protect people from being discriminated against on the basis of race. I fail to see authoritarianism here.
Familiarize yourself with the concept "regulatory capture" (where a government agency purporting to do one thing does the opposite).
Now think whether there might exist such a thing as "minority protection capture" where harm to minorities is used as bait to suppress freedom.
That is a ridiculous idea and you have no evidence to support your assertion that it has occurred.
Lindsay Shepherd was not censored, her rights not abridged. The idea that she's some martyr for free speech is a ridiculous right-wing fantasy
> Lindsay Shepherd was not censored, her rights not abridged.
Did you listen to the recording? It was implied by her interrogators that her showing both sides of a debate might lead to her being disciplined or fired. How is that "not being censored"?
Here is a link to the full recording for anyone interested:
Here’s the full recording of Wilfrid Laurier reprimanding Lindsay Shepherd for showing a Jordan Peterson video
Teaching assistant Shepherd was accused of creating a ‘toxic climate’ at the university by screening a televised debate discussing gender-neutral pronouns
nationalpost.com
Free speech is not the right to a job. Even government jobs can have reasonable restrictions on their employees' speech while working, especially when such speech represents the government as a publicly funded teacher does. She still has the freedom to speak outside of her job.
By your logic, a business or the government would not be allowed to fire their employees for using racial slurs towards customers. Of course she could be disciplined or fired for conduct deemed inappropriate for an educator.
A university (which takes public money) is not the same as a private corp. The mission of a university is to foster critical thinking, which is impossible to accomplish without hearing both points of view.
Note how you are shifting goalposts.
> First you say "Lindsay Shepherd was not censored"
> I present evidence that she in fact was.
> Then you claim "the administrators had a right to restrict Lindsay's speech"
You, sir, are authoritarian scum of the worst kind. Nuremberg now.
Also note that you do not have a good argument here -- even the Wilfrid Laurier University itself begrudgingly admitted that Lindsay Shepherd had wrong done to her.
Wilfrid Laurier University's president apologizes to Lindsay Shepherd for dressing-down over Jordan Peterson clip
Shepherd secretly recorded the meeting, where she was told she had created a 'toxic climate' in the class and it was suggested she had broken the law
nationalpost.com
They caved to conservative pressure, this apology is meaningless considering how politicized the situation got.
So all the liberals following Lindsay Shepherd on Twitter are "conservatives" now? Is supporting freedom of argument a conservative position now?
Is supporting critical thinking a conservative position now? If so, you may not like where the "liberal" path leads.
Why is it that University of Texas is moving to restrict the freedom of tenured professors. Isn't the point of of universities that tenured professors have a right to speak *in their position* as professors? What is going on here?
And how is a private organization (which most University departments aren't, at least not entirely) restricting speech not a form of "private authoritarianism"?
You did not respond to my example earlier upthread regarding the ways in which private (and public) employers are allowed to restrict the speech of their employees while said employees are working.
Applying ideas to your political opponents which they clearly do not agree with is a bad faith tactic. Stop doing it or I will mute and ignore you
Calling out people for their hypocrisy is not a "bad faith" argument -- in fact, it is the opposite of "bad faith."
You fail to show how I have been a hypocrite and seem more interested in "winning" and attacking me than actually engaging with my ideas.
The hypocrisy lies in the fact that about six years ago the Left had abandoned one of its main slogans it used to rally under (freedom of speech) -- and has done so in a quiet, surreptitious manner, so as not to raise eyebrows.
As a fervent leftist I find this assertion baseless and ridiculous. Freedom of speech is a core value of my politics and every other leftist I know. What's your evidence for this claim?!
My evidence for the fact that freedom of speech is not a core value of the left anymore is this entire thread starting with Sam Altman's original post.
But see that's the thing - I do not see how Sam Altman's freedom of speech has ever been infringed in any meaningful way. I see people responding to SA's speech with more speech. If anything, that's why SA makes me so angry - he's the boy who cried censorship, so to speak.
I take freedom of speech and claims of censorship very seriously, and here is this rich white dude whining that he can't say whatever he wants without some people being unhappy and responding. It's frankly pathetic and infuriating.
Meanwhile BLM and other peaceful protest groups are subject to mass arrests and labeled as terrorists for exercising their rights to freedom of speech, and I hear crickets from the conservatives who rally around every white dude who pissed people off by saying something bigoted.
This is understandable. On one hand, it is true that, being rich, Sam can whatever he wants and still live a good life afterwards. He may lose a few friends/partnerships, but he won't be fired from only job and become an alcoholic.
On the other hand -- the only reason we're having this conversation now -- is thanks to Sams' large platform/audience, which comes with being rich.
I know many people who are not rich, yet who feel similarly to Sam. If they brought the issue up, nobody would listen to them.
But freedom of speech is not entitlement to an audience. Just because you are free to speak does not mean people are required to listen to you. I do not believe SA would have been censored in the cases he mentions even if he were not wealthy.
Just because people FEEL like they are being censored does not mean those feelings are accurate. Isn't it a favorite (deeply disingenuous and unproductive) rhetoric of the right that we need to focus on "facts not feelings?"
A "fact: is something that happens. If this "happening" means you being fired from a job, you are forced to rely on "feelings" that the fact may come to realization.
But I've already said that I think LS's case is either not censorship (she did a bad job so she got fired) or at worst an extreme outlier. after which the school apologized! You have no evidence that this is a widespread issue, or that when it happens it does not get addressed.
If anything, LS's case is clear proof that there is plenty of vigorous defense for those who espouse controversial conservative views. I'm not worried about another LS getting censored and not getting defended in the same way.
No-no, I mentioned audience not as an *entitlement* but as a *means* through which the freedom of speech issue comes to public view.
I would never argue that every crazy view is entitled to a large audience.
Well than what are you arguing? Those people who feel similarly to Sam, they are free to speak their minds, I fail to see how anyone is censoring them by not listening or responding negatively using their freedom of speech?
We live in a world where the only people with large platforms are:
1) celebrities or public figures whose livelihood is dependent on good publicity from the (ideologically conformist) media
2) rich people with "fuck you" money
3) academics with ultra-conformist networks.
I disagree that the media is "ideologically conformist" - evidence?
I disagree that individuals in category #3 actually have large platforms - evidence?
I disagree that these are the only people with "large platforms" - conservative pundits/media are HUGELY influential.
And even IF I took your assertions as given (which I don't) those are three examples of individuals (and groups of individuals) exercising their freedom of speech. What's your point? Would you censor any one of these groups?
And once again - what exactly is the issue? SA has not been censored, you have no evidence that the LS incident was anything more than a fluke incident - where is this big ole issue you seem to assume I agree exists?
I agree that freedom of speech is an important, fundamental value, but I do not agree that the force you see as a threat to it is a threat. I see other threats to freedom of speech, many of them, but not the left-wing university boogeyman that I think is an invention of the right
If anything, the biggest threat to freedom of speech in universities I have seen is the influx of donor money into public education which comes with strings attached. Perhaps this is only an issue here in the US, I'm not sure.
politico.com/story/2017/10/…
How the Koch Brothers Are Influencing U.S. Colleges
They're giving millions in a bid to win students' hearts and minds.
time.com
So I find his (and other similar people who either have wealth, privilege, or right-wing media fame) musings on "censorship" deeply irritating and disingenuous. Do you have any response to this?
Supporting her is not supporting "freedom of argument" and you know it! You're arguing in bad faith and I tire of you.
I do not know Lindsay Shepherd personally. What I know is that it should not be controversial to show a segment aired on public television to a classroom.
It is impossible to argue that disciplining a teaching assistant over this is not a form of authoritarianism.
It is if said segment has nothing to do with the class being taught and is clearly politicized in nature. It is ridiculous to think that this is authoritarianism!
"Irrelevant to course content" is a very easy objection to make -- and none of Lindsay's interlocutors has insisted on it -- which suggests that the segment was in fact relevant.
Even if I assume yr right about all of this (I'm still deeply skeptical but honestly too tired to keep going down this unproductive path) I still don't see how this ONE instance of a university messing up w a TA and then apologizing is an indicator of authoritarianism on the left
If they apologized, how is this authoritarianism?!
I honestly had no idea they apologized until you brought it up, sorry, I'm not Canadian, this is new shit for me and I'm doing a lot of leg work I'd appreciate if you'd be a bit more patient and less aggro
WLU apologized after public pressure (call it "conservative" pressure, I don't care - there were plenty of liberals on board).
If you care about freedom of speech, you should follow a few posters (like @NewWorldHominin) that talk about this issue.
Sorry if I was aggressive. GN
Well thank you for the apology.
medium.com/@thylacinerepo…
I find this article compelling and I am uninterested in following someone who I think does not actually defend free speech, but uses it as a guise to push conservative-leaning politics.
Thank you for your time.
The WLU/Lindsay Shepherd controversy was never about free speech
On November 10, Christie Blatchford published a piece decrying the demise of free speech on university campuses across Canada in response…
medium.com
It is true that the free speech debate overlaps with conservative politics, because it is conservative politics that is being attacked institutionally at the moment. Lindsay is young and may come across as conservative, (though her username suggests she believe in evolution!)
For a poster who is more careful about not explicitly siding with conservatives I suggest @BretWeinstein (he did appear on Tucker, but then again -- I am not a leftist but if the Jacobin or the Guardian offered me a platform, I would take it).
After a cursory investigation, I see tired and hackneyed points with little evidence to back them up - I am afraid I'll pass on Bret Weinstein.
Also this video sums up my thoughts on Tucker and his ilk -
Jon Stewart on Crossfire with Tucker Carlson | October 15, 2004
In honor of #TuckerCarlson slithering into the esteemed chair at The...err...Factor, let's take a moment to commemorate #JonStewart's legendary appearance on...
youtube.com
I disagree VERY STRONGLY that conservative politics are being attacked institutionally at the moment, at least not here in the US. Conservatives hold myriad political power here in the US and they exert their influence across all of our institutions.
I am DEEPLY familiar with the rhetoric used by conservatives to manufacture the image that conservative politics are "being attacked" - narratives about universities, the mainstream media, Hollywood, etc which are all not backed by any real evidence.
I am familiar with the rhetoric as well. A lot of it is false and, well, rhetorical.
However, I am also familiar with the university system from the inside, and it is here where I find the conservative rhetoric *insufficiently* targeted. University system is beyond salvation now
What the conservatives don't realize is that there isn't a single organized "conspiracy" at the universities against them. Instead, the universities became an "agar plate" on which intellectual mold began to grow -- and resulted in creation of a new "religion."
This religion can be compared to various things, but it is certainly millenarian in outlook, has its own "path to salvation," even has people for whom salvation will be denied.
The situation is far, far worse than conservatives realize.
Your thesis seems ridiculous to be honest. I'd be interested to see your evidence to back it up, but the semantics are getting a bit off the rails - your meaning in the usage of the terms "intellectual mold" and "religion" is unclear to me here.
I have a theory about the formation of cults. I could write at length about it, but the gist is that there is often an economic "gradient" which serves as energy source for the cult. There is also a moral "barrier" without which the cult would simply be a form of corruption.
Okay well I don't really see how your theory is relevant here. I personally feel like this discussion is getting off track of our original topic, which was freedom of speech and when exactly it is under real threat. I'd prefer to stay on topic.
The "gradient" is the agar on the plate. The moral "barrier" is the pre-existing growth on the plate (bacterial or otherwise) against which the cult has to develop an antibiotic. Hence the analogy with mold.
I don't follow - who is the cult and what beliefs do they hold which we need "salvation" from? Please be specific, examples are appreciated.
The salvation theology is a way of dealing with the "moral barrier" of a pre-existing cult, a set of norms, or a religion. It corresponds to the antibiotic in the mold analogy.
I do not understand, please be specific. What is the cult, what is the "moral barrier", and what "salvation" is necessary? And what evidence do you have to back all this up?
I can't summarize what could be 400 pages of content really. I can only offer vague outlines. As for evidence, some of it is supported by evidence, but a lot of it is conjecture (and I admit that).
I'm afraid your conjecture won't convince me of anything and I've got a body of evidence which I think supports my current conclusion - that the idea of left-wing authoritarianism is almost entirely manufactured rhetoric for the right and poses no substantial threat to FOS)
If you happen to find evidence, I'm happy to spend the time reading/digesting it, though I'm less likely to watch video. Right wing YouTube is a hellhole and I don't want to give those fuckers any money to be perfectly honest.
More semantics questions - what exactly is this "salvation" and what would it be saving the university system from? Evidence to back up these claims and ideas?
Okay. We have very different perspectives on this and we should probably part, but I am glad there was maybe 5% of agreement between us.
I'm very curious to see your evidence/arguments to back up your assertion that "conservative politics are being attacked institutionally" because I honestly don't think that evidence exists.
Please present them when you get the chance, I promise I'll listen.
I think the problem is not so much that conservative politics is being attacked institutionally (it probably even deserves to be attacked in many cases!) but that a new kind of non-conservative (and arguably non-liberal) politics is being pushed *through* the institutions.
Well, I don't want to be pedantic or in bad faith, but this does seem like an instance of you moving your goal posts. Do you completely redact your claim that "conservative politics are being attacked institutionally" or not? It seemed pretty essential to some of your arguments.
As for your claim that a "new kind of...politics is being pushed" in institutions - what evidence do you have to back up this claim? I honestly don't understand what you mean by it, examples would be enlightening.
This is the best "glimpse behind the curtain" I've seen
Two professors on how leftist intolerance is killing higher education
For today’s social justice warriors, only one narrative shall be allowed. It is unquestionable. Those who dissent are guilty.
washingtonexaminer.com
This article is vague on a lot of important details - the student protests are not explored or explained but simply hand-waved away, the changes to the school's structure/policy aren't explained fully, and the video "evidence" presented is unclear in regard to the claims made.
I feel I still do not have enough information to judge this particular situation, and considering that Fox and Tucker have had their hands on it, I am deeply suspicious of the motives at play. Especially as the article goes on the claims made start to exaggerate and generalize.
Ultimately even after quite a bit of digging, I cannot say whether I think this situation is censorship or simply a tactless professor losing their job by pissing off a lot of people and acting inappropriately. I will admit, this situation is unclear.
But the extrapolated conclusion that this situation represents a larger portrait of universities in general or a larger movement of left-wing censorship is completely unsubstantiated - this professor only knows this one school, this anecdote is not universal evidence.
I asked you what evidence you have that a "new kind of politics" is being pushed on ALL/MOST university campuses - from my perspective, this is a single anecdote which is not sufficient evidence to prove your thesis. I need statistics, evidence of this issue on a wide scale.
This is not goalpost pushing, by the way - I asked for evidence that this was an issue in all/most institutions, not for a single example.
What are we trying to "prove" exactly? That universities overwhelmingly lean left? The stats are a few Google clicks away. That the Millennial generation is disturbingly authoritarian? Also a Google click away.
If those two ideas are "a Google click away" then why don't you send me a link? I certainly cannot find sufficient evidence to back up those two ideas.
You made the claim that a "new kind of politics" is being pushed in the majority of institutions - I want evidence to back up that claim, a claim which I do not agree is true. I cannot find any evidence that backs up your claim, otherwise I'd agree with it.
Do some universities lean left? Certainly. Do as many also lean right? Also certainly
Do some millennials lean authoritarian in their politics? Certainly. Do more millennials lean authoritarian in their politics than previous generations? I dont believe there is evidence of that
"Do some universities lean left? Certainly. Do as many also lean right? Also certainly" 😂
"Do more millennials lean authoritarian in their politics than previous generations?" YES
Harvard research suggests that an entire global generation has lost faith in democracy
Fed up—or giving up?
qz.com
Right-leaning universities abound in the US (often religious schools) and the private ones restrict their students in ways unthinkable to public schools. I'm not saying that public universities don't lean left on average, but to ignore/dismiss right-leaning schools is inaccurate.
* Right-leaning universities exist but I can count them on my fingers. Chicago, Claremont McKenna, George Mason, and that's about it (plus some religious schools).
Not to mention how right-wing ideas are being pushed into universities through the donations of wealthy conservatives -
Spreading the Free-Market Gospel
What’s new and interesting about the Koch brothers’ approach to funding academics
theatlantic.com
that's a decent list -- though doesn't include some interesting cases (like Chicago opposing "snowflakes" in an open letter and also being home to Leo Strauss legacy)
Though judging from length, it is more of a case of "these colleges are not blatantly left-wing"
Well, what counts as the center is 100% subjective, and often the grounds for the most vigorous of political struggles.
As for this Q article, I have not seen these numbers. They are certainly alarming, though I must note that there is nothing here to suggest that these shifting attitudes are connected to left-wing politics. Sure, younger people trend left, but still, correlation is not causation.
The shift to authoritarianism is orthogonal to politics. I am not blaming the left solely for it (though I like to blame the left). BOTH right-wingers and left-wingers are more authoritarian now.
I suppose I'd agree with that general statement, though I'd disagree with the extent - considering how politics have gone in the US recently, I'd say that the right is more guilty of partisanship and authoritarianism than the left is by a long shot.
I'd even suggest that this rising authoritarianism in general is a response to rising populist authoritarianism in the right-wing specifically as an effective tactic to gain and maintain political power despite using said power only to benefit the extremely wealthy.
I am more skeptical since this seems to be a self-perpetuating feedback loop. The right could also claim that its authoritarianism (anti-media policy) is a result of suppression of speech etc
But that brings us back to our original conversation - you never convinced me that there is suppression of right-wing speech occurring in any meaningful, institutional way!
When Trump bashes the media, for example, it isn't because Trump is being censored, but because he is being criticized and taken to task for his lying. This is the prime example of a conservative crying censorship or "fake news" in the face of facts and free speech.
Do you think the media never lies -- or just more rarely than Trump does? How would you rate its reliability on a scale from 1 to 10?
As to never convincing you that conservatives are persecuted by the institutions, that is something I am happy to leave aside as either "needs no proof" or "proof strictness will depend on the politics of the reader"
No assertion "needs no proof" - that is, unless you're in a cult I suppose...
I jest - but seriously, proof strictness should not be dependent on the politics of the reader! Proof strictness should be absolute, the truth exists and it matters! To deny or side step this is to operate in bad faith, in my opinion.
"the media" is far too vague and broad a category of individual voices to evaluate on such a criteria as a 1 to 10 scale. Regardless, I put effort into my consumption of media to try to always stick with media sources that do not lie or mislead, or do so minimally.
But I'd say that the most reliable of mainstream media institutions (that is discounting FOX for example) lie far less than Trump, and spend far more resources focused on pursuing the truth as opposed to political ends.
It's an interesting case because Bret 1) one the most strategically tactful people alive (far cry from say Peterson), 2) had stood up for liberal causes in the past, 3) is super-smart with a unique perspective on the world.
Worth checking out but I really want to be done here...
I don't necessarily agree with 1 or 3.
He comes off as deeply condescending in the short videos in the article, which though permissible is certainly not tactful. As for 3, completely subjective.
As for 2, seems irrelevant to me tbh. People shift their politics.
As for 1) many professors come across as "condescending" (though he's not condescending at all in a JRE video which I recommend) -- that kind of comes with being a prof.
You have to admit though that just by the way Bret phrases his thoughts, he's a different beast from Peterson
I mean honestly I am so deeply uninterested in spending more time reading his tedious writing that I will gladly move on from this incident and concede it as "unclear" though not sufficient evidence for your claims regardless.
He's more fun to listen to than to read, I admit that.
I honestly find everything about this man pretty detestable, much like Ben Shapiro or Milo Yiannopoulos.
I find this comparison laughable and absolutely hilarious. Faved to reflect that.
I see similar rhetoric and narratives being woven to similar political ends.
Its a tactic as well from the conservative side. They have every right to challenge legislation in our court systems, except they prefer to add drama for their own agenda.
Mark, you consistently attack Lindsay Shepherd in every Twitter thread that says something positive about her. Since somehow you, likely a Canadian, end up here, in a SF-focused discussion, suggests that you're a troll.
You know, there are searches in Twitter allowing you to gain knowledge from many sources and also tests your own biases. But I guess you feel that’s attacking.
Your tweet is more understandable if one translates "gain knowledge" to "spread smears and misinformation" and "test your own biases" as "reinforce negative propaganda."
You redact your claim that "conservative politics are being attached institutionally at the moment", yes?
I phrased it badly. At the moment, it is not so much conservative politics under institutional attack as classical liberalism (or even 1990s liberalism).
That is a very different thing.
I would argue that the right has done far more to attack classical liberalism than the left, but honestly I am really uninterested in continuing this conversation.
You're correct. It's subjective, but that's the professor's job to evaluate. Its their class and they get to set the style and content. In this case, I'm not convinced it was fact relevant in "what are pronouns and how to use them". Seems more politically motivated.
What I wrote was that Lindsay interrogation session did not focus on her content being "irrelevant" but rather on it being somehow "harmful."
This suggests very strongly that interrogators themselves believe that JBP video was relevant.
She was not censored! They have the right to restrict her speech while performing her job, she is still free to speak outside of it.
No goalposts have moved, you attack me with ad hominems too eagerly and fail to engage with my ideas.
You have evidence that she was fired from her job for her conduct, sure, but I am asserting that this was not an act of censorship. Censorship would mean her speech is suppressed or eliminated - on the contrary, she's been free to spread her garbage to people like you!
Honestly from my research on the topic it was unclear what repercussions she suffered, but my arguments are the same regardless. She was not censored, she was doing her job badly and suffered consequences for that.
If the university had committed no wrong -- why did the President of the University publicly apologize to Lindsay Shepherd?
The overall mission of a publicly funded university and the individual job responsibilities of one teacher are not one and the same. Do you really believe that all teachers and professors should have free reign to do and say anything they please in their classrooms?
Also, there are more than "both" points of view on every issue, and universities have limited resources. Do you expect every university to entertain any point of view at any time? To give platform and money and teaching time to anyone? Ridiculous!
I repeat: The Wilfrid Laurier University itself admitted that it has committed a mistake. You do not have an argument.
You being uninterested in my ideas does not make them m invalid.
And besides - no evidence has been presented that said social consequences fall outside of the fair rights and freedoms of the individuals who exercise them! People have the right to not like you because of the things you say. Free speech is not freedom from consequences.
It is authoritarianism, the way the left uses it.
Social consequences for one's actions are the result of everyone having freedom of speech, not authoritarianism. I do not think you understand what authoritarianism is if you think lefty people exercising their free speech is authoritarian.
He should "feel bad" the problem is that is all the left knows how to do is feel. They have lost all capacity for rational though.
This post is also bad and completely unproductive.
You pull the classic "anything I disagree with is irrational" fallacy so loved by the most intellectually bankrupt conservatives. Really not interested in hearing what you think is "rational" when you open with that.
SF is more communist than China and more gay!
Yeah, isn't SF great? More communist AND more gay! What more could you ask for? I'd be happy with one or the other.
"Social consequences are not authoritarianism!" No, but one is used to enforce the other though. Progressives socialist are becoming so much like their national socialist cousins that youre nearly indistinguishable.
Are you saying that progressives should not have the right to free speech? Because that's what social consequences are - the free speech of others.
And your comparison to Nazis is wholly unfounded and nonsensical and I'm deeply uninterested in hearing more of such ridiculousness
it's hilarious you don't see 'liberal' SF as authoritarian. Both Beijing and SF are becoming authoritarian, in different areas, and at different scopes/costs. It's not an either or.
In Beijing journalists can be put in jail for writing anything the Chinese government doesn't like.
In San Francisco, people will shun you if you're homophobic.
One of those things is authoritarian. The other is other people exercising their freedom.
Show me one example of actual "authoritarianism" in SF. Just one!
Oh wait, you can't, it's just rich bigots whining about not being able to say whatever they want without other people exercising their rights to free speech in response.
Yes, I didn't say they were equal. The corporate culture is monolithic, and authoritarian. I wonder though, if SF had the authority, if ppl would start going to jail concerning wrong-think on identity political issues.
"if SF had the authority, if ppl would start going to jail"
No. Ridiculous. Completely unmoored from reality.
many in SF argue for 'hate speech' laws. We see it in Europe. And again, it's nice that YOU get to decide what is homophobic. SF called Damore's speech misogynistic. Which I completely disagreed with, then the authoritarian culture removed him.
Damore lost his job because he caused Google a PR nightmare. Google has the right to hire who they want. Damore has not been censored - he's continued to be free to speak his mind.
Not authoritarianism.
The culture is authoritarian. The culture. Of course he hasn't been silenced, SF doesn't have the authority. It appears he has been blacklisted, though. People in your industry cause PR nightmares anytime they speak on these issues.
"The culture is authoritarian" is just a way of saying "people are using their free speech in ways that I do not like" Culture cannot be authoritarian because it does not have the power to enforce anything! Damore is free.
You have zero evidence of any real authoritarianism!
Politics is downstream from culture. Wherever the culture goes, politics is going to follow. Of course it has immense power.
But what are you advocating then - do you want to control culture? That sounds authoritarian to me!
You can't use the term "authoritarian" as just a blanket term for stuff you don't like. It has a stronger meaning than that.
No, I want a true liberal culture, not a progressive one. I want someone who would feel comfortable speaking out against 'diversity' practices at Google, and a person who feels comfortable supporting it. However, only one of this exist now.
Damore was certainly comfortable speaking out against Google, and though he lost his job, he has been rewarded by the conservative media for his speech!
And plenty of other people (like you) have been agreeing with and supporting Damore. I don't see anyone being censored. If there are more Damores at Google they are choosing to not follow his same path to keep their jobs. That is not censorship, that is their choice.
This argument is whether SF is CULTURALLY authoritarian. And your point is he got hired by a conservative outlet? What sense does that make.
I'm saying that the very term "culturally authoritarian" is an oxymoron. It's just a fancy way of getting annoyed that other people whose politics you disagree with have the same rights that you do.
when ppl in SF speak on, name a hot button issue-Refugees. There's a significant percentage of the public who disagree. It's just the authoritarian culture disagreed w/ Damore strongly, so they rationalized his firing.
"the authoritarian culture" - yeah so you just wanna restrict the rights of people whose politics you disagree with to employ who they want. I get it - you're the authoritarian!
hahaha. When did I suggest that. I would like everyone to speak their opinions. Not chose which ones are fire-able, based in personal politics.
You would like for businesses to not be allowed to fire people for their political opinions, even if said political opinions are harming said business? Once again, sounds authoritarian to me.
I never said that. I said I can criticize it, and call it what it is. A dominant orthodoxy on culture opinions, that's not liberal in nature, but progressive. I want true liberalism.
Well what you want and what other people have the freedom to do are different things. You can't just call other people exercising their freedoms in ways you don't like "authoritarian" - it's inaccurate and deceptive.
of course what I want, and what other people want are different. That's why I argue for liberalism, and not progressivism. I want it all. I want bother pro & anti BLM ppl to share their opinions w/o losing their jobs. However, only one side, currently, is allowed to do that.
That is 100% untrue. I'd argue that more people lose their jobs for having left-leaning politics than the reverse. SF is just an exception to the rule - in most of the US lefty politics are more likely to get you fired.
what Europe has is an authoritarian policy to stop 'wrong-think;
Sorry, I thought we were talking about American politics? I'm really not interested in getting into YET ANOTHER pointless conversation with you.
Damore is a piece of evidence. He was fired & blacklisted. However, others in your industry constantly speak out on gender, race, orientation issues, yet face no repercussions.
Damore has been "blacklisted" because of the PR nightmare he caused Google. Others have not caused such trouble to their companies. It isn't complicated dude.
Free speech does not mean immunity from consequences, especially when those consequences are others' free speech.
"Hate speech" laws are a complex matter - first of all, they are nowhere near passing here in the US, so your concern is a bit irrational.
Second of all, hate speech laws are a complex intersection of freedom of speech with other fundamental rights. Ppl have the right to safety.
Free speech is already abridged in other ways when it infringes upon other rights - direct actionable threats can get you into legal trouble, for example. Hate speech laws just extend these protections to generalized threats of social groups.
Yes, I never said it didn't. That's why I said you're already protected from violence.
Well, under current law, it is legal for neo-nazi groups to advocate for the genocide of Jewish people, or for Christian radicals to advocate for the extermination of LGBT people. Some would say that such speech is a threat of violence which can silence speech.
People in SF shun people whose politics they disagree with, but I am unaware of anyone in SF calling for genocide.
If that's your ying and yang. I don't know what to say. Nazi's are your antithesis? I am talking about the gray area, not fucking Nazis
What I mean is that people is SF do not persecute anyone to the degree that other groups do in the US. It is far more dangerous to be a queer in the deep south than to be a bigot in SF. I haven't heard of any bigots in SF being murdered for their bigotry.
Yes, you're right. No ultra-progressive techy is murdering any conservatives. Your point? I don't live in the South, or in SF, so I can't say in 2017 which is worse. If your argument is concerning the past, then yes the South was much more dangerous.
My argument is that the "dangers" of expressing conservative politics in SF are overblown, and in fact, the extension of the freedoms and rights of individual people. To decry that as "authoritarian" is to call into question those very rights and freedoms, to be anti free speech!
And some people believe going against 'dreamers' is hate speech, or talking about Muslim immigration. What's your point?
Those ppl are free to believe what they want. Show me an example of them trying to make laws which enforce these positions and I'll gladly join you in fighting authoritarianism.
But right now, it doesn't exist. Just rich people complaining they cant say anything w/o consequences
I would argue agreeing with hate speech laws is them trying to pass legislation.
"agreeing with hate speech laws" - show me your evidence that the majority of SF supports the passing of hate speech laws.
It doesn't exist!
I gotta go dude, we're talking in circles. I can't spend all morning arguing this. Thank you for the debate, and have a good weekend!
If you are interested in fighting some REAL authoritarianism -
CDC gets list of forbidden words: Fetus, transgender, diversity
Agency analysts have been told to avoid these seven banned words and phrases in budget documents.
washingtonpost.com
No, they wont, but if Hillary had one they would be much closer. The constitution is just a document. I agree, and we already have laws protecting ppl's safety from speech.
You have not presented a single piece of evidence to back up your ridiculous claim that the social pressures in SF (which are freedom of speech!) would evolve into legal measures to restrict freedom. This is a ridiculous notion with no basis in reality.
It didn't matter that he used sound science, even if it's not correct, it was sound. It shouldn't even have come close to approaching a fire-able offense, but it did. That's the thing with these issues, none of the science is settled.
"It shouldn't even have come close to approaching a fire-able offense" - You are advocating for restricting the rights of a business to hire and fire who they please?
No, they are perfectly allowed, and I can criticize it. I want Damore to keep his job, and the opposite to keep his/her job.
Your criticism is disingenuous though - you are calling it "authoritarianism" which is simply not true. You just want people whose politics you agree with to not face social consequences from people whose politics you disagree with - you want to restrict the freedom of others.
Or, you could stop throwing around the word "authoritarianism" so haphazardly and realize that your real criticism is that you just don't like Google's politics. Which you are entitled to feel, but calling them "authoritarian" is a lie.
hence why I say the 'culture'-that's the important word. is authoritarian. I am not saying they're authoritarian in the governmental sense. THE CULTURE....
But that's nonsensical - what do you think I've been trying to demonstrate by all my accusations of you being authoritarian? Culture alone can't be authoritarian - in order for something to be authoritarian it needs to have the power to oppress and control directly.
Nobody in SF has that power. Damore lost his job, but he's got a new one as a conservative pundit and his free speech is stronger than ever. He has not been oppressed or controlled. He just lost a job because he's a sexist turd.
Yah, but why didn't he get a job in his field of expertise? Damore is clearly one of the most gifted in the world, so why didn't a company snag him up in a second? Hmmm...
lol damore is gifted
he's a pr nightmare and tons of google employees said his work was sub-par at best.
A company didn't snag him up because he's a terrible employee who will cause them all sorts of trouble!
Yes, it is authoritarian in nature. That's why I called it CULTURAL, and not governmental. You're saying because it doesn't mirror government authoritarianism, then it's not authoritarian. That's not true.
This conversation is unproductive. You are uninterested in real dialog.
Silicon Valley didn't have the power to control/oppress directly? Tell that to James, because they certainly oppressed his point of view, and directly controlled his employment status. You're arguing government. I AM NOT. Again, that's why I said CULTURAL-it's a monolith.
Jame Damore does not have the RIGHT to a job at Google. Google firing him is not a form of oppression.
And Damore's job at Google was not gender science.
So damore was the only one to talk about these issues? Sanders, at Facebook, seems to talk about these issues. Is that her job?
People are free to speak about whatever they like outside their jobs, but they are not free from consequences. If their speech results in negative attention to their company (which is the free speech of others) then the company certainly has the right to fire them!
Sanders speech causes negative reaction. ANYTIME you speak on these topics it causes NEGATIVE reaction. The debate is when you talk about these issues from a progressive point of view you suffer no consequences.
I mean, SF is a progressive city, the majority of people there are progressive, what do you expect?
Do you think gay activists are going to get a warm welcome in a deeply Christian town? Think they'll have an easy time finding work?
They might have a hard time finding work, that's true. and that is WRONG. I would argue just as hard for them. I am not a Christain. I want LIBERALISM.
Well I certainly don't see people like you advocating as strongly for the rights of poor queers as much as you spend time defending rich men. And you certainly aren't calling those Christian towns "authoritarian" or panicking about them.
Would you actually argue just as hard for them? I honestly find that really hard to believe, considering how conservative your politics skew.
Would you fight just as hard for peaceful BLM activists to not lose their jobs? For other left-wingers, atheists, trans people?
Transgender people lose their jobs for their freedoms (not even speech, just the way they present to the world) more than any other group. Why aren't you spending your time advocating for them?
Progressivism is just as authoritarian, as the Christain-Right of the Bush years. I hate them both. However, progressives dominate the culture in 2017.
Are you kidding? You have to be kidding. TRUMP IS IN THE WHITE HOUSE. THE GOP HOLDS THE MAJORITY IN THE WHOLE CONGRESS. HOW CAN YOU SAY THAT PROGRESSIVES DOMINATE THE CULTURE?
I am really only interested in finishing the part of this conversation about your first claim, which you seem to have backed down from. Negative social consequences are not authoritarianism, and you know it!
Being called out for being ethically and emotionally challenged is a hell of a lot different from being threatened with violence.
You are mistaken to presume that people who speak out on controversial topics peacefully aren't threatened with violence by a mob of vicious activists.
As a physicist living in SF: Every single day we lose novel ideas from physics because of bigotry, sexism, and homophobia in our community. You have got to be kidding me with the idea that not being able to express these more is the problem.
Thank you. This is the take I was looking through the replies for. It happens in software too; women and minorities are discouraged from the field entirely because men with discriminatory ideals fight so hard to “speak their mind.”
You must be an academic with that muddled thinking.
Not what he said but, the left has lost all ability to think in a rational way.
omg I live in Berkeley and it's literally overrun with bigots and homophobia!! Lol get a grip
Yet you must support third world cultures and mentalities where education isn't a priority, where they import everything you abhor. Yet, you don't have a problem with that right? I don't think people WANT to express those things, but rather not tip toe around PC police.
how again is bigotry of any form making u lose novel ideas in physics.. lol u lefties are such lunatics its appalling
This is...a really bad take
This is... a really bad comment
Sam you forgot to mention where your smart friends are moving to 😅 (can PM if you don’t want it public)
hey sam, just fyi this is dumb as hell
The fundamental broken assumption is that hate speech is OK because it won’t convince “reasonable people” except people have murdered & lynched neighbors in the US and beyond because of speech meant to incite hate.
Where are you seeing your smart friends move to?
Mixing up the difference between a healthy debate and abusive behavior here, you don’t need to say gay slurs to make a point about physics COME THE FUCK ON
What if the next physics genius is a GAY BLACK WOMAN? What happens when racist, sexist, homophobic slurs make her feel unwelcome from the beginning of her career and she’s driven out of the industry? WHY DO SMART BIGOTS GET TO STAY WHILE SMARTER DIVERSE FOLKS GET DRIVEN OUT?
No, she will decide not to innovate because the taxes are too high in her state. Thats how it works, right?
Physics geniuses can’t be non white or non male. That’s what Sammy wants to say but can’t. Except in China. Where no one is white and everyone has accents that make them lesser Founders according to his king maker Paul Graham.
Narrator voice “he did not”
"Gay black women" seriously why does sexual preference even matter? I cannot imagine that I am living in a day and age where people are giving more importance to what they do in their bedroom than what I do outside the bedroom! It is warm and sunny outside!
What if the next physics genius is a white male? Will he have a chance?
Sure. Do physics. Lol!
Sure, because Black geniuses abound! Just look at Africa! What an ugly, mentally ill freak you are.
What does smarter have to do with diverse? The issue as I see it is growing tribalism. You're part of the problem.
He of course was not saying that but the left only ever is reactionary. They have lost all ability for rational thought. Keep it up.
don't be so gay!
with all due respect, this retort is totally gay. and by gay I mean, gay.
Yes, I remember the GAY BLACK WOMEN physics genius who was made to feel so unwelcome she was driven out of the industry. That's it. We have never seen one because..racism, sexism, and bigotry. Go back and reread your tweet.
Sf is fu) of fags that are intolerant
Who says your smarter? Bwhahaha!!
"I’ve seen credible people working on ideas like... radical life extension leave San Francisco because they found the reaction to their work to be so toxic."
Wait, are you talking about Thiel's vampirism or unethical Herpes vaccine trial?
using China as an example of being comfortable with open discussion seems misguided at best
Breaking: Sam Altman is the guy in "Cat Person."
If you also felt very free in China you should've openly discussed a regime change & the pros of democracy while you were there
To be fair, open discussion of regime change in the US (as well as anti-democratic stance) is not exactly tolerated here. You will not be thrown to Gulag, but you will be unpersoned.
Comparing US with China, the whataboutism is over the top here. You can even choose to be Nazi and held a Confederate flag in US, Try holding a Tibetan / Uyghur flag in anywhere in China and you are the next Otto Warmbier.
I was banned from HackerNews multiple times for explaining how Trump won. I'm trying to innovate humanism and your squad is obsessed with its stubborn reactionary defense.
You don't want radical innovative ideas. You want incremental platitudes to appease moral supremacists.
Sam, I don't understand the distinction between "have a healthy debate" and saying things like "SpaceX shouldn't be focusing on the needs of the 1%." Isn't that the opening to debate? Isn't healthy debate often heated?
Two more fallacies in this trash 🔥 of a post
1. Brilliant technical people can’t fully utilize their intellect unless also allowed to be homophobic (or sexist/racist?)
2. Deplorable ideas are worth legitimizing with debate. Should we debate if sex trafficking OK? Child abuse?
This is a good post.
A little weird from a company that has *literally* created a black list.
But taken on its own, this is a good post and I'm picking up what you are putting down.
This sounds pretty dogwhistle-y, Brady
I never know what people mean when they say “dog-whistly”
What am I being accused of? Just say it.
Here is what I mean: making shared lists of enemies always ends badly, even if the intentions of those lists are good
A "dog-whistle" is when NYT prints an article "down with patriarchy," and the next thing you know there are literal Maoists armed with bats occupying a college campus at Evergreen or elsewhere.
A winking phrase like "I pick up what you're putting down" in response to an article by a powerful, wealthy white man - an article complaining that being in power isn't as easy as it used to be - looks a lot more sympathetic to white supremacy than I hope you intended.
It's also just not a good post. It's a tired old idea that cis white men have brought out for too long. Writers of color have done the work explaining why this isn't a fresh take over and over again.
There is a complicated argument which says basically that freedom is impossible, and you have either a communist or fascist fur-hat tyranny or a lesbian/transgender purple unicorn dildo tyranny.
Well said
Sam, why not start a series of YC dinners explicitly aimed at openly discussing tough subjects?
Sign me tf up
Which tough subject would be first? "Are gay people evil?" Because I think physics would really benefit from this debate. </sarcasm>
Sam is himself gay
Dear Sam, physics is happy to wait to be discovered by nice people. It has no desire to be urgently explored by shitty people. Love, The Universe.
I'm not very nice. In fact, I'm a jackal.
In spite of that, I'm a physicist.
The point was that we’re not so desperate for discovery that we should tolerate shitty behaviour to get it. Sam is a SV guy, so his world is ruled by an unquenchable thirst for novelty and invention - it’s not surprising he values that above humanity.
The Virus itself speaks through this tweet.
"This is uncomfortable, but it’s possible we have to allow people to say disparaging things about gay people if we want them to be able to say novel things about physics." No. We absolutely DON'T have to allow anyone to disparage gay people.
I agree people in the US are a judgey bunch, but no one is stopping people from pursuing wild ideas in SF.
If you can't explain why your breakthrough innovation isn't an ethical disaster, easily & happily to anyone who asks, you probably shouldn't be working on it.
We'd love to have you here in Seattle any time for a discussion.
LOL. You didn't discuss Taiwan, or the South China Seas, or China's future as a great power, or mistreatment of migrant workers, or anything remotely controversial in China, did you?
FFS, a man was jailed in China for writing "haha" in a group chat.
If you spent any real time socializing with Chinese people in China, you'd know it's a fucking minefield.
Yeah, treating my fellow physicists with respect has really interfered with my ability to quantize gravity.🤦♀️
Wow! There are a lot of things that can stifle creativity and innovation. Not being able to “say disparaging things about gay people” is NOT one of them! Quite the opposite, it requires bringing together diverse points of view with respect and empathy.
Can you delete your blog please?
Can you delete your account, please?
This is disappointing. You're creating a hypothetical in which you completely ignore the number of people whose potential is already being diminished by the threat of harassment and personal danger.
yes by hateful leftist mobs.. if not violently then by mobs attacking peoples employers.. remember when mozzilla dude got fired for supporting traditional marriage.. ya u cant have different ideas in the lefts maoistic world
My problem with this post is the assumption that tech “innovations” in Silicon Valley are somehow moving us forward
Curious to hear what you believe to be the catalyst for this change you believe to exist. Is it because "tech people" have increasingly been using Twitter (which is public by nature ) as their window into "tech culture"?
U R So Dense.
So when Peter Thiel says 'We wanted flying cars, instead we got 140 characters.' is he part of the problem?
You went to China to find free speech. A country where people are jailed for writing poems. Of course the kind of controversial ideas you're interested in are welcome there: they're really completely safe ideas that threaten nobody with any power.
You almost get it, but at the last moment you shoot yourself in the foot.
1. Truly controversial ideas *by definition* threaten people in power.
2. Saying "I am against gay marriage" is controversial in the US (especially in Sam's milieu).
3. Ergo, who is in power in the US?
#1 is a flawed first principle. So the test is garbage.
Marco Rogers may think so, but Voltaire didn't.
Would you trust Marco Rogers or Voltaire?
Haha. You're an anonymous troll account and you wanna talk about who to trust. Hilarious.
"Voltaire" was "nom de plume" of François-Marie Arouet -- that is to say, an anonymous account.
When insane men stalk the streets, the sane stay underground.
Do me a favour and give your pompous ass a paddling tonight down the old basement
Are you sure that's the only favour you'd like, Daniel?
Yep. Cheers!
The only thing I can take from this is that you would like to be the sole arbiter of who is important enough to listen to and who is not. As well as who is "powerful" and who is not.
Respectfully, I'm going to decline to continue this debate under that framing. If you'd like to explore other framings that aren't so blatantly biased towards your objectives, let me know.
You are mistaken to conclude from my tweets that I'd like to be "the sole arbiter."
My argument was only that in a society that aggressively excludes people for expressing so-called "bad ideas," not remaining anonymous is no longer very meritorious.
We disagree with the level of push back that is required before going underground. You and Sama and whoever else are in no danger and experience very mild consequences for your shitty ideas.
If you are underground, it's because you are choosing to create an atmosphere where you pretend to be excluded and oppressed. I could speculate as to why that is, but I suspect it wouldn't be helpful here.
You’re mistaken to think that “escaping oppression” or “creating an atmosphere of exclusion” are only reasons to stay underground.
Well you're gonna have a hard time correcting my perceptions with no data. Also you have no face and no name. You could even be a bot.
I never said I was human. I could well be a super-intelligent AI probing human social web for weaknesses.
But probably not.
I didn't say anything about super intelligent. I think bot implies the opposite in fact. Either way, you haven't given me any reason to give a shit about any of your ideas.
First, I was clearly ironic.
Second, have you considered that bots may not be what they seem?
Not a flawed principle but rather a great litmus test for power.
Suppose I'm a troglodyte who thinks that beating your wife is okay. That's a fairly controversial idea in the West where women hold significant political power.
It's not a controversial idea at all in Saudi Arabia
Saying the idea out loud is controversial. Yet domestic violence is rampant in the west and woefully under prosecuted. Go figure. These women must be squandering all their prodigious political power.
Yes indeed! Saying this out loud *is* controversial -- because women hold certain political power -- otherwise why would there be any controversy about it? You may argue that women don't hold *enough* power, you can't argue that don't hold it at all.
It's funny though you write "saying this out loud is controversial."
Either you're suggesting that it is okay to hold this idea in private (are you beating your wife in private, eh?) - or you're suggesting that there are ideas controversial to even hold in private! (which?)
The problem is you’re using controversial as if it’s abstract. If you hold an idea in private, it’s not controversial because nobody knows. If you bear your wife in private, your wife knows it’s wrong. And also it’s no longer just an idea.
If your goal is to have a philosophical debate, I’m not interested and you’re not good enough. So I’m gonna move on.
Say a friend from China who is a member of the CCP invites you to visit. He tells you that China is better than the US because you can express yourself freely.
You say "but it's controversial to criticize Mao or Xi Jinping."
He responds wryly: "Only if you say it out loud!"
Say an anonymous internet troll pays you a visit. He says young white male billionaire oligarchs have it pretty bad. You say that seems ridiculous. And he responds “Say a friend from China...”
Say a friend from Russia who has close ties with an oligarch there overhears you refer to someone like Sam Altman as "an oligarch."
"Oh yeah? How many rivals/journos has he ordered to be shot? None you say? What kind of oligarch is that?"
So Peter Thiel, Sama’s friend and business partner, is buying up media outlets to punitively shut the down for reporting negatively on him. Yes, oligarchs.
But all of a sudden you see degrees of oppression right? Very well. When Sam Altman is shot for his “controversial ideas” then we can talk.
I told you you were bad at this.
According to the social media bullies' own definition, if Sam shoots himself, it's oppression.
Let's hope he doesn't, but there are at least three suicides by now (two in the UK, one in the US) as a result of #MeToo witch hunt, two with men who had children.
Indeed, the Russian would respect Thiel more, but he still would not consider him to be an oligarch.
A journo doesn't get a visceral fear running down his spine when he writes a piece about Thiel.
An interesting point also that both Thiel and Sam are gay.
Though being white men, they are not the intersection of intersections, when you have gay people complaining about speech, something is really going wrong.
Good. Please leave. We never wanted your ridiculous ideas here. What we had was good. All these crappy apps and "innovations" are not necessary. Invest in someplace where you and your bros can be incorrect dicks. Please leave my homeland.
It's motte-and-bailey rhetoric
Motte (defensible): "Racists and homophobes can shut up"
Bailey: "People working on life extension, intelligence augmentation, or even saying things like corporate taxes should be lower are actually evil, shun/silence them"
All In All, Another Brick In The Motte
One of the better things I’ve done with this blog was help popularize Nicholas Shackel’s “motte and bailey doctrine”. But I’ve recently been reminded I didn’t do…
slatestarcodex.com
I’ve shared opinions that are outside the norm of “liberal sf”. Turns out if people are just people we can discuss and share. Perhaps consider you may be surrounded by assholes. 🧐💩
I also think that “uncomfortable” isn’t a bad thing. It means perhaps you’re challenged? Also: welcome to the feeling of being a woman or PoC everyday dude
I realize this was just an example. But the argument that the right to say "gay people are evil" is a requirement for innovation fails to explain the dearth of scientific innovation in the South. Rather the right to explore ideas rather than say stupid things drives innovation.
I feel really depressed and let down reading your essay. You really don't get it. I'm also quite happy that these "smart" homophobic people you speak of are leaving SF.
Once your entire family is banned from seeing you ever because of a travel ban based upon their nationality (as my family is enduring because of my Iranian nationality), then you can discuss "non-politically correct" controversial ideas for which you actually pay a "price".
We should discuss unconventional crazy ideas, and we should fiercely criticize every idea but we also should be willing to take into account the costs it will create for the same people you don't even take into consideration. The marginalized people pay the price of experiments
cry me a river... wah wah wah wow are we doomed if our society is producing such utter cucks
Yes, social restrictions that some tech-neoliberals like you might not like are the same, or worse, than Chinese censorship.
You don’t get a say in this you silver spoon self congratulatory dork
"it’s possible we have to allow people to say disparaging things about gay people if we want them to be able to say novel things about physics." Curious, how far would you take this? And what about the novel ideas from gay people in this case?
Controversy is tolerated just fine, focus on tolerating criticism. If SV is "toxic" to you then adopt a thicker skin and listen.
Reasonable people has a lot of rhetorical mileage, but that was some weak shit.
The thing that's so disingenuous about framing this as a "free speech" issue is, @sama isn't actually espousing we accept others' points of view. He just wants to shift the boundaries of "acceptable points of view" to where he isn't a target.
He even cops to it!
"This is uncomfortable, but it's possible that we have to allow people to say disparaging things about gay people if we want them to be able to say novel things about physics."
Let's grant for argument's sake that "disparaging things about gay people" is a Valid Point of View. Using that standard, @sama, how is it NOT okay to say, "If people live a lot longer it will be disastrous for the environment, so people working on this must be really unethical"?
Do you think even knee-jerk reactions to scientific research are MORE intolerant reactions to free speech than HARASSMENT of marginalized groups?
How on Earth is "disparaging things about gay people" more substantive than whatever comment inspired you to write this article?
Anyway /rant but man this conflation of legally free speech and socially acceptable speech debate is BORING. But the whole facade of promoting free speech while really just trying to shift the goalposts of acceptable speech is so transparent and flimsy.
Hi Sam, I think the backlash to this is excessive, but I also don't agree with you. I'd encourage you to read The Better Angels of our Nature to get a sense of how political correctness--for all its faults--has made the world a significantly better place.
The Better Angels of Our Nature
Why Violence Has Declined: Steven Pinker: 8601300108858: Amazon.com: Books
amazon.com
You appear to have read a book that Stephen Pinker didn't write.
Hi JJ, I think the backlash is mild in part because ppl figure Sam has a pile of FU money. If he were an adjunct at CalStateEastBay, he’d be unemployed already. Suggest you read “SJWs Always Lie” by @voxday available free
SJWs Always Lie: Taking Down the Thought Police (The Laws of Social Justice Book 1) - Kindle edition by Vox Day, Milo Yiannopoulos. Politics & Social Sciences Kindle eBooks @ Amazon.com.
SJWs Always Lie: Taking Down the Thought Police (The Laws of Social Justice Book 1) - Kindle edition by Vox Day, Milo Yiannopoulos. Download it once and read it on your Kindle device, PC, phones or tablets. Use features like bookmarks, note taking and highlighting while reading SJWs Always Lie: Taking Down the Thought Police (The Laws of Social Justice Book 1).
amazon.com
Thanks for the recommendation.
This is a frustratingly bad blog post. And no, definitely not in the way that brilliant ideas are controversial. Just ill-informed and not thought out.
Two things I don’t understand:
What does it mean to “allow” someone to say gay people are evil? Physicists aren’t allowed to have personal prejudices challenged with speech?
What did you discuss in China and why not make it the focal point instead of something imagined?
"Political correctness is leading to a stifling atmosphere for genetic engineering/life extension" means we should seek to limit THAT STIFLING ATMOSPHERE, not political correctness. Limiting political correctness is a bad proxy.
Silicon Valley Intellectualism = YC Brand Apologia
Every. Fucking. Time.
saying disparaging things about gay people is not a “novel” idea, though, so I don’t entirely get the implication being made here that alleges “people who cling to ancient stereotypes” are somehow more naturally innovative than people who have basic respect for other humans
Openness vs. correctness is such a fraught dilemma. I have struggled to find the right approach. Brené Brown’s new book does a beautiful, careful job of navigating the messy middle ground. She makes an argument for drawing the line at “gay people are evil”
Braving the Wilderness
The Quest for True Belonging and the Courage to Stand Alone: Brené Brown: 9780812995848: Amazon.com: Books
amazon.com
Also, making women, people of colour, and LGBTQ feel included in academia, the tech industry, etc. will probably generate more new ideas about physics, software, etc. Equality isn’t only about justice, it’s also about untapped human capital.
Groundbreaking empirical research shows where innovation really comes from
Breaking down barriers for underrepresented kids could quadruple America’s pool of inventors.
vox.com
The China comparison is flawed, but comments on this tweet kinda prove your point..
Comparing Bay Area suppression of freedom of thought to China's: ex. #1,206 of how Silicon Valley gazillionaires are such clueless jackasses.
Oh yeah: and comparing yourself to Galileo.
It's a balance. If we allow jerks to go totally unchecked, we also create a toxic environment that scares away women and minorities from tech - that's also a huge missed source of innovation.
This @ScottAdamsSays Dilbert strip stereotypically captures why women avoid STEM in high school & college. It apparently holds true in China according to three Chinese women who have commented on it to me.
How are all these replies all so wrong in such a similar way? Is there a secret startup up there that has Borg'd everyone's minds?
Terrible and silly take, but I don’t see you getting run out of town for it
Who do you hang out with that is afraid of radical ideas? Maybe your in the wrong bubble. This theology isn’t really relevant to real founders trying to build real companies, with crazy ideas, not quick flips.
The Bay Area is bigger than ycombinator
There’s definitely No lack of disruptive radical ideas when hanging with @eileenmcarey
Thoughtcrime.
Alan Turing was chemically castrated for being gay. Did more to the field than you, boy. But yeah, in Beijing they don’t laugh at your Juicero investment, they make a killing producing that garbage for you.
To say it with Bob Geldof: “The Politically Correct
Are the Nazis of our time
When it's the freedom of ideas
That makes man civilised.”
read your blog post and then sit on that nietzsche quote from your bio in its entire context, champ. your post is the abyss gazing back at you.
love to claim the rational side while making sweeping sociological generalizations based on no evidence for a normative argument about how sometimes people make me feel bad.
Sounds like your Chinese hosts didn’t familiarise you with someone like Wang Jing, a citizen journalist who is serving a nearly 5-year prison sentence for ‘disrupting the order of the Internet itself’ for publishing reports about human rights abuses. nchrd.org/2017/12/wang-j…
When you ignore things like basic human needs to get to advancements in science, you get neither. There's no foundation.
Would be great to see @jordanbpeterson respond to this article / the backlash. 🙂
Your first point about feeling it easier to have real conversations in Beijing than SF is spot-on. Thank you!
If your goal is to preserve ideas, it is axiomatic that you should reject exclusionary ideas such as your "gays are evil" example because of their tendency to exclude a group or otherwise deny them access.
It's not the idea you should be afraid of, it's the person with the idea. The more money, power, influence, or access the person has, the more ability they will have to exclude the ideas of groups they dislike.
I suspect the @MattShepardFDN has a different opinion regarding your original footnote.
Great dialogs,
to me the fundamental point is looking at PCness and civil discourse in 2018
My take: PC is really just cultural shift from old Correctness to current correctness and should facilitate conversation not stifle. The issue is when it becomes a beacon for censor
I moved from SF to BJ and was also surprised at the openness to discussing sensitive topics like religion, sexuality, race, and gov't. SF liberalism: 'i am open to all ideas as long as they agree with mine." I wonder if BJ is "i will debate in private bc I cannot in public"
The only thing stopping a species from advancing is itself.
Thank you for writing this. That's it, just a sincere thank you.
I am genuinely curious - what were the 'controversial ideas' that you felt more comfortable discussing in Beijing than San Francisco? Can you share more? IMHO when you have a hegemony, peer group pressure closes down discussion - not lack of freedom to speak.
The experience you describe, @sama, is a reflection of the people you associate with, the choices you make. Nothing else.
My own experience, 30 years in tech, 4th gen San Franciscan heritage and time spent in China belie your claim.
It takes effort to get out of the bubble you’re in. Your impressive entrepreneurial track record and obligations make it especially difficult, I suspect.
I hope this is the most outrageous and stupid thing you ever write.
One problem is that many people in SV seem to lack a true north in their ethical compass, because it complicates their pursuit of The Big Idea. Ethical boundaries are part of ANY discussion, whether you're pitching Gattaca tech or generalizing people of color.
When money and power are on the line, ppl with reduced ethical standards often rise to the top bcs they are willing to do things others are not. That HAS to be considered here. Some people are rightly concerned that SV will become the new Wall Street.
I find that tiday, people are misusing words and terms to argue and promote whatever side of an issue they take. Perhaps everyone would benefit by a more precise and disiplined use of language without the emotional prejudice of desire.
disagree with references to other cultural settings as an argument. it goes both ways. there are politically incorrect topics in china that would not be so in the US or other places. those topics are invisible to you just as many US-rooted hot button topics mean little to them
Thank you Sam, I agree. I would say that the PC culture has gone Full Retard.
Racism and other bigotry spin-offs play the same role in the USSA as capitalism in the USSR. Utopia impediment, and pretext for totalitarian control
So you're looking for a less PC environment? May I suggest Alabama. They have no issues with demeaning the LGBTQ community or limiting a woman's right to her own health choices. I'm sure you will fit right in.
while ur there, have u thought about taking a great leap forward off of a great wall?
I'm really sorry that hipster San Fransisco hate's GMO's or whatever but this is such a bad take and really irresponsible for someone in your position. You do you know you have the rest of America you could locate your business in you elitist fuck?
I never thought I would ever like your opinions! You proved me wrong today! Thank you there is still hope in this world!
The fields of mathematics and science are by and large a meritocracy. If a particular demographic is under represented in that meritocracy it is not because mathematicians have colluded to exclude anyone. That’s just not how they roll
Innovation seems to be hampered when diversity and fairness doctrines rules run rampant.
Just straight up –– you. are. dumb. You fail to perceive. You fail to intuit. You fail to feel.
This is not some silencing of your crappy ideas; it is an affirmation that there is truth and decency and history and experience of which you seem to have no appreciation or sense.
You are not a deep thinker.
You will fail to find new ideas that actually maintain San Francisco as a hub of innovation. Your apparent willingness to ignore gay people (by the way, who in many ways made parts of SF cool that you now co-opt) for "progress" is evidence of this.
Some ideas, such as “homosexuality is sinful,” are bad because we’ve experienced their consequences. We don’t imprison people who hold these views but we can shun them and are right to do so
Amazing that you praise tolerance in a county that literally emprisons people for speech, but are upset about people being judgmental in the US, where your right to say what you want is guaranteed by the constitution.
You aren’t allowed to have wacky ideas in San Fransisco???
All the comments here prove @sama’s point lol
Agree 100% Here's an *unconventional* idea, potentially heretical: people who earn more money than their peers are mistakenly revered, their non-expert opinions are usually personal opinions, and the resulting blind idolatry is dangerous to the broader community. What's yours?
you weren't in charge of the highest profile VC in 2005 so yeah it was easier to talk nonsense back then. ugh this post makes me want to leave Silicon Valley more than any other single thing I've read in 2017
I can't believe your view on China is so misinformed. Try discussing the mistreating millions of her citizens, evicting them from their homes in harsh winter of Beijing within days. Try discussing that with Chinese locals. Are you serious?
Sam Intresting Blog. United States is a test Ground and a melting pot for ideas inventions. IF you have certin knowledge skills you will get a higher paying job. Baptism by fire of Opinions are like a big black holes out the other end we hope purification.
👆Cuck👆
Sam however there are and will always be certin People who have high morals when it comes to gay men or Lesbian Activitys. However I believe the United States also has the highest Degree of tolerance than any country in the world. Just as you might be acceptable being gay,
China has a dirty Secret of Chinese women having sex with there familys pets ....like their dogs! So if you see Chinese people walking down the street with a dog with big balls etc it makes you pause and Wounder. I am sure just as you have gay acceptance feelings these bestiality
I mean really
Dude, cut back on the soy & grow a pair. #betaMale #sayNoToSoy
Bestiality People have the same acceptance Problem as Gay's and Lesbian's perhaps that why you felt more free in China than in San Francisco since beastiality has been outlawed and condemned in the United States. But not so in China. Pressure to preform but not in China.
So you can see knowledge is power and knowing things can change your mind and how you see the truth of things.
Would look better on your end if you were to actually speak about those controversial ideas instead of complaining about those who would shame you for it.
Freedom of speech and censorship swings all the time, from one extreme to another. We try one side, then realize it’s too much, we switch to another, again extreme, but by each swing we are closer to the middle, and we learn something on the way. Natural process, nothing else.
If Tom Coates hasn’t blocked you yet, point out that if I could read Randy Shilts’ ‘gay’ books “And the Band Played On” & “Conduct Unbecoming” then it can’t be hard for Tom to read @voxday “SJWs Always Lie”, free on KindleUnlimited amazon.com/dp/B014GMBUR4/…
I've spent a year in Chongqing, am inclined to believe you don't know your ass from a hole in the ground -- much as you clearly know more about holes than anyone, have all the knowledge about how to make them better.
do you know that this was obvious for many non Bay Area / non-US people for many, many years?
There's some truth in it, but it's not all that simple. There's just certain issues that Chinese people can't understand when you discuss them in English; also there's certain issues that they just don't give a shit about. That does not make you more free than in the US overall.
Maybe differentiate postfactualism from political correctness from anti-science. Your thoughts in a better sort can be found at "Karl Popper: Open Society".
Good intention but oversimplified. If you want debate, debate. Debate harder. Be proud that this is much less comfortable in SF than in China. Btw leaving somebody unopposed saying "women are dirty", "gay people are evil" or "the world is flat" does not make any sense at all.
Only a privileged white man sitting on top of #maslows #pyramid thinks expressing #opinions is more important than #HumanRights or #dignity. . #FirstWorldProblems
Seems that we confuse free speech with welcomed speech. Everyone is free to say whatever they want. Whether or not it is welcomed by those listening is another instance in which we then must protect the free speech of those will respond.
Everyone is free to say whatever they want... and everyone is free to respond to that person with rage.. to try to stifle the voice of what is not welcomed is just as bad as stifiling the initial speaker..
We must protect the radical thinker... but who’s to say who the radical thinker is? The initial commenter who says “gay ppl are evil”, or the responder who tells him to stfu?
Not normally an @sama fan, but this is right on. Just remember, he is not advocating China’s approach, but denigrating the Bay Area’s…
In almost a decade of trying to broach the topic of human rights in China, I have never once been able to have a reasonable conversation with a Chinese citizen. There is no room for debate, any outside views are automatically invalid. It's worse than SF. @JeremiahJenne @craigss
During a month long #Shanghai biz trip in 2004, I had very political discussions w our Chinese Field Service Engineers inside & outside the clean room: Tank Man, Organ Harvesting, One Child, Corruption, etc. Do some technical all-nighters.