It's a nice ideal, but once the views become too extreme, it's not practical. Not many people will maintain basic civility towards a person telling them they don't deserve basic rights for example.
"engaged with people and the culture" is a bit revisionist considering the number of conflicts with politicians and law enforcement. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stonewall_Inn for example? (Example chosen at random, there's tons of them)
I dont think that's quite fair, basic civility would mean not immediately trying to frame something you disagree with as denying basic rights, and trying to have a more practical discussion about the issues.
I'm not referring to framing something ambiguous. I mean for example people openly discussing final solution to Jew problem. Are you suggesting basic civility and discussion about the issue with them?
That's disingenuous. That is an unusual extreme view held by neo-nazis AND extreme leftists (nation of islam types).
We're talking about people not feeling comfortable having a debate over abortion (it's a third rail on either side to try and establish a time when a foetus becomes a recognized being). This is something we should be curious to establish a benchmark for. Both sides fear that if we establish a number of days at which then we can't have abortions after and the other side fears we can have abortions before)
I literally qualified my post with "once the views become too extreme". It's exactly what this thread is about. (I agree with your position on non-extreme views enough)
But... there are actually people who believe that those with a certain skin color or of a certain sexual orientation or religion actually should not have basic rights.
Not everyone who gets targeted as such holds those beliefs, sure, but they absolutely do exist in America. Until fairly recently, those people’s beliefs actually drove real policies in America that had real teeth and caused real suffering for real people. Of course we still see remnants of these policies and we certainly see knock-on effects of them today.
It would certainly help if the left did a better job at isolating those who actually hold the beliefs I listed above versus those who hold beliefs that are merely “in the orbit” of them. It would be great also if the right did a better job of isolating themselves and their own respectable beliefs from those beliefs that are not respectable.
But in any case to act like any belief that someone holds needs to be treated with respect and never framed as a direct affront to human rights, even if it is, shows a lack of knowledge about the range of things that people actually believe.
These topics have been debated for hundreds, if not thousands, of years. Hence, the US constitution was created. It’s been working pretty well so far. And, I don’t think it’ll be changing anytime soon.
The US Constitution has been working pretty well for some people so far. For others, it has only started to work well thanks to brave Americans standing up and risking their lives to demand that it work well for more people than before.
A lot of that work involved dismissing some ideologies as fundamentally incompatible with America. Speaking of civility, one time we literally had to go to war with ourselves over what one side would characterize as a mere “political disagreement.”
The Constitution failed to protect people from systematic rape, torture, and forced labor for nearly the first 100 years of its governance over America. It failed to allow women to get credit before 1974. None of what we have today is guaranteed. Plenty of nations have slid backwards from liberalism.
And I do believe that right ought to be protected. Nowhere in this thread is someone advocating that the state exercise its power to throw people with despicable beliefs in prison.
This is about our society’s ability and justification to categorize beliefs into respectable or not. Some ideas are simply not deserving of respect, though of course all ideas are deserving of legal protection.
Nazis are allowed to march down 5th Avenue and the people who call those beliefs despicable are not “just as bad as the other side.”
> "This is about our society’s ability and justification to categorize beliefs into respectable or not."
Yes, and that ability does not include harassment, doxxing, threats, and attempting to induce employers and customers to end their relationships with them. That _is_ just as bad as the other side.
I know what their views are but thank you for your kind suggestion. However, I also know where rhetoric about "society’s ability and justification to categorize beliefs into respectable or not" leads. I stand by my opinion.
So are you OK with Isis advertising videos on YouTube? I'm asking because pretty much everyone has limits to what they say is acceptable free speech. Also the US (like many other nations, they are just the biggest kid on the block atm) has been constantly categorising what people in other countries are allowed to say, under the very real threat of violence. Is it OK if a country is doing it?
It often is, but sometimes those rights are only imagined rights. Does a right extremist have a right to have his race free from other races?
You say yourself that rights are sometimes at conflict with each other. That requires that sometimes rights are restricted to a point that other rights are not infringed. For instance we lock up dangerous people. Why do you think is freedom of speech is some kind of super-right that triumphs over every other right? Is freedom of speech more important even when it’s used to incite genocide?
Therein lies the subjectivity. One person interprets neo Nazis rallies as inciting genocide. Another interprets it as a bunch of harmless nuts on parade.
Not to mention the act of genocide is the issue at hand. We keep talking Nazi's but there are people from all walks of life and races that would like to eliminate races unlike them. If they never put those thought into action they are harmless and those that advocate free speech are believers in intellect and rationalism as the winner of the day over ignorant thinking such as this, as it cannot be eliminated, and to completely eliminated it would necessitate genocide, the logic has a circularity to it. The issue at hand is some people want instant results where tolerance is a long game, that does not give them their click and get it now satisfaction.
See calling some things "basic rights" is already a point of contention and a loaded way of framing this, as if people are evil and wanting to not give other people something fundamental, essential for life, and "basic" that's been already decided. It's not decided, and a lot of what we've started calling "rights" these days aren't all that basic or universally agreed.
The way you've phrased it means that it's perfectly reasonable to be uncivil (violent) towards others. That's a breakdown of communication and has effectively "othered" the individuals/groups based on their disagreement with your framing of the topic.
> The way you've phrased it means that it's perfectly reasonable to be uncivil (violent) towards others.
It is, given the right situation. It is not as if the civil rights movement of the 60s got the very real improvements it did get by accepting being treated as crap. Rather, it got rather violent at times. What you suggest would make certain no real improvement could ever happen. Which make sense if you belong to the people that has a good situation in the current status quo, but it absolutely sucks for the people that doesn't. Quite often to change the status quo to the better you first need to make it unpalatable enough to the people that is favored by it.
You call it "not practical", I call the alternative "not effective".
Case in point: In Sweden any politician, and mainstream society in general, who even hinted at reducing immigration has been called a heartless racist for the last 30 years, completely shutting down debate.
The effect of this was predictable (indeed I've been saying it for about two decades): MORE people become anti-immigrant. (the Sweden Democrats are probably the biggest party now, if there'd be an election today)
When you're told by the press and politicians that even raising a topic makes you racist and you should be cancelled, you're not exactly going to be won over.
It's so sad to see from the sidelines. Why has the left shifted so much to shutting down all debate that isn't 100% in agreement with the party line? It's not that I disagree with them on the issues, it's that it's sad that they're not seeing how it's actively hurting their stated goals.
If Sweden is any predictor, then this is going to get much worse (or, if you're on the right, it'll get much better).
Every time someone who said "biological men should not be allowed to compete in sports with biological women" is called Hitler, that's one more person lost to your whole argument, and someone who says that Trump is an OK compromise, and who'll think "if that's your choice argument then you're too crazy to be listened to on abortion, too".
tl;dr: If you're choosing between "practical" and "effective", choose "effective". But also see history for how I think when you say "practical", you actually mean "low effort".
>The effect of this was predictable (indeed I've been saying it for about two decades): MORE people become anti-immigrant. (the Sweden Democrats are probably the biggest party now, if there'd be an election today)
A high profile executive working for a corporation in Iran will be fired and possibly arrested if they start talking about the government's stance on women's rights. Likewise in the USA if some executive talks about babies' rights they'll probably be fired and some smear campaign will be launched against them. Likewise in China vocal criticism of the CCP will probably lead to bad consequences.
I would encourage Americans to reject this type of culture and embrace freedom of speech and diversity of views. Reduce the number of taboo topics rather than increasing them. This modern blasphemy culture is spreading in many western countries. Reject it before it's too late. Conversations are good. It is how society moves forward. No good ever comes from silencing conversations.
I agree. At the end of the day, who are we protecting when we silence hate speech?
Are we suggesting that we ourselves cannot handle hearing and rejecting the speech, or are we suggesting that other adults should not even hear hate speech because they might be influenced?
Either of those is a profound infantilization of the public.
I am capable of hearing hate speech and rejecting it. I trust most other mature adults can do the same. I reject the notion that anyone needs to protect me from hate speech.
I have no problem with citing them. Just as there's traffic court, there could be a your're-a-fucking-bigot court. Enough strikes and you're out. (Yes, the the problem of state-approved reality is very obviously hard. Yet that's basically what Germany does by criminalizing denial of certain facts about WWII.)
I'm perfectly aware. There's no irony. It's the dilemma of tolerance. Using oppression to minimize oppression. A chilling effect on undesirable ideas to counter their spread to counter the growth of groups whose presence and actions similarly lead to chilling effect.
The not so subtle difference is that one group sometimes commits acts of terror.
Yes, giving this capability officially to the state has serious consequences. Though it's not like states doesn't already have the capacity monopolized (and alas it's not like there are no abuses of state capacity without nowadays).
The problem is you are calling anyone who does not agree with your definitions, a bigot. Each side of radicals has no self reflection on the fact that they too are radicals.
I completely agree that radicals usually lack perspective.
I don't see how I call everyone who disagrees a bigot. I'm saying that the very real process of gathering strength of the alt-right works through a lot of channels that have basically one thing in common, which is speaking hateful bullshit.
There are people who would benefit from some counter-process. (And a sample of one (koheripbal) who is fine is not a great counter-argument.) I'm not saying that anyone who disagrees with this is a bigot. Far from it. Disagreements are healthy, especially constructive criticism.
Constructive conversations are good. A shouting match is not a conversation.
Obviously it's a lot harder to allow just one and not the other.
And again, it's exactly the nuance that's needed to separate these that are needed when one compares China, Iran, and the USA.
Executives ought to be able to express their views freely, also companies/shareholders ought to be able to freely replace executives they deem unfit (a bad fit for society).
Plus, there's a nuanced (even seemingly small) difference between state-supported oppression and "cancel culture".
Aaaand, finally, there's also a big difference between oppressing voices that call for more civil rights (eg. restrictions on what the state can do) versus voices that call for more state-supported restrictions.
Calling for more restrictions on women's rights in the name of babies is still supporting more rights for the state, whereas calling for more transparency, accountability, equality for citizens falls on the the exact opposite of this spectrum.
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The conversation about babies' rights is very hard because that it naturally pits two very special groups against each other, babies vs women. Where the former doesn't have the capacity to represent themselves in any meaningful way. So society at large with its myriad voices tries to stand in for them. Any "executive" that just start talking about babies' rights better be prepared to brandish some big guns of philosophy, because so far this issue is so murky that respectable philosophy stops at "well, it's hard", and all we are left with is the endless lowing and parroting of indoctrinated fundamentalist followers of various religions.
Yet it's also part of the liberal, libertarian, conservative, etc. playbooks too. The difference is protected classes. Libertarian? Nothing is protected. Liberal? Race, gender, other things you can't change are protected. (Disabilities.) Conservative? Traditions are protected.
We don't need a hypothetical. There are high profile Iranians who have been executed, after the confessed to a crime they didn't commit after being tortured, for speaking out against their government. Navid Afkari being the most recent example. For the record, China executes more people than any other country with Iran coming in behind them.
Firm opposition does not imply that civility has to be dropped. In some cases it may even be counter productive since it ends up entrenching attitudes and positions.
We also need to be aware of how our own attitudes contribute to our own perceptions. It is not much of a leap to believe that we will be fired for our political views if we think that others should be fired for their political views, even if those beliefs and thoughts do not reflect reality.
I am not going to claim that civility must be maintained at any cost, there are certainly historical instances when it could not be. On the other hand, being proactive and civil will likely reap more positive change than the alternative.
> Not many people will maintain basic civility towards a person telling them they don't deserve basic rights for example.
And the political left has been gaming that for years now by declaring that every entitlement and vote-buying scheme they've come up with represents a basic human right.
Put that way it sounds compelling but if we look into what the rights are and the kind of rights (Isiah Berlin's framing of rights as negative or positive) then it becomes more complex. Perhaps you have a specific example of people being told they don't deserve basic rights that's a bit more specific?
I remember reading the Song of Roland in high school. It's a fairly famous, old Christian epic poem from the 11th century.
In it, I remember it depicted a Christian knight and an Islamic paladin with diametically and fundamentally opposed views (this was written in the middle of the Crusades) sitting down and sharing a civilized meal together and having a conversation. This is what a civilized dispute looks like. Later they might have fought each other to the death for their religion, but they were still capable of reason and civility.
Note that both Christian and Islamic sides were accusing each other at the time of cruel atrocities - and yet the Christian ideal of tolerance includes the possibility of civility with everyone, regardless of what the sides think of each other.
There's plenty of political views so toxic and harmful they don't deserve civility.
An easy litmus test: are you advocating harm to a person for merely existing in the world, living with the skin color and sexuality they were born with, or making choices that don't harm anyone else? Then I have no interest in hearing your toxic and hateful opinion and I sure hope you'll be afraid to voice it around me.
It's a great thing to have political discussions and to try to see all sides of a topic. Your willingness to see the other side's points should stop at the point where the other side is actively trying harm people for the crime of existing in this world. (See also: antisemitism, homophobia, transphobia, racism.)
I would completely stand behind this comment if the word "harm" wasn't completely redefined in the last few years.
Just in case: speech, however abusive, or denial of association or services is never "harm".
Replying to a deleted comment: I think that white-only service is asshole behavior, just as holocaust denial and other stuff. I fight and would continue to fight it with education, counter-propaganda and civil boycott, but I would fight for those people to have legal right to do it without persecution by government at the same time.
But i feel that on the long term the list of ”too wrong to discuss” opinion tends to grow, until you reach the point where civil and peacefull discussion becomes impossible.
To me it seems this is the road U.S. is walking on.
The logical end to all of this exists in places in this world. You cannot share your opinion on Islam in some parts of this world, you’ll die. You cannot speak out against the government in China, you will be in jail.
It’s called political persecution. We are on the proverbial slippery slope.
> An easy litmus test: are you advocating harm to a person for merely existing in the world
This a dog whistle. Please define "harm", and "existing".
This phrase is so often used by people who say "silence is violence" (it's literally not).
I don't think you're being honest in your argument, here. You are implying lynchings and holocaust, but is that truly the debates you're applying your litmus test on? I highly doubt that.
Are you not more likely to apply it to:
* trans women competing in sports with biological women
* abortion
* pronouns
* equality of outcome
right?
I'm not even saying I disagree with you on any of those points. But your "litmus test" allows you to point your finger where the harm is, and shut down debate, cancel the person, and "punch a nazi".
And you also consider yourself as having monopoly on defining what pros and cons fall under "harm", and "existing".
E.g. if you define misusing pronouns to be harm, someone else could define compelled speach to be to surrender the right to your own thoughts (2+2=5, from 1984). Again, I am not saying I disagree with you on the point, but both sides here have a very good case for screaming "harm!!!! I have harm here! Just for existing!!!".
Same with a trans woman competing with a biosex woman. "Harm for just existing" applies equally, actually, to both women. Now what? You're just stuck screaming "fascist!" to each other. Why? What are you actually trying to accomplish?
You will lose people with this attitude, not gain them. See Sweden and Trump.
> Then I have no interest in hearing your toxic and hateful opinion
I don't think you know what "hate" means.
> I sure hope you'll be afraid to voice it around me.
So you're admitting that your argument is based in threat of violence?
"There's plenty of political views so toxic and harmful they don't deserve civility."
The people that you think don't deserve civility in this scenario literally have the exact same viewpoint. This is the disconnect and it goes both ways.
Unless its straight up illegal, civility should always apply.
Yes. How else do you plan on making them see the error of their ways. I guarantee being uncivil with them will just make them double down on their beliefs.
The problem is that "advocating harm" is extremely dependent on perspective. Hard left would say anyone opposed to single payer healthcare is advocating harm. Or that landlords are advocating harm by commodifying something people die without.
i'll bet there are still a bunch of people who silently oppose interracial marriage in the US. But... they will be dead soon and their ideas will die with them
Faulty argument. Did the fight for LGBTQ rights die out when being LGBTQ in the past was something people had to stay in the closet about? No? Then why would anyone think it will work on other viewpoints?
"Do we have to show tolerance to the intolerant?" is not the newest question in the book, and historians will probably tell you that in fact free societies stay free if they draw a clear line what is unaccepted behaviour.
Liberty is always a balance act, because if you give bad actors freedom in the name of tolerance they will use it to reduce the freedom of weaker actors within society. If you live in a "survival of the fittest"-type society that might be acceptable, but that might not be a free society anymore because it fails to protect the freedoms of some within it. If you overregulate and control on the other hand, you will also reduce the total freedom within society.
This is a balance few nations on earth managed to get right for prolonged periods. In my eyes the US didn't get it right for quite a while. Civility is a part of it, but letting people get away with fascist behaviour in the name of tolerance/free speech will potentially put the US (and therefore the whole world) in a much, much darker place.
> "Do we have to show tolerance to the intolerant?" is not the newest question in the book
Lately it seems to be the most misrepresented part of Popper's "paradox of intolerance", where he defines intolerance as those who resort to violence instead of speech, and the would be censors of this age who bring up the paradox - without seeming to have read it - tell us that the intolerant are those we disagree with. "we" being those the would be censors disagree with.
> free societies stay free if they draw a clear line what is unaccepted behaviour
> if you give bad actors freedom in the name of tolerance they will use it to reduce the freedom of weaker actors within society
I agree. There is a clear line, which is crossed the moment someone resorts to violence instead of speech, and it has been drawn clearly in law. The bad actors would be those looking to reduce freedoms such as speech, based on nothing more than disagreement, which as it happens is something fascists (among others) have done when they've had the chance.
I am quite convinced Popper would have disagreed that the line doesn't needs to be drawn (in some cases) before violence — at least this is what I learned about him when I studied philosophy in Vienna, the city where he grew up in.
Popper e.g. also says that the goal of elections is to have a transfer of power without having to have civil wars, guillotines and other violent means. This means to prevent violence we have to maintain certain rules.
This doesn't mean however, that we have to wait till bad actors in fact act violently, after e.g. having stated they want to abolish these rules, after threatening violence, after breaking present rules and stretching present conventions etc. This means that he didn't want to suppress intolerant views (IF they can be hold in balance with rational arguments and public discourse) — instead he would plead to limit their effects on society (thus reducing potential future violence).
But it has been over a decade since I read Popper, so maybe you read something I didn't.
Popper's idea was that people need to be free to discuss and debate different perspectives. When most people don't feel free to voice their opinions I think it's safe to say the culture and institutions we have don't support that goal.
There's a difference between "not allowing racists/bigots to shout whatever insult they happen to come up with", and "banning research into biological underpinnings of cognition, intelligence, etc".
Most people are not scholars, at best pundits, but even if they are, most of their thoughts are still not careful and nuanced constructive arguments.
And maybe, just maybe, putting some brakes on the global cyber hate wave machines, where anyone can share/amplify the most damaging shit with one click is not a bad idea.
That said, partisanship bias, fairness, justice are all related problems when it comes to how to apply those brakes.
And yes, the institutions are shit, both old and new. Academia, FB/Tw, MSM, parties/congress, religions. But they are not without advantages, not unsalvageable.
I'm confused, who is saying that a line doesn't need to be drawn? The line already has been drawn, in law. SCOTUS has made the line clear and present danger[1]. That is, a threat made via speech has to be clear, credible and imminent else it is not considered a threat and hence not speech that may be interfered with legally, but if it is then it can be.
It's distinctly possible you've read more Popper than I have but his words seem very clear here too[2]:
> I do not imply, for instance, that we should always suppress the utterance of intolerant philosophies; as long as we can counter them by rational argument and keep them in check by public opinion
He goes on to contrast that with those who give up on speech and respond with violence (and it's all within about a page).
So we have a clear line and there's no need to wait for violence to actually occur before legal remedy can be sought, which would appear to me to fit with Popper's statement and what you studied.
I completely agree with Popper on elections, and free speech fits the same mould, it's primary function is to reduce violence. Without free speech the options for those who wish to change society are only violent. With it there is no excuse for violence.
The law has indeed changed over time, but that is the nature of common law, it changes as new challenges come up where novel arguments will arise. That doesn't make the law fuzzy though, it's clear enough for the vast majority of cases that occur at any one time. The actual statute upon which the law rests is in the constitution, I'm not aware of any changes to that since 1791.
So are you proposing that the US should become part of the British Empire again? Because quite literally the founding of the US is based on protesters resorting to violence.
They resorted to violence because they didn't have free speech, which is why it was written in to the constitution, they'd had experience of government interference in their speech.
The problem is who gets to decide what is unacceptable.
If you look at social media, they paint with a very broad brush.
...such a broad brush and so will to employ any means necessary to silence opposition, that they begin to resemble the fascists they purport to oppose.
Of course, this is also something Popper mentions. He says that intolerant voices and lines of thought shall not be suppressed, if they can be counterbalanced by rational arguments and public discourse.
What should be done if this rational argument doesn't work anymore and the public discourse is fragmented is (to my knowledge) not mentioned in his works.
That would require a completely different political system. There have always been two mainstream parties, which in non-First Past the Post countries would be coalitions of smaller parties. These coalitions break up and shift alignments over time. This is why the Republican Party of today is not the Republican Party of 1959 or 1855, it's more like the Ship of Theseus that bears only the name of the original ship.
I think moving to a 3-2-1 voting system instead of FPTP, IRV or Proportional would resolve most of the polarization issues in a few cycles. I think it's the easiest way to force deliberation and moderation at the single district/office level without conceding local representation or complexity for the voter. The key is not having a one dimensional optimal strategies or suboptimal equilibrium that result in plurality rule or tyranny of the majority.
I'd modify it to allow a super yes/no with double the value per voter to force people to be a bit more selective.
various aspects of IQ, demeanor, education, work ethic, surroundings, and a whole host of other variables, some external some internal. Of course the majority of people on HN and in the public will revert to weeping and gnashing of teeth rather than acknowledge this obvious fact, because the majority of people on HN and in the public implicitly tie human worth to economic output and intelligence (which is the actually bigoted and racist thing to do)
I don't care about you trying to cancel me lol that's why this is a sock account, but it's even more telling that you think basic descriptive (not prescriptive) observations about reality are not moderate.
Yeah, but why not stuff like immigration, stances on environmental regulation, income tax rates on high earners, gun rights...
You've gotta agree that those fall under the moderate umbrella a bit more right? I've lived/worked in some very conservative environments and I don't think anyone would've walked along with the race IQ path.
My comment was in relation to the topic of the parent comment, which is why I mentioned it at all. Income tax rates and environmental regulation very rarely get brought up in conjunction with why there are gaps in racial outcome that aren't the result of racism. I think we can both agree that the things I mentioned are more more on point with arguments pertaining to racial outcomes, even if you completely disagree with those arguments.
That's fair! I think I may have confused you with the OP that responded as such to the moderate point.
For what it's worth, I think you may be surprised how much you can discuss on this topic without crossing "the line" for most people. I think that if partisanship wasn't as divisive as it currently is than you'd be able to discover a lot more common ground with people.
I definitely agree with you on that. Most people are far more likely to have a productive discussion when at least one party goes out of their way to be nuanced and careful in how they word things as well as the discussion not taking place in a performative environment (online or in front of other people.) It is definitely a lesson I have learned over time and through my own biases and misbehavior causing myself unneeded problems that were/are quiet foolish in hindsight.
With that said, all of these topics are not worth getting too into, since even 100% agreement on HBD or esoteric human rights philosophy topics doesn't really accomplish much. I have arrived at a sort of internal understanding that it doesn't matter if most people would disagree with me on this stuff. Also, if I find the common perspective to be ridiculous or stupid that doesn't really matter or entitle me to pressing the issue when it doesn't matter. What genuinely matters is finding common humanity/shared goals that are mutually beneficial and not getting bent out of shape over stuff that doesn't really matter, which in this case is trivia pertaining to generalized (which is practically useless individually) racial outcomes. Hopefully I've explained myself clearly and shown that I don't have any ill will intended towards you or anybody who has different opinions or may even hate or take offense at how I see the world. Have a nice Sunday :)
Of course, I hope that you didn't take too personally the snark in my original reply =).
At most other points in human history, our discussion probably would've been a cordial trade of livestock for bread and there would never be a reason to fear ill will. It's bummer of the 21st century that this time it was meta discussion about politics on the internet.
Don't worry, I don't take much personally and this was not one of those times. The little back and forth that may or may not be sharp is what makes these discussions fun (for me at least) in the first place. I think the added danger and possibility for severe personal consequences might end up being a net positive for everybody in the long run, as you can see in Eastern Europe where Stalinism and its restrictions on free speech resulted in a group of people who generally play things close to the chest by nature but have a very rich inner life and are able to contemplate serious or emotionally charged subjects in a way I find most Americans and first worlders in general lack.
New negatives in environments always come with new positives in the environment's survivors, and I am hopeful that we will all end up with a more thoughtful introspection similar to that which came from "oppression" (I hesitate to call what we are experiencing oppression due to how minor it is compared to gulags.) Some of the world's most beautiful literature as well as brilliant scientists have come out of Eastern Europe, I am optimistic that something similar will be the fruits of what is now underway globally with the advent of social media and its soft tyranny over social relations.
The general unwillingness (and career danger) to even study this topic is concerning to me. Maybe there are correlated factors, maybe there aren’t. I think we’d all be better off if these topics could be studied, so they could be understood, so any negative effects could be ameliorated most effectively.
When I see respected economists reporting that there are differences in economic success that are correlated with race and respected sociologists reporting differences and other factual data analysis, I see differences that seem to persist by race. All of those are output measurements. What’s the next logical thing you do as an academic, seeking to understand a problem in search of a persistent, structural solution? Go look for input measures and see what you can learn about the system. That’s the step that seems to be a third-rail and if we’re not willing to study the structural inputs to the problem, we’re handicapping ourselves in solving any of it.
Culture and everything to do with it is 90% of the answer.
Asian Americans face racism, and have absolutely zero cultural standing, nobody cares that Asian Americans don't win Oscars, they are not on TV shows, they are not represented in sports.
And yet Asian Americas are literally 2x the national income and make up vastly disproportionate numbers of high tech workers etc..
The notion that somehow how 'Asian Americans' have 'vast Racial Privilege' that enable them to gain success is plainly ridiculous, obviously.
Most of them do not come to America with stashes of wealth to give them advantage, though some do.
So how are Asian Americans so successful? Because as individuals, they focus on the things that matter to them, and that enable them to have much higher incomes - like education as one obvious example.
Those attitudes, motivations, concerns, behaviours are passed down from generation to generation and though it's unfair to characterize anyone by their culture, those things have tremendous impact.
JK Rowling's view that Women, and Men who transition to women, while they should have 'equal rights' - are not the same thing, that there is a difference and that difference should be respected - got her cancelled. They are out for here in droves.
This is a mainstream view and probably extremely popular.
In fact, outside of hyperbolic politics I'll be basically anyone that even accepts 'trans folks' (because a lot of people wouldn't in the first places) actually feels that way.
The movement to 'erase' any possible difference that people might view Women/Trans Women differently is rooted I think in a really emotional, almost child-like concern/anger/will to 'defend rights!!!' in such a way that anyone who disagrees must be destroyed, without conceding some probable, basic realities.
I actually think that in a more calm, moderate, less hyperbolic situation, nobody would want to cancel her. It's the aggressive voice of less than 0.1% on the fringe who've internalized a lot of their academic views into emotional one's.
They tried to cancel Steven Pinker recently for suggesting, that according to the science, Americans are more generally subject to quite a bit more police aggression overall, and that though Black people to face disproportionate ire, that the problem is more general and widespread whereupon Black people have an acute situation.
Which personally always felt was the case, and absolutely nobody is willing to say it.
Put in other words, he almost said, in an academic kind of way that 'All Lives Matter' i.e. police aggression is more or less a general problem, not just a Black problem.
For this there were signatories, back room pushes etc. to cancel him. Fortunately, he's respected enough that he didn't have to worry but any 'less famous' prof. would have been destroyed.
This is again similar to JK Rowling in that a very basic, factual and what should be 'not even controversial opinion' gets you in a lot of trouble.
Almost ironically, during a CBC interview, Pinker spoke politely at length about the issues and used soft language to refer to the 'more extreme' on the left - but hilariously he used the language 'Social Marxist' which is almost identical to the term 'Cultural Marxist' (a derogatory term coined apparently by some bad person). It's funny because the logic of the terminology, which is to say that while Marx spoke about 'class struggle', the 'Social Marxists' (Pinker's words) use the same language but for race, gender etc.. If Pinker would have been anyone else, on a US outlet and had used slightly different words, he would have been publicly pilloried. It's funny how that works.
The fact that even Steven Pinker has come to the very obvious conclusion that this is very similar ideology but instead of 'class' you have 'race' or 'gender' - but that literally using any terminology to reflect that could get you in hot water, is Orwellian.
Imagine if the Nazis made a rule to suggest that any reference to the existence of Nazism or the power of the government will be met with prison or death. People all running around in that totalitarianism without even the language to point to said totalitarianism. It's probably the most 'Orwellian' of all 'Orwellian' concepts.
There is an interesting historical parallel during the Weimar republic, the German Communist Party (KPD) hated the 'centre left' socialists (i.e. people like Rowling, Pinker) more than anyone.
"The party directed most of its attacks against the Social Democratic Party of Germany, which it regarded as its main adversary and referred to as "social fascists"; the KPD considered all other parties in the Weimar Republic to be 'fascists'."
Literally anyone 'less Communist' than them, was a...
It's interesting that you mention the KPD, one of the founders Rosa Luxemburgs most famous quote is "Freedom is always, and exclusively, freedom for the one who thinks differently." it should also be pointed out that she was killed by freikorps, who were also used by the "moderate" social Democrats to squash the spartacus uprising. Freikorps for those not so familiar with German history were essentially far right militia groups. So things are by far not as black and white as you make it out.
Being pro abortion rights and pro gun rights. Thinking that private companies should have to respect the right to freedom of speech as much as the government (especially when they hold a monopoly on “public spaces”). Thinking that perhaps capitalism is not the cure to all of society’s ills - that it even causes some of those problems. Thinking that socialism is - practically speaking - impossible due to basic human nature.
Basically, holding views from both parties, and not just toeing one party’s line.
Maybe it doesn't rise to the level of 'cancelled' but a few decades ago you were taking a progressive, modern, left-wing stance if you said:
* These cases of minority students with 1600 on the SAT not being offered places in top colleges are bad. College admissions and grading should be name- race- and gender-blind.
* These cases of people trying to ban gay media and speakers for 'obscenity' or 'outraging public decency' are bad. People should be able to publish what they like, and colleges certainly shouldn't ban invited speakers, even if some students find their views challenging.
* These people writing about computers and always referring to the user as 'he' is pretty out of date. Generous use of 'they' in preference to gendered pronouns is the inclusive choice.
The same stances, when viewed from a few decades later, sound right-wing: To modern ears, those stances oppose affirmative action, oppose no-platforming, and say it's OK to ignore people's preferred pronouns. To some, those views would sound positively Jordan Peterson-esque.
America seems to be an interesting country where people silence others' political beliefs, as opposed to the usual military violence, tightly-established hierarchies, and economic oppression...
I agree. How crazy is it to think its ok for donations to one of the established parties should have repercussions on your emplyment? Dont people see that the other side could want the same thing then.
Why wouldn’t you be? The way that people react these days is so all over the place that it’s a no win situation unless you’re talking about financial/economic policy.
Ethics applies here just as well. You are trying to equivocate the actions of those who actually attempt to kill those who disagree politically (aka “terrorism”) with attempts at eliminating platforms for wide dissemination of speech.
Attitudes and politics change with new generations. It's hard to change the way people already think. So this is a reflection of people not agreeing with the external pressure to conform to new thinking.
That's not to say that you cannot convince people of new attitudes, so long as you appeal to their already held belief systems (LGBT rights, for example, animal cruelty, etc), but you cannot ram your beliefs down someone else by force and have that accepted and not have a reaction to it.
The final Democracy Institute poll (https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/1354506/us-election-202...) that came out Saturday predicts a Trump victory contrary to most other polls, because it found that 79% of Trump voters do not tell others that they support him, while only 21% of Biden voters are shy.
For those who are skeptical, put on a "Make America Great Again" hat and walk through downtown Chicago, San Francisco, Ann Arbor, or Cambridge before or after election day 2016 (or 2020). Now, put on a "I'm With Her" or "Biden/Harris 2020" shirt and walk through Provo, Fort Worth, or Pensacola before or after election day. In which scenario are you more like to be yelled at and/or physically attacked?
Well, polls are IMHO not good, betting odds are better I have found, for example the last UK general election the bettering odds had conservatists to win. Yet if you looked at Twitter or Facebook, you would be convinced Labour would win with complete dominance in posts upon those platforms. That day I learned that social media is not representative of the populous at large and only a slanted snapshot and polls are equally not that great. See with polls - people lie, why - many reasons, some tactical, some not bothers and some just to avoid confrontation from easily agitated oppositional types.
AS for America - last visit I made was over a decade ago but I learned to avoid political debate with a passion as people don't do debate and more argue you to death. Even then in the office had a chap come in and almost interrogated me upon political views, even worrying was others warned me of that and I dismissed them. You live you learn and I've found that the older people are - the more they are inclined to avoid such debates as they more often than not become toxic.
Obviously social media is a terrible barometer for political mood. It's designed to build a self-co gratulatory bubble, but I'm not sure I buy the argument that polling is rigged or unscientific.
Polling is a statistical model of a rare event of human behavior - of course there's uncertainty!
The fact that the rubrik for interaction is "being yelled at" or "attacked", and not just "being approached in civil discussion" of any kind is telling of how one side has lost site of the whole point of "civics"
For those who don't believe offshore4432: As this video (https://twitter.com/JackPosobiec/status/1322646326807568390) shows, the black Trump-supporter vehicle was already close behind the vehicle in front of it before the white Biden vehicle moved into its lane from the left.
Meanwhile a convoy of armed Trump supporters literally tried to run the Biden campaign bus off the road [1].
That's the reality Trump supporters are using fascist tactics (and I'm not exaggerating here, these acts are rightbout of a fascist playbook) while complaining that liberals say mean things to them.
I wouldn't help the Biden campaign either if I was police, after they stocked the flames of a movement that literally chanted about wrapping cops up and setting them on fire.
Even if what you are saying is true, are you suggesting that the police should only help people that they politically agree with, because it really sounds like it.
Let's consider that what you are saying is true, are you suggesting that the police should only help people that they politically agree with, because it really sounds like it?
Do you believe that is a healthy police force in a democracy?
I used the word "would" not "should". Humans are imperfect, and I think one of my imperfections is I'd look the other way if some citizens were bullying a group of people that supported chanting about burning me alive.
>Meanwhile a convoy of armed Trump supporters literally tried to run the Biden campaign bus off the road.
Surrounding the bus, while keeping to all traffic laws.
And before you say "But what about the Biden car behind the bus?", as this video (https://twitter.com/JackPosobiec/status/1322646326807568390) shows, the black Trump-supporter vehicle was already close behind the vehicle in front of it before the white Biden vehicle moved into its lane from the left.
Cato's leadership struggle in 2012 took it from a strongly-right-leaning but fundamentally intelligent and rational policy organization, to one step above the John Birch Society and a bare GOP stump organization.
I don't care one way or another about banning, but yeah, people really should not put any weight into what comes out of it today.
I'm not complaining about the downvotes but given that my comment contains significant substance about the Cato Institute, I would appreciate more feedback. Are you downvoting because you think the leadership struggle in 2012 didn't affect it, or because you also think the JBS is a serious policy organization?
I didn't downvote it (and I very rarely downvote anything other than spam), but your comment is precisely the sort of ad hominem dismissal that this thread is complaining about. A glance at the blogs on cato.org shows a pro-business editorial line which is perfectly well aligned with the chamber of commerce wing in both parties. It is very anti-Trumpian and somewhat anti-Biden. I am not a huge follower of the Cato Institute, but in my recollection, this is the same type of stuff that could be found there 20 years ago.
Sometimes Cato has useful studies or data, and then it's worth reading. It's a moderate, academic, economics-colored point of view on the world. I wouldn't call it exciting, but this kind of complete dismissal in a thread about dismissal and silencing of moderate voices apparently looks silly to some people.
Let me guess, they don't align with "strong liberal" views so any controversial part of their past makes them cancel-able ("ban" as you say).
I now feel like I will hesitate to submit a Cato article in the future, and I don't even know what is wrong with them! Basically exactly what the article discusses.
To be fair, HN does remove a ton of political posts. If they didn't, this tech forum would be overrun with irrelevant political discussion.
Conservative think tanks posts can definitely stimulate good discussion, but if you don't moderate consistently, the community will eventually form a hivemind politically.
There are a ton of information available about the Cato institute online. If you "don't even know what is wrong with them", don't want to post about them and don't want to inform yourself that's on you.
Young Americans are also more likely than older Americans to support punishing people at work for personal donations to Trump. Forty‐ four percent (44%) of Americans under 30 support firing executives if they donate to Trump. This share declines to 22% among those over 55 years old—a 20‐ point difference. An age gap also exists for Biden donors, but is less pronounced. Twenty‐ seven percent (27%) of Americans under 30 support firing executives who donate to Biden compared to 20% of those over 55—a 7‐ point difference.
I think millennials might be quite a case study on bad parenting, because Gen Z are literally turning out to be bad apples. This is all of our faults, we are failing our kids more or less.
Reminds me of the recent violence in France “connected” to Islam. Where did you kids learn this stuff? Who is parenting you?
What is all this internet and global economy, and social connections via social networks for if this is how narrow minded our new generations are becoming? What is the point of all this exposure if you are literally turning out to be stupid people?
Holy hell, I dislike certain politicians as much as the next guy, but punishing people at work for making donations is absolutely ludicrous. Do you have a link to where you got this data?
Thanks for correcting. Gen X gets the least amount of flak compared to boomers, millennials and Gen Z, so that is interesting.
It’s not easy raising kids for sure, but it’s almost like you have to be callous to not understand what kinda rat race the working world can be, and how hyper competitive even the shittiest of jobs are.
Why are these values not being passed down? Usually, children of working immigrants see how hard their parents or people in their community work in jobs. Are Gen X so well off in middle management somewhere that their kids casually believe it’s aright to sack someone’s livelihood for their political beliefs?
Do we need to take Twitch and Phones away from these idiots and have them go work in the gig economy like a dog for a bit?
I would say there has to be some mandatory parenting classes you have to take before getting married/having kids, just like driving and driving school.
The vast majority of people know fuckall about parenting, and in turn raise disfunctional kids that know nothing about proper parenting, and the cycle continues.
Intervention is needed, in the form of teaching better parenting.
I think the real issue with political polarization is that the stakes at the individual level are very very low when you are in an offensive position. People that think that people should get fired over donations have no risk of getting fired for that opinion themselves.
Generally there is a problem of escalation and individual responsibility, and its all being concentrated in the political sphere because of it.
There is another major trend which is that governments are directing themselves on polling more than ever: they are constantly making stances and policies on the latest hot-tweet, which makes the political sphere way too relevant to people's daily lives.
That's a good question and no one really knows the answer, but we will have the answer Nov 4.
If your implication is true, I think there is going to have to be a serious re-assessment by the establishment regarding the divergence of their politics vs the populace --and there would be a realization that propaganda only goes so far and coercion is the missing ingredient.
If the establishment is right, then obviously they had the right pulse and nothing changes.
Not american, but I believe it was said that this election you won't see the final results perhaps days/weeks even after election. Due to mail in votes I think?
Things I've learnt in the last 2 months, Americans have real problems counting votes. I'm not talking about disputed votes (hanging chads), I'm talking about real actual undisputable votes. Also seem to be problems with the concept of free and fair voting - people having to queue for hours to vote is a sign of voter suppression, not of a healthy democracy.
In the UK, we vote either in person on the day (from 6AM until 10PM), or in advance by post (which has to arrive at the designated location by the time polls close, either by post, or by dropping into a voting station). If a charismatic person in a pub gets everyone to go voting you can get a rush just before the polls close as 300 people turn up, but an hour would be extreme.
Postal votes are opened daily in the run up to the election in front of observers from the various parties as they come in, verified, and stored in a sealed box.
On the actual day the in person boxes are sealed at 10pm (or slightly later if people are still queueing) and transported to a central counting location.
These counting locations tend to count 50,000 at a time, and in my experience 50-100 people do the counting (in front of observers from the parties), the counts start almost straight away, and the first results come in after an hour or so. Most results are in after about 6 hours, and unless there are transport problems (storms preventing votes from islands getting where they need to go) everywhere has declared within about 10 hours.
Now the US has more than the 32 million votes cast in the UK's December election, but this method scales easily enough.
It will "take days" because it's expected mailed in votes will arrive after the Nov. 3 in jurisdictions where mailed-in votes are expected to be consequential.
So a mailed in vote that needs to be tallied may not arrive to be counted till Nov 5 or 6 or 9 (depending on state deadline).
>Does this mean thath the polls for this presidential election are even more wrong than they were in 2016?
Yes.
The final Democracy Institute poll (https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/1354506/us-election-202...) that came out Saturday predicts a Trump victory contrary to most other polls, because it found that 79% of Trump voters do not tell others that they support him, while only 21% of Biden voters are shy.
Americans have always held a very wide range of political views. Just 16 years ago Bush was running on the idea of adding a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage. Obviously there were people at that time who thought it was evil to treat gay people like that. And others thought it was sinful to be gay.
The only change now is that social media is showing each side the worst content from the other side getting them angry and engaged.
All major political leaders were against gay marriage at some point. The Clintons, Obama, Biden, etc.
As for GWB ....
> George W. Bush's Forgotten Gay-Rights History
> He defied his party by endorsing civil unions in 2004. (But that same year, he backed a constitutional amendment forbidding same-sex marriage.
This is a dishonest argument. Trump ran I 2016, when gay marriage was already law. It was explicitly the result of Democrats being elected that legalized gay marriage.
> He defied his party by endorsing civil unions in 2004. (But that same year, he backed a constitutional amendment forbidding same-sex marriage.
This might look inconsistent bjt I think the logic might have been to separate marriage, the religious thing from the civil union thing that is about tax deductions for couples etc.
This strikes me as somewhat pragmatic:
The government should have as little to say as possible on who lives with who - beyond not allowing close relatives to marry - while still protecting the religions of people living there.
I think the Pope fronted a similar conclusion recently.
Its so bad that US Citizens just dont get political theory just yet. Still a lot to learn. Its laughable that you thinking burning down property is fascism rather than just arson.
Fascism is a political strategy involving fear of change and scapegoating. If you’re trying to imply that use of force automatically translates to fascism, then you need to consider situations of community defense against fascists, which ultimately requires force. Self-defense and defending democratic rights is quite different from terroristic violence in the service of subverting democratic and human rights.
I reserve the term “violence” to situations described in
Hannah Arendt‘s similarly-named essay, in which terroristic violence has historically been used by failing dictators against the legitimate power of the people as a whole.
If using violence to combat opposing political speech isn't your definition of fascism, then it's as equally sinister and takes us to an equally dark place.
We have seen many examples in the last few years of people feeling so entitled to combat what they consider fascism, that they use violence against anyone they perceive as the enemy.
Maybe we don't agree on the definition of words, but this is a bad development.
I'm not from the US, but I'm very interested in what does this mean exactly. What's your definition/model of fascism and what's going on that means people are fighting fire with fire? Also, what do you think would be a better way to do it? Thanks!
I honestly think that social networks where you connect the whole world were a bad idea. Basing it on ads and thus engagement made it toxic.
Political left and right both formed extreme wings that attack moderate opinions for not being extreme enough. The right is often threatening violence while the left is trying to get you fired from your job.
We need to get rid of engagement algorithms and actively try to counter echo chambers by injecting moderate content into news feeds.
> Political left and right both formed extreme wings that attack moderate opinions for not being extreme enough
Very well said. I hate all extremes of politics. I like asking questions and being critical. What I have noticed is that critical thinking is attacked viciously from both sides. Asking questions that go against your side's "hard fact" is greeted with intense hostility and vitriol. I would imagine that this behavior is encouraged because it teaches people to not ask questions and follow the herd.
Forming your own opinions, coming to your own conclusions, asking your own question -- this is all so offensive nowadays. It is sad because often there is real social risk in saying something that might offend the left/right. If you live in a community that heavily leans to one side, you are scared of stating your own opinions because people could shun you. This social punishment could extend to your children -- what parent would want to take that risk?
I agree with this and, for what it's worth, I've found discussions like this are always far more cordial in person versus online - even if you already know the person online.
I genuinely blame social media for this "descent into dogmatism". Any time my belief is challenged in an online discussion, I can just retreat into my echo chamber and feel even more confident than before.
Not too long ago, maybe 4 months ago I saw an article posted on HN which was along the lines of moderates are more dangerous than the enemy, because they empower the other side. It was a fairly radical piece obviously slanted towards hard-left economic policies. I found the comments to mostly be in agreement and pretty depressing given that I am fairly moderate, I lean a little to the right on economic and personal rights, and well to the left on social issues. This is the way most people when I was a child where. The radicalization has been eye opening to say the least but I am staying in the middle, if both sides of the radicals would rather see me dead (one radical basically inferred, that is what needs to be done with moderates) then so be it.
This isn't new though. If you read MLKs letter from Birmingham jail you'll see he's also super vocal against moderates.
The issue is moderate really ends up meaning status quo (with basic changes), which if it's not clear a ton of people are suffering under the status quo.
So when you're a moderate you're in a way putting your seal of approval to the status quo, which ends up being pretty harmful for those who want to decrease suffering.
No I am not, I don't agree with radical ideals, I am not approving of either sides ideals. I do not need to choose your side and I am not your enemy, if I don't see eye to eye with you. At some point you get the idea that we are enemies as thus you make us enemies (not me), as I don't see eye to eye with your opponent either and have no interest in aiding them. I will not lend them comfort nor aid, just as I will not lend it to you. I should not be involved in your fight at all. It is you the radicals that insist that I lend your side aid. This is the entire concept of the 3rd amendment in the bill of rights. It is sad that we have slid this far from that type of moderate and enlightened thinking.
MLK is human he was capable of flawed logic just as all of us humans are. While I too revere him, invoking his disdain for moderates is a appeal to authority and does not make it a fact. I could similarly invoke Malcolm X and his realization in the end that, it was in fact not moderates but the people who thought they were helping that did the most harm (in his word radical white liberals). Both where wise men, both had irrational thoughts, as well as very rational lessons to teach humanity. But the fact that MLK saw moderates as a problem, speaks to the fact that while MLK moved more towards Malcolm's position, Malcolm, being an intelligent man as well, saw that his position was radical and moved towards pacifism and moderation. Where MLK started out. Neither were correct and both being intelligent moved their position, something that the dogmatic radicals of today's age have a hard time doing. Had MLK lived long enough he would have seen the error in his judgement. Unfortunately he was stricken down by a radical of a different belief system. Do you see the lesson in that? Is the lesson that the moderates helped the radical white supremacist? Or is it that radicals of all cloths, are full of hate?
Malcolm talked about that hate, and how it consumed him, that was a true from the heart message and it got him killed. In all respects humanity has more to learn from Malcolm given that he started out extremely flawed and hateful and thru educating himself and experience he reshaped his understanding of the world and reached the conclusion that what he wanted for the black man, does not need to be taken from the white man and that compassion for all man is the key, to ending the cycle. You see radicals (of all walks of life) want revenge. Revenge is a cycle, when what you should be seaking is justice. You can cloke it in whatever language you would like, but if the desire comes from hate it is revenge. Justice comes from sorrow but the realization that atonement has to happen.
Moderates by their very nature where not involved in MLK's death. They did not enable it, they did not condone it, they wanted nothing to do with it. Yet by your claim is that they did. I will spell it out clearly radicals on both sides are the problem, because you want to make everyone that does not eat your dogma the enemy, and your heart seeks revenge, to the point that it will take revenge on the innocent. The moderate majority is getting sick of it. Sorry for the harsh words but it's tough love time.
To be very clear I am not your enemy, I am a pacifist. I wish no harm to any human. I call them as I see them and I see the dogma of hate on both sides. I will stay where I am at, grounded in my pacifist principles, if that is worthy of calling me the enemy than so be it, but be very clear in your mind, you are labeling me an enemy, not the other way around and that strikes to the very heart of this very flawed thinking. Dogmatic ideology necessitates enemies, the prescription for that enemy is any that disagree with the dogma. Your dogma is creating the enemy not the other way around. This is at the very heart of why Malcolm left the Nation of Islam and why they saw him as such a threat. Malcolm shed the dogma, the Nation of Islam did not, we know who were the perpetrators of violence, thus who saw who as the enemy.
If you're a bystander to violence then you are a participant in it.
If you see someone getting attacked and you say you're a pacifist and you won't do anything to stop them then you're actively aiding the attacker and actively hurting the victim.
The fact that you're seeing this as a two sides issue means that you're honestly not actually aware of what injustices others are going through. If you were a victim of the injustices me and many other minorities have experienced you would expect more from others too.
No one says you have to join in on our fight. But if you're staying silent while I'm being killed then you're not going to be seen as a neutral player in this.
There is a whole lot to unpack there, as everyone assumes that they are innocent and are the righteous, virtuous, and correct party but the reality is both sides of any argument have flaws, a perfect example is BLM, they pack in a bunch of radical marxist and intersectional theory onto the back of racism to give it emotional charge and to label people like me who want nothing to do with that as racist. When in fact I correctly see racism as a doctrine of hate as well. But I am not going to answer their rally call of racism when to do so, would be to lend my voice to their other and just as important doctrines that are part of their agenda and honestly I suspect their real agenda.
The reality is I am not going to support that as it is a doctrine of hate. You cannot couch hate in emotional issues and then label it good. If you are out supporting it, I am not going to support you. I am not with them, I am against the hate. I am against their as well hate, I will just as I am now, call out my opposition to violence, but I am not going to support or advocate hate or violence because one side feels it is justified. I used BLM because you mentioned minorities, feel free to swap them, for Patriots Prayer because the message would be the same in talking to someone that mentioned ultra-nationalist, right wing, zealots who package it up behind a message of god's love. The people I support are men like Ken E. Nwadike who are consistent in a doctrine and worldview of no tolerance for hate or violence and that non-tolerance starts with the only thing we can change in this world, ourselves.
If someone is being actively attacked no matter who they where I would try to stop the violence. This is very different that supporting any doctrine that espoused that it is acceptable to hate or be violent to others, this is the breeding ground of violence and I will not support it as to do so is to aid in violence. That being said if you are taking to the streets and you get killed don't expect me to come out to avenge you. You, just like the other side, took to the streets to push your grievances.
The grievances I see in the streets right now are back by some really nasty human desires. I want nothing to do with it, I am neutral because I am not lending my support to either side. If you cannot see that there is hate packaged with what is being sold, than you miss the point as to why I cannot support it, and why I am not lending the other side aid. To lend aid to hate would be wrong. Both sides will label me against them, and that is fine it's the way dogmatic hate works. Yielding to it, would mean that the cycle cannot be broken.
But once again, when you claim that a pacifist is participating in the violence by staying true to their belief in nonviolence. It is you that are placing the label on the pacifist, it is you that is putting into action blame and hate on a person that is correctly telling you that this is the fruits of hate, it is you that is placing blame, not me. Put simply the pacifist will not make someone their enemy, but that does not mean that people do not see them as the enemy and when you realize the truthfulness of that reasoning, you will understand the pacifists world view, and that is that hate starts from each and every one of us, to not condemn it oneself, while calling for the condemnation of it in others is hypocaracy. hate breeds contemptment and enemies, not the other way around. My actions cannot by their nature make enemies, anger and rage coupled with a feeling of justification are what makes them. You are justifying and rationalizing why it is ok to see a pacifist as the enemy, to the extent that you are claiming that they are participants in violence. I hope you can see where dogmatic thinking has led you.
Germans who didn't stand up against Hitler are no different to me than the Germans who gassed the Jews.
You can argue there is a difference but I'm not going to agree with you.
You have a very majority oriented and "safe" worldview because frankly you're not being threatened. You're a bystander letting others do violence onto us.
I am not being threatened because I don't see people as a threat. I see ignorance, hate, greed, anger as threats. I have background that would allow me to claim oppression based on ancestral origin, but I choose not to claim it as I am not oppressed.
Hitler would have never been able to gas the jews had people adopted a world view of non-violence and non-agression. He would have never had the support that is bread out of hate. You see you are prescribing a remedy for the symptom, when I advocate curing the disease.
You do not need to see the difference for me, that is the point one has to see it and hold it valuable for oneself.
My worldview is anything but majority oriented, people think I am a wimp, they thing I hate America, they think I am a racist, they think I am a bigot, they think I am a homosexual loving pervert and a deviant and claim that I support all these things because I don't agree with their radical world views and they can only accept by their worldview that if I do not accept theirs than I am the opposite of their position. The reality is very few people agree with my worldview, certainly not the majority as I am constantly explaining to them their doctrines of hate. But again, just like you, I can only fix it in myself and explain to other how it is harmful to us all, but after that it is up to them. Most people do not want to do that level of self reflection because it removed their justifications for feeling the way they do.
Try it, take an inventory of who you dislike and why, more importantly what you would like done with those people. Really reflect on it, do you want justice or revenge on those people. Take yourself out of the equestion, do not justify your position with your feelings or the plights of past errors that have happened to others that you believe need vindication. If you want revenge then it flows from hate. Don't expect them to put down their hate if you are unwilling to put down yours. It is really that simple. I am constantly doing this, as hate is insidious and creeps up in us naturally, it attaches to emotion and hides itself with justifications. You have to strip all that away to see it, and you have to rid it in yourself before you can expect others to do the same. The old adage still hold true, be the change in the world you want to see. It's the hard road and most certainly not the majority "safe" worldview.
Actually I am mainly Berber, North African and Middle Eastern with lesser but some Caucasian and sub Saharan African, most people assume I am an Arab, American Indian or WTF are you (I get that a lot, because most people in North American have not met many ethnic Berbers). but none of that really matters (even if I where white) if you make the assumption to value peoples worth or credibility, by their ethnicity. You have already (incorrectly) prejudged me based on my assumed race. You in this post, are refuting what I am saying not by merit, rather just saying "you are wrong because you are white". Do you see the flaw in that logic? To you whiteness = incorrectness, but you hold white people to a different standard, I assume. They are not supposed to take your and other peoples race into account? Placing your lenses of race over how you see the world distorts your vision, yet you don't like that other people do it to you, when you are guilty of the same reasoning.
More importantly rather than race, I identify myself as an enlightenment era, western liberal and that is the culture that I was raised in an identify with. Race is an artifact of eugenic era thinking.
> The right is often threatening violence while the left is trying to get you fired from your job.
Wait till you see the "guillotine for the landlords" crowd :-(
I've noticed what you mentioned too - people claiming that if you don't fight for their idea, you're against the whole left/right/whatever. I wonder if that's an inevitable result of presenting views as left/right and having two parties in the first place. Most European countries have many flavours of left/right and parties having to form various coalitions instead.
> The right is often threatening violence while the left is trying to get you fired from your job.
Violence like setting up guillotines in front of Bezos' house in Washington? Violence like when the Trump supporters held parades, shops were looted, people were beaten, buildings were burnt, and police were assaulted? So much so that shops boarded themselves days before the parades? Violence like protesters threatening "burn the system down" or "there is going to be a war" if they lose election?
Or violence like Hollywood actors and actresses openly discussing beheading or assassinating the most evil orange man, or politicians openly discussing how they wanted to snap Republican supporters, and how BLMs and Antifa chanted that they wanted to kill the police?
Of course there are extreme and crazy people in all spectrums, but where are the right except a few marginalized small groups?
Oh wait, I’m wrong. Anyone who disagree with the left is far right, right? So Shapiro should be beaten in Berkeley. Mayor Wheeler’s apartment can be stormed. Anyone carrying our flag can be sucker punched?
Yes, half of the nation is far right right and they threaten violence.
You mean this: https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/10/15/matthew-dol...? In all seriousness, though, I wouldn't attribute it to "the left", as fringe people do crazy things, and there are enough fringe people on both sides. What matters are patterns of organizations and institutions.
Just so we call out facts, and for the record I am not right wing. But the second article is false on its face a self claimed hard left antifa associate killed someone in portland less than a month ago. So the claim that there has been no death puts the whole article in the making stuff up as they go along camp.
As for the first article I would agree with the DHS's assessment and it gets to the heart of why each side commits violence. The radical left tends to see violence as a means to get what they want (think a child throwing a temper tantrum). The radical right tends to see violence as a declaration of war (think the OK city bombing). When the left commits violence it tends to be against the populus that they believe disagrees with them and that violence tends to stem from a "how dare you disagree with me mentality". When the right commits violence it is generally against the government and is generally a mentality more akin to a suicide bomber. I can certainly see where the government would find one form of violence more concerning that the other even if the touch points of one side are more frequent than the other. Make no mistake about it, right leaning violence intent is to be more deadly and more violent than left leaning as they are not intent on getting what they want, they are intent on revenge whatever the cost.
> But the second article is false on its face a self claimed hard left antifa associate killed someone in portland less than a month ago. So the claim that there has been no death puts the whole article in the making stuff up as they go along camp.
OK, fair enough, but that just move the question, why use an article in current discussion that does not reflect the realities as they currently stand? It still implies an agenda that makes the issue look one sided when it is indeed not one sided at all.
Because 329-vs-1 is just as one sided as 329-vs-0. But I love that you blasted it as making shit up rather than bothering to look closely at the material.
I think that instead of trying to counter echo chambers and trying to change everybody's mind with moderate content, we need to strengthen them and stop making people clash.
The problem with social media is that it isn't enough like real life, where I have a choice of whose opinion I have to hear.
Therefore, I propose a system whereby the participants don't see content that's objectionable to them. The highest rated content and comments are the ones that the participant is most likely to agree and be comfortable with. Everything else is hidden until I decide to explore it.
We need user-centric systems, not "truth"-centric systems. Let me form my own bubble just like I do in meat space.
Sometimes it might just be that people formed opinions for matters which are more complex and need more knowledge and thinking of coming to a proper conclusion.
If 62% of Americans think homosexuality is wrong, does that really matter? Do we really wanna ask them that and act on it?
We are asking to many people what they think independetly of how much time and effort they spend with a topic or if that topic is not superseeded by something else (like an Amendment).
No one is going around and asking people what operating system is better.
My personal assumption, and this is now very critical for my inner conflict: I do believe every opinion should matter and i do strongly believe in democracy but this only works when the other requirement is true: People are reading up and educating themselfs on politics.
Enough people don't.
Enough people in politics don't.
They are there because they want something not because they care.
And just after I read this on HN I see this shared by a fellow brit asking WTF https://www.thedailybeast.com/biden-camp-cancels-austin-texa... and indeed... it's hard to comprehend of this level of voter and campaign intimidation like this anywhere. When I've read things like this in the past it's been in failed states.
I saw that video. It's not actually clear cut to me who was at fault. The truck was in the right lane, the bus and SUV right behind in the left lane. Bus merged right (into truck's lane immediately in front) SUV could not occupy the space already occupied by the truck as SUV tried following bus. Truck did not yield, SUV tried to wedge in and straddled both lanes. There was subsequent contact but I'm not sure who initiated it. Never the less, you should not drive in two lanes --you should wait till it's safe to merge, it's basic traffic safety to not change lanes till it's safe to do so.
The truck is at fault by being there at all. This is not acceptable behavior. They created the situation with the intent to provoke. It’s classic bullying.
Tailgating is a thing, but so is not merging when unsafe to merge as well as splitting lanes is a thing you should not do (motorcycles excepted in some states).
Texas law is quite open to interpretation. Reckless driving is defined as "a person commits an offense if the person drives a vehicle in wilful or wanton disregard for the safety of persons or property." [1]
Driving at that distance is wanton disregard for the safety of the persons in the bus, but that's open to interpretation of the officer at the scene.
I'm just serving your point by quibbling about the law. The driver's intent is quite clear. Intimidating people because you disagree with them is unacceptable behavior. In this case, I suspect it's also illegal.
Look at the full video. The Trump vehicles were in their own lanes. The other vehicles made aggressive moves to merge into the Trump supporters' lanes.
And as also a fellow Brit, I think you need to exercise a bit more judgement before leaping on the bash America bandwagon. Firstly, it appears the Democrats are contradicting themselves about what happened. That article links to another article on CBS that directly contradicts their own. Their article says:
"Joe Biden’s presidential campaign canceled a Friday event in Austin, Texas, after harassment from a pro-Trump contingent."
and quotes:
"The Biden campaign’s Texas communications director, Tariq Thowfeek, said holding the event would have placed Biden staffers and supporters at risk."
But the CBS affiliate article says:
"The Biden bus has also been closely followed by Trump supporters while on the road, though Texas Democrats insist their presence didn't affect their decision to call off the downtown Austin rally ... Texas Democrats told us they canceled the event so not to take away attention from vice presidential candidate Kamala Harris"
Then the videos. The Twitter vids don't seem to show intimidation. They're all in vehicles, the trucks are just driving alongside the bus. There's a video of what looks like a failed merge on an overly busy highway, which is described like this:
“These Trump supporters, many of whom were armed, surrounded the bus on the interstate and attempted to drive it off the road,” he alleged. “They outnumbered police 50-1, and they ended up hitting a staffer’s car.”
Even the Daily Beast has to report this as "alleged" because he provides no evidence they tried to drive it off the road. If they'd wanted to do that they certainly could have done, given the number of trucks, but the bus was unharmed.
The only activity described in the article that could possibly rise to 'intimidation' is turning up and making some noise at rallies, but that's not normally called intimidation, is it? It's not exactly unheard of for anti-Trump people to turn up and make a lot of noise at his rallies, and the right don't accuse the left of intimidation or cancel events in those situations.
That's an interesting stat, though its political in nature.
I suspect that the disconnect is far wider in scope. Most people are totally perplexed by the disparity between their own reality and what is portrayed in the news. For 3 years we had evidence-free but unrelenting Russia/Trump hate. This seemed insane, but it turns out that was just the warm up act to coronavirus!
The reality of what people see around them is sooooo far away from what is portrayed on the MSM. It amazes me that anyone pays any notice to the MSM at. But what it really shows, is that most individuals are not their own authority in their life. They defer to what is the consensus opinion that is blasted at them 24/7 from the MSM, rather than acting according to what they actually experience.
Imagine, somehow a person was frozen in time, and seeing how the majority live now - scared of living because someone said something on TV!
But that is the power of the media, and why it is such an effective control. The majority disagree with what is portrayed, but feel pressured enough to keep quiet and therefore acquiesce to whatever is being shouted out.
Yeah well when you have a president who openly supports the police shooting unarmed people, unarmed people become afraid of saying anything against the president. When you have a president who's openly calling immigrants thieves and rapists, immigrants and their American kin become afraid of saying anything against the president. If you have a president who openly calls your religion "a religion of death" you're going to be afraid. I support firing Trump supporters, of course I do I'm the son of the an immigrant and people like me are being locked up by him for nothing. Why would I ever want to work with someone who openly wants to throw me in jail?
Edit: ug I mean identity politics has really been tainting the discussion! Who could be causing this?!
Is it because most Americans don't actually know Political theory? The 'left' wing of the US is comparable to the moderately centre of the UK (maybe a bit to the right actually). They can't think as one group or groups yet because they are just beginning to actually get a grip of the fundamentals.
Adding in, before US folks bite this comment. Please understand that Socialism is not universal healthcare, it is not the right to reliable and inexpensive housing and it is not feeding the children of your country before they starve. These are basic human rights. When you parade around wanting to defend free speech, why not defend these basic human principles? You cant speak if you are unable to due to rent prices going up and not being able to feed your family. Or going to the doctors or university costs you your whole life.
I would absolutely be denied opportunities for projects, publicity, promotion, and advancement in my field if I were known to have political views that deviated from the norm in my industry, which I will state for the record is hard left.
Consequently, I express no personal non-work related opinions not only at work but in fact not even with “friendlies,” as loose lips sink ships.
It is a shitty way to live, given how much time one spends at work.
I assume the best in people and assume your question is earnest. I also do not implicitly agree with “we” because I don’t know you personally.
But yes, the second portion of my comment was intended to capture that even outside of work with co-worker friends I am reluctant to express opinions. Even if I am mainstream today, or on a particular issue, the winds can shift quickly.
It is a healthier way to live to keep that sort of stuff to yourself. There used to be a rule not to bring up religion or politics up at work, and this rule was good. Just because the left or what is more commonly known as liberal side of people are increasingly comfortable ignoring that rule doesn't make it any less of a proper rule. Keep the personal feelings aside and do what you're paid to do to the best of your ability, eventually the pendulum will swing in the other direction and the loud people now will be punished for being loud, and then the people on the right will begin to be loud and obnoxious. At that point, even if you agree with things being said, still keep your mouth shut and do your work to your best of your ability. Everybody who is paying attention and values hard work sees who is showing restraint and that restraint gets rewarded in the long term. It's not as fun in the short term to have discipline when very few people around you have discipline, but long term it is much more fun and worthwhile.
Which industry do you work in? I am looking for a new job and would appreciate something hard-left rather than hard-California, which seems to be the new norm in the worldwide software industry.
I'd be interested as well. I work for a Californian tech company and I would mostly describe it as "hard left". We have mandatory trainings quarterly where we have to do exams where we say "as long as 50% of tech workers aren't female and black, we 've got a discrimination issue." I've got coworkers who've told me over a beer that they work here exactly so they wouldn't have to work with people who have "other values" and they feel its good those sort of people are outed.
So in essence, feels like a textbook example of what the article was talking about, with leftists having consider able freedom to talk about politics and everyone else marginalized.
I applaud your ability to keep politics out of work.
We created a hard rule at our company in 2016: No politics / No religion. Most humans are incapable of discussing these topics rationally, and it only serves to increase division at work.
One person could not handle the idea of not being politically active at work, and we discovered after she quit that almost everyone was happier no having her toxic commentary omnipresent.
In the best case scenario, folks like this are a big distraction - at worst they are a source for litigation, security issues, and horrible employee productivity.
People who want to be politically active at work are absolute poison to creating a healthy cooperative team environment.
You're doing the right thing, and if everyone else's constant hammering of politics at work is creating a bad environment for you, it's probably doing the same for others. You may want to anonymously suggest to the higher-ups that a similar rule should be implemented. Everyone will be happier.
Great comment. In fact even years ago before the current environment it was my rule to leave politics and religion out of the workplace and really focus on work. You are absolutely right that most humans cannot have a rational discussion without investing their emotions.
However what’s new(?), and tragic, is (a) omnipresent social media and/or digital footprint and (b) that discourse outside work with coworker friends — at least for me but I suspect for many of those of us working 80+ hours, our social circle is largely coworkers or industry colleagues — could massively negatively affect career.
The current environment likely leads to a sense of isolation , ironically likely shared by the /majority/ of people.
Your comment belies pretty repressive, judgmental, arrogant and close-minded attributes on your part.
This attitude reminds me of the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” repression policy against gay service members.
People should feel they don’t have to unnaturally switch off core important parts of their identity at work. They need to have psychological safety to outwardly “be themselves” - without burden to exert extra effort to unnaturally be different.
If you want to talk about severe extremes like preventing hate speech at work or not being allowed to practice nudism in the office, then fine, there’s worthwhile discussion of limits.
But if you want to say “no religion” and “no politics” just because you personally have the extreme arrogance to say “most humans” can’t discuss those topics rationally, then you personally are just an authoritarian thug - and this comes through strongly with the pejorative way you write about religious people, political people and what you personally deem to be “toxic.”
It is far more likely that you are the toxic element, hoping to repress aspects of employee culture for self-serving reasons that change the workplace into an environment you personally prefer at the expense of basic humanity and inclusiveness for others.
Most humans can't discuss those topics rationally. It's not arrogant to say this, it's just basic truth. Throughout history, work hasn't been a social club, because everybody has a different preferred social environment and if you add in a social club then the thing people are getting paid for (work) is much harder to focus on. Your comment itself shows how passionate you are about political or social issues, which is fine for you if that is how you wish to proceed in life, but work is not the place for the emotionalism that is paired with passion for 99% of people. Left wing, right wing, authoritarian, libertarian, liberal, communist, fascist, etc doesn't matter, work is best done separated by those can put aside those motivations while working and focus on whatever it is they're being paid to work on.
> “ Most humans can't discuss those topics rationally. It's not arrogant to say this, it's just basic truth.”
No, this is a deeply arrogant and harmful thing to say. When it comes to beliefs, nearly anything that tries to generalize to “most humans” is at best arrogant ignorance and at worst actively repressive.
Trying to redefine work from something it has been for all of human history (a place where you do work) into some sort of personal self expression is what is arrogant and harmful. Things are the way they are for reasons. Don't remove a fence until you know why it's there, and we know why the fence of no politics or religion is there (most humans aren't good at compartmentalizing their personal feelings on subjective social issues once those personal feelings are out in the open in an environment where you aren't around people who all share your personal feelings)
No, you are very wrong here. Societal progress has tended to move away from repressing personal identity in the workplace. Just a generation ago this conversation would have been about whether gay people are allowed to be open about their sexual orientation or if they should just not allow any expression of their sexual identity to be present at work. Lots of people would respond with extreme homophobic comparisons like saying, “but I don’t bring my heterosexual identity to the workplace” and there would be comparisons with the military “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy.
As a society we’ve mostly progressed past that bigoted point of view, but now we face similar battles about trans people being able to just be themselves and let their natural identity exist in the workplace. It is similar with many aspects of religious identity or political identity. Inclusiveness does not mean “we all equally avoid any reference to unique identity” rather it means “unique identity is encouraged and allowed to openly flourish.”
This attitude you express:
> “ Trying to redefine work from something it has been for all of human history (a place where you do work) into some sort of personal self expression is what is arrogant and harmful.”
is repressive and frankly anti-human. “Why can’t we just go back to the good old days when all the snowflakes would just shut up and do their jobs” - that is 100% not hyperbole - that is literally the level of regressive attitude you are endorsing under the disingenuous guise of “workplace professionalism.”
Let me put it more succinctly than has been expressed, emotions are a shit show, much of modern politics is emotionally driven to manipulate you and thus part of that show. A lot of us are not into German scheisse, so keep that crap at home, it ruins the workplace and keeps you from working with a lot of good people you can learn from.
That’s why it was critical to respond. The comment I responded to is overtly and unequivocally expressing arrogant repression (“no politics” and “no religion” discussed at work because “most people” can’t rationally talk about it).
If you think my comment is a personal attack, that’s wildly unreasonable. The parent comment is the one behaving that way and it is absolutely fair and uncontroversial to point out their own words demonstrating thuggish repression.
In fact, not challenging their comment on these reprehensible points would be the far worse action.
> That’s why it was critical to respond. The comment I responded to is overtly and unequivocally expressing arrogant repression
No, it isn't: It wasn't critical for you to respond (particularly with insults) nor was the comment "repression".
> If you think my comment is a personal attack
Your first comment is a personal attack, and so is this one. You continue calling the first commenter you replied to a "thug". There's really no room for opinions or different thoughts; that you insulted that person is undeniable.
> The parent comment is the one behaving that way
The parent comment didn't insult anyone here, it's really odd that you're trying to say otherwise when we all can read the comment and can see that there's no insult to anyone here in it.
> it is absolutely fair and uncontroversial to point out their own words demonstrating thuggish repression.
It isn't.
> In fact, not challenging their comment on these reprehensible points would be the far worse action.
> “ Your first comment is a personal attack, and so is this one. You continue calling the first commenter you replied to a "thug".”
No, you are wrong. The parent commenter expressed thuggish ideas - they did that and it is critical to hold them to account for it.
I didn’t make them state awful thuggish repressive comments like completely voiding out core personal identities of coworkers. I am not putting any spin or embellishment on their comment - they chose to write it. Calling it thuggish or arrogant is not unfair or insulting whatsoever - that is unequivocally what they chose to express.
It deserves to be called out and for people to stand against that type of repressive attitude. It is absolutely not insulting or personally attacking to do so. The commenter’s words simply have these consequences, regardless of you using completely unsubstantiated gainsaying to reply to me.
The original comment is deeply uncivil, and it highlights extremely broken community norms if you or others think that a reply which calls out that lack of civility (where calling it thuggish or arrogant is absolutely fair and not an insult at all based on the comment’s own terms) is somehow itself uncivil.
Please stop using HN for political battle and flamewar. You've been doing it a ton lately, it's not what this site is for, and as you know, we ban accounts that keep doing it. We've had to warn you several times already.
How would your company have dealt with a "Trump/Pence 2016" laptop sticker?
What about a request to get time off to vote?
What if someone came to HR and said they felt they were being treated differently by their boss because they posted a news article that mentioned politics and religion in the team's Slack channel, and they think their boss considered that a sneaky attempt to circumvent your strict "no politics / no religion" rule?
Politics are inextricable from most plausible modern workplaces. I'm all for asking employees to try to avoid bringing it up if they can help it, but a "no politics / no religion" rule doesn't guarantee a reduction in "litigation, security issues, and horrible employee productivity."
> How would your company have dealt with a "Trump/Pence 2016" laptop sticker?
Presumably this would fall under the no politics rule. Remove it. It's a work laptop anyway.
>What about a request to get time off to vote?
Non-issue. Leaving to vote is not bringing your politics to work.
> What if someone came to HR and said they felt they were being treated differently by their boss because they posted a news article that mentioned politics and religion in the team's Slack channel, and they think their boss considered that a sneaky attempt to circumvent your strict "no politics / no religion" rule?
Nothing sneaky about it, posting in the teams Slack work be a clear violation of the rule. It's a work Slack channel.
I have a feeling that most people offended by a tiny laptop sticker (regardless of which party) are exactly the kinds of employees we wouldn't want to have.
If people are focusing on work, these little things go unnoticed.
What's great about it is that it's engendered a culture of eye-rolling to people who try to interject their religion or politics, and this has become somewhat self-perpetuating.
If someone spammed a political article into a common venue (we don't use slack because it's such a waste of time), then I doubt it would get reported - just ignored.
> Politics are inextricable from most plausible modern workplaces.
I don't see how you could logically make this argument. Our business plan and financial goals have zero to do with the current political landscape.
I lean libertarian (although I hold some things things that are left and some right), so as you can imagine my views are not orthodox and would conflict with official statements by C-suite people. In this climate I absolutely express no political opinion no matter how well I could present the logic. I neither agree nor disagree with them so as not to give them a tell.
I find this to be rather odd only because I've never felt like I wanted to share my political opinions at work, so I don't feel like I'm missing anything. Beyond that we are all too busy working at work so there's not really time to debate the merits of [policy].
But I also don't live in California or work at a venture capital funded startup
The Lincoln report is also worth a look but tl;dr:
- everyone agrees that there should be more viewpoint diversity
- but most people still support silencing "dangerous opinions"
- and far right and far left more likely to support termination for offensive views
A better question to ask, rather than the one this poll puts forth (why are Americans scared to share their political views), is "why do people feel the need to share their political views at all?"
The reason for this is because people do not spend their time wisely. Instead of trying to convince equally powerless people to see reality in some manner which doesn't matter, the logical thing to do is work to increase your locus of control over your surroundings.
Politics don't matter, they are downstream from structures and incentives. Whether you like the police, lgbtq+ rights, abortion, equality, etc is completely irrelevant, how those things make you feel is irrelevant, stop wasting time on them and let other people waste their time on trying to validate themselves and their feelings with political games. Do real activities and increase your influence and control over your surroundings, then exert your values over that sphere. Caring about people agreeing with you is the position of the victim and slave.
I feel like you are a lone voice crying in the night. I tell people this all the time, but they are so trapped in the temporal that they cannot see the bigger picture, consumed by emotional thought that they cannot look past it. If people could just stop looking at how they are enslaved they would see the freedoms that they could enjoy.
I'm not surprised people are afraid. I'm in Europe,so naturally most of my connections on LinkedIn are on this side of the pond too, however there are also some Americans.None of them post anything unusual, however the feed occasionally brings up some batshit crazy stuff from related people. You could expect that kind of stuff on Facebook from some 15 years olds,but not from senior people who have been round the corner more than once. You read it and wonder how on earth you managed to get to where you are now with a thought train like that.
It's not that much better here, in England, too. People refuse to tell how they voted publicly, but often reveal it in private of they know they won't be judged. Usually the logic behind the decision makes you question person's ability to comprehend things slightly more complex than a paper bag.
The sociological aspects of this era are .. sadly fascinating.
2020s material comfort, education systems, insane technological 'tooling' .. and yet we're still a good old mob when too much ambient stress rises.
What should we do ? have gatherings to just dissolve tension and make people go back to normal lives without trying to find weird remarks or conspiracies about what's going on ?
Absolutely. For example I like Trumps stance on H1B Visa reform. I cannot share even this one policy agreement with peers without immediate labeling of bigot, racist, etc.
People appear to be so emotionally vested in this election at this point it’s better to stay quiet. IMO.
As with most political things, this cuts both ways with increasing polarity. Not just in the obvious way (left/right), but rather for every time I see someone not given the benefit of the doubt when supporting an arguably-not-hateful Trump policy, I also see someone respond to reasonable criticism by assuming a victim mentality, as though any criticism is a personal accusation of racism/sexism/etc.
It's surreal to see how far a lack of self awareness can go, reading all the comments either implying or outright stating, "yes, I agree, and it's the fault of the left/right". Attitudes like that are exactly why I don't share political thoughts in real life.
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[ 3.7 ms ] story [ 343 ms ] threadWe're talking about people not feeling comfortable having a debate over abortion (it's a third rail on either side to try and establish a time when a foetus becomes a recognized being). This is something we should be curious to establish a benchmark for. Both sides fear that if we establish a number of days at which then we can't have abortions after and the other side fears we can have abortions before)
Or are you suggesting that I cannot?
I am an adult. You don't need to protect me from hate-speech.
Not everyone who gets targeted as such holds those beliefs, sure, but they absolutely do exist in America. Until fairly recently, those people’s beliefs actually drove real policies in America that had real teeth and caused real suffering for real people. Of course we still see remnants of these policies and we certainly see knock-on effects of them today.
It would certainly help if the left did a better job at isolating those who actually hold the beliefs I listed above versus those who hold beliefs that are merely “in the orbit” of them. It would be great also if the right did a better job of isolating themselves and their own respectable beliefs from those beliefs that are not respectable.
But in any case to act like any belief that someone holds needs to be treated with respect and never framed as a direct affront to human rights, even if it is, shows a lack of knowledge about the range of things that people actually believe.
A lot of that work involved dismissing some ideologies as fundamentally incompatible with America. Speaking of civility, one time we literally had to go to war with ourselves over what one side would characterize as a mere “political disagreement.”
The Constitution failed to protect people from systematic rape, torture, and forced labor for nearly the first 100 years of its governance over America. It failed to allow women to get credit before 1974. None of what we have today is guaranteed. Plenty of nations have slid backwards from liberalism.
If you believe freedom of speech is a basic right, then you should also believe in protecting the right of bigots to spread diatribe.
This is about our society’s ability and justification to categorize beliefs into respectable or not. Some ideas are simply not deserving of respect, though of course all ideas are deserving of legal protection.
Nazis are allowed to march down 5th Avenue and the people who call those beliefs despicable are not “just as bad as the other side.”
Yes, and that ability does not include harassment, doxxing, threats, and attempting to induce employers and customers to end their relationships with them. That _is_ just as bad as the other side.
You say yourself that rights are sometimes at conflict with each other. That requires that sometimes rights are restricted to a point that other rights are not infringed. For instance we lock up dangerous people. Why do you think is freedom of speech is some kind of super-right that triumphs over every other right? Is freedom of speech more important even when it’s used to incite genocide?
The way you've phrased it means that it's perfectly reasonable to be uncivil (violent) towards others. That's a breakdown of communication and has effectively "othered" the individuals/groups based on their disagreement with your framing of the topic.
It is, given the right situation. It is not as if the civil rights movement of the 60s got the very real improvements it did get by accepting being treated as crap. Rather, it got rather violent at times. What you suggest would make certain no real improvement could ever happen. Which make sense if you belong to the people that has a good situation in the current status quo, but it absolutely sucks for the people that doesn't. Quite often to change the status quo to the better you first need to make it unpalatable enough to the people that is favored by it.
Case in point: In Sweden any politician, and mainstream society in general, who even hinted at reducing immigration has been called a heartless racist for the last 30 years, completely shutting down debate.
The effect of this was predictable (indeed I've been saying it for about two decades): MORE people become anti-immigrant. (the Sweden Democrats are probably the biggest party now, if there'd be an election today)
When you're told by the press and politicians that even raising a topic makes you racist and you should be cancelled, you're not exactly going to be won over.
It's so sad to see from the sidelines. Why has the left shifted so much to shutting down all debate that isn't 100% in agreement with the party line? It's not that I disagree with them on the issues, it's that it's sad that they're not seeing how it's actively hurting their stated goals.
If Sweden is any predictor, then this is going to get much worse (or, if you're on the right, it'll get much better).
Every time someone who said "biological men should not be allowed to compete in sports with biological women" is called Hitler, that's one more person lost to your whole argument, and someone who says that Trump is an OK compromise, and who'll think "if that's your choice argument then you're too crazy to be listened to on abortion, too".
tl;dr: If you're choosing between "practical" and "effective", choose "effective". But also see history for how I think when you say "practical", you actually mean "low effort".
https://pbfcomics.com/comics/deeply-held-beliefs/
I would encourage Americans to reject this type of culture and embrace freedom of speech and diversity of views. Reduce the number of taboo topics rather than increasing them. This modern blasphemy culture is spreading in many western countries. Reject it before it's too late. Conversations are good. It is how society moves forward. No good ever comes from silencing conversations.
Are we suggesting that we ourselves cannot handle hearing and rejecting the speech, or are we suggesting that other adults should not even hear hate speech because they might be influenced?
Either of those is a profound infantilization of the public.
I am capable of hearing hate speech and rejecting it. I trust most other mature adults can do the same. I reject the notion that anyone needs to protect me from hate speech.
If you don't need protection, great! But hate speech emboldens bigots. It has a chilling effect.
If "emboldens" just means that they are speaking in a venue you frequent, then that isn't a problem.
> "It has a chilling effect."
The irony is that you are using a term that is actually a consequence of the actions you propose.
I'm perfectly aware. There's no irony. It's the dilemma of tolerance. Using oppression to minimize oppression. A chilling effect on undesirable ideas to counter their spread to counter the growth of groups whose presence and actions similarly lead to chilling effect.
The not so subtle difference is that one group sometimes commits acts of terror.
Yes, giving this capability officially to the state has serious consequences. Though it's not like states doesn't already have the capacity monopolized (and alas it's not like there are no abuses of state capacity without nowadays).
I don't see how I call everyone who disagrees a bigot. I'm saying that the very real process of gathering strength of the alt-right works through a lot of channels that have basically one thing in common, which is speaking hateful bullshit.
There are people who would benefit from some counter-process. (And a sample of one (koheripbal) who is fine is not a great counter-argument.) I'm not saying that anyone who disagrees with this is a bigot. Far from it. Disagreements are healthy, especially constructive criticism.
Obviously it's a lot harder to allow just one and not the other.
And again, it's exactly the nuance that's needed to separate these that are needed when one compares China, Iran, and the USA.
Executives ought to be able to express their views freely, also companies/shareholders ought to be able to freely replace executives they deem unfit (a bad fit for society).
Plus, there's a nuanced (even seemingly small) difference between state-supported oppression and "cancel culture".
Aaaand, finally, there's also a big difference between oppressing voices that call for more civil rights (eg. restrictions on what the state can do) versus voices that call for more state-supported restrictions.
Calling for more restrictions on women's rights in the name of babies is still supporting more rights for the state, whereas calling for more transparency, accountability, equality for citizens falls on the the exact opposite of this spectrum.
---
The conversation about babies' rights is very hard because that it naturally pits two very special groups against each other, babies vs women. Where the former doesn't have the capacity to represent themselves in any meaningful way. So society at large with its myriad voices tries to stand in for them. Any "executive" that just start talking about babies' rights better be prepared to brandish some big guns of philosophy, because so far this issue is so murky that respectable philosophy stops at "well, it's hard", and all we are left with is the endless lowing and parroting of indoctrinated fundamentalist followers of various religions.
"A bad fit for society"
Seriously. This reads like something straight out of the playbook towards a fascist state.
Firm opposition does not imply that civility has to be dropped. In some cases it may even be counter productive since it ends up entrenching attitudes and positions.
We also need to be aware of how our own attitudes contribute to our own perceptions. It is not much of a leap to believe that we will be fired for our political views if we think that others should be fired for their political views, even if those beliefs and thoughts do not reflect reality.
I am not going to claim that civility must be maintained at any cost, there are certainly historical instances when it could not be. On the other hand, being proactive and civil will likely reap more positive change than the alternative.
And the political left has been gaming that for years now by declaring that every entitlement and vote-buying scheme they've come up with represents a basic human right.
In it, I remember it depicted a Christian knight and an Islamic paladin with diametically and fundamentally opposed views (this was written in the middle of the Crusades) sitting down and sharing a civilized meal together and having a conversation. This is what a civilized dispute looks like. Later they might have fought each other to the death for their religion, but they were still capable of reason and civility.
Note that both Christian and Islamic sides were accusing each other at the time of cruel atrocities - and yet the Christian ideal of tolerance includes the possibility of civility with everyone, regardless of what the sides think of each other.
An easy litmus test: are you advocating harm to a person for merely existing in the world, living with the skin color and sexuality they were born with, or making choices that don't harm anyone else? Then I have no interest in hearing your toxic and hateful opinion and I sure hope you'll be afraid to voice it around me.
It's a great thing to have political discussions and to try to see all sides of a topic. Your willingness to see the other side's points should stop at the point where the other side is actively trying harm people for the crime of existing in this world. (See also: antisemitism, homophobia, transphobia, racism.)
Just in case: speech, however abusive, or denial of association or services is never "harm".
Replying to a deleted comment: I think that white-only service is asshole behavior, just as holocaust denial and other stuff. I fight and would continue to fight it with education, counter-propaganda and civil boycott, but I would fight for those people to have legal right to do it without persecution by government at the same time.
But i feel that on the long term the list of ”too wrong to discuss” opinion tends to grow, until you reach the point where civil and peacefull discussion becomes impossible.
To me it seems this is the road U.S. is walking on.
The logical end to all of this exists in places in this world. You cannot share your opinion on Islam in some parts of this world, you’ll die. You cannot speak out against the government in China, you will be in jail.
It’s called political persecution. We are on the proverbial slippery slope.
This a dog whistle. Please define "harm", and "existing".
This phrase is so often used by people who say "silence is violence" (it's literally not).
I don't think you're being honest in your argument, here. You are implying lynchings and holocaust, but is that truly the debates you're applying your litmus test on? I highly doubt that.
Are you not more likely to apply it to:
* trans women competing in sports with biological women
* abortion
* pronouns
* equality of outcome
right?
I'm not even saying I disagree with you on any of those points. But your "litmus test" allows you to point your finger where the harm is, and shut down debate, cancel the person, and "punch a nazi".
And you also consider yourself as having monopoly on defining what pros and cons fall under "harm", and "existing".
E.g. if you define misusing pronouns to be harm, someone else could define compelled speach to be to surrender the right to your own thoughts (2+2=5, from 1984). Again, I am not saying I disagree with you on the point, but both sides here have a very good case for screaming "harm!!!! I have harm here! Just for existing!!!".
Same with a trans woman competing with a biosex woman. "Harm for just existing" applies equally, actually, to both women. Now what? You're just stuck screaming "fascist!" to each other. Why? What are you actually trying to accomplish?
You will lose people with this attitude, not gain them. See Sweden and Trump.
> Then I have no interest in hearing your toxic and hateful opinion
I don't think you know what "hate" means.
> I sure hope you'll be afraid to voice it around me.
So you're admitting that your argument is based in threat of violence?
The people that you think don't deserve civility in this scenario literally have the exact same viewpoint. This is the disconnect and it goes both ways.
Unless its straight up illegal, civility should always apply.
also, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planck%27s_principle
What it does is preserve the integrity of our open democratic system.
Liberty is always a balance act, because if you give bad actors freedom in the name of tolerance they will use it to reduce the freedom of weaker actors within society. If you live in a "survival of the fittest"-type society that might be acceptable, but that might not be a free society anymore because it fails to protect the freedoms of some within it. If you overregulate and control on the other hand, you will also reduce the total freedom within society.
This is a balance few nations on earth managed to get right for prolonged periods. In my eyes the US didn't get it right for quite a while. Civility is a part of it, but letting people get away with fascist behaviour in the name of tolerance/free speech will potentially put the US (and therefore the whole world) in a much, much darker place.
Lately it seems to be the most misrepresented part of Popper's "paradox of intolerance", where he defines intolerance as those who resort to violence instead of speech, and the would be censors of this age who bring up the paradox - without seeming to have read it - tell us that the intolerant are those we disagree with. "we" being those the would be censors disagree with.
> free societies stay free if they draw a clear line what is unaccepted behaviour
> if you give bad actors freedom in the name of tolerance they will use it to reduce the freedom of weaker actors within society
I agree. There is a clear line, which is crossed the moment someone resorts to violence instead of speech, and it has been drawn clearly in law. The bad actors would be those looking to reduce freedoms such as speech, based on nothing more than disagreement, which as it happens is something fascists (among others) have done when they've had the chance.
Popper e.g. also says that the goal of elections is to have a transfer of power without having to have civil wars, guillotines and other violent means. This means to prevent violence we have to maintain certain rules.
This doesn't mean however, that we have to wait till bad actors in fact act violently, after e.g. having stated they want to abolish these rules, after threatening violence, after breaking present rules and stretching present conventions etc. This means that he didn't want to suppress intolerant views (IF they can be hold in balance with rational arguments and public discourse) — instead he would plead to limit their effects on society (thus reducing potential future violence).
But it has been over a decade since I read Popper, so maybe you read something I didn't.
Most people are not scholars, at best pundits, but even if they are, most of their thoughts are still not careful and nuanced constructive arguments.
And maybe, just maybe, putting some brakes on the global cyber hate wave machines, where anyone can share/amplify the most damaging shit with one click is not a bad idea.
That said, partisanship bias, fairness, justice are all related problems when it comes to how to apply those brakes.
And yes, the institutions are shit, both old and new. Academia, FB/Tw, MSM, parties/congress, religions. But they are not without advantages, not unsalvageable.
It's distinctly possible you've read more Popper than I have but his words seem very clear here too[2]:
> I do not imply, for instance, that we should always suppress the utterance of intolerant philosophies; as long as we can counter them by rational argument and keep them in check by public opinion
He goes on to contrast that with those who give up on speech and respond with violence (and it's all within about a page).
So we have a clear line and there's no need to wait for violence to actually occur before legal remedy can be sought, which would appear to me to fit with Popper's statement and what you studied.
I completely agree with Popper on elections, and free speech fits the same mould, it's primary function is to reduce violence. Without free speech the options for those who wish to change society are only violent. With it there is no excuse for violence.
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clear_and_present_danger
[2] https://archive.org/details/TheOpenSocietyAndItsEnemiesPoppe...
Call for immediate violence is treated very much like violence in a lot of jurisdictions.
Other than that, I'm not sure what your point is.
US law already makes speech that incites violence illegal. There is plenty for you to learn in this area.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imminent_lawless_action
If you look at social media, they paint with a very broad brush.
...such a broad brush and so will to employ any means necessary to silence opposition, that they begin to resemble the fascists they purport to oppose.
What should be done if this rational argument doesn't work anymore and the public discourse is fragmented is (to my knowledge) not mentioned in his works.
Moderates do not feel safe to express moderate views for fear of being ostracized and cancelled.
I'd modify it to allow a super yes/no with double the value per voter to force people to be a bit more selective.
https://electowiki.org/wiki/3-2-1_voting
You've gotta agree that those fall under the moderate umbrella a bit more right? I've lived/worked in some very conservative environments and I don't think anyone would've walked along with the race IQ path.
For what it's worth, I think you may be surprised how much you can discuss on this topic without crossing "the line" for most people. I think that if partisanship wasn't as divisive as it currently is than you'd be able to discover a lot more common ground with people.
.... though definitely not online.
With that said, all of these topics are not worth getting too into, since even 100% agreement on HBD or esoteric human rights philosophy topics doesn't really accomplish much. I have arrived at a sort of internal understanding that it doesn't matter if most people would disagree with me on this stuff. Also, if I find the common perspective to be ridiculous or stupid that doesn't really matter or entitle me to pressing the issue when it doesn't matter. What genuinely matters is finding common humanity/shared goals that are mutually beneficial and not getting bent out of shape over stuff that doesn't really matter, which in this case is trivia pertaining to generalized (which is practically useless individually) racial outcomes. Hopefully I've explained myself clearly and shown that I don't have any ill will intended towards you or anybody who has different opinions or may even hate or take offense at how I see the world. Have a nice Sunday :)
At most other points in human history, our discussion probably would've been a cordial trade of livestock for bread and there would never be a reason to fear ill will. It's bummer of the 21st century that this time it was meta discussion about politics on the internet.
New negatives in environments always come with new positives in the environment's survivors, and I am hopeful that we will all end up with a more thoughtful introspection similar to that which came from "oppression" (I hesitate to call what we are experiencing oppression due to how minor it is compared to gulags.) Some of the world's most beautiful literature as well as brilliant scientists have come out of Eastern Europe, I am optimistic that something similar will be the fruits of what is now underway globally with the advent of social media and its soft tyranny over social relations.
When I see respected economists reporting that there are differences in economic success that are correlated with race and respected sociologists reporting differences and other factual data analysis, I see differences that seem to persist by race. All of those are output measurements. What’s the next logical thing you do as an academic, seeking to understand a problem in search of a persistent, structural solution? Go look for input measures and see what you can learn about the system. That’s the step that seems to be a third-rail and if we’re not willing to study the structural inputs to the problem, we’re handicapping ourselves in solving any of it.
Asian Americans face racism, and have absolutely zero cultural standing, nobody cares that Asian Americans don't win Oscars, they are not on TV shows, they are not represented in sports.
And yet Asian Americas are literally 2x the national income and make up vastly disproportionate numbers of high tech workers etc..
The notion that somehow how 'Asian Americans' have 'vast Racial Privilege' that enable them to gain success is plainly ridiculous, obviously.
Most of them do not come to America with stashes of wealth to give them advantage, though some do.
So how are Asian Americans so successful? Because as individuals, they focus on the things that matter to them, and that enable them to have much higher incomes - like education as one obvious example.
Those attitudes, motivations, concerns, behaviours are passed down from generation to generation and though it's unfair to characterize anyone by their culture, those things have tremendous impact.
JK Rowling's view that Women, and Men who transition to women, while they should have 'equal rights' - are not the same thing, that there is a difference and that difference should be respected - got her cancelled. They are out for here in droves.
This is a mainstream view and probably extremely popular.
In fact, outside of hyperbolic politics I'll be basically anyone that even accepts 'trans folks' (because a lot of people wouldn't in the first places) actually feels that way.
The movement to 'erase' any possible difference that people might view Women/Trans Women differently is rooted I think in a really emotional, almost child-like concern/anger/will to 'defend rights!!!' in such a way that anyone who disagrees must be destroyed, without conceding some probable, basic realities.
I actually think that in a more calm, moderate, less hyperbolic situation, nobody would want to cancel her. It's the aggressive voice of less than 0.1% on the fringe who've internalized a lot of their academic views into emotional one's.
They tried to cancel Steven Pinker recently for suggesting, that according to the science, Americans are more generally subject to quite a bit more police aggression overall, and that though Black people to face disproportionate ire, that the problem is more general and widespread whereupon Black people have an acute situation.
Which personally always felt was the case, and absolutely nobody is willing to say it.
Put in other words, he almost said, in an academic kind of way that 'All Lives Matter' i.e. police aggression is more or less a general problem, not just a Black problem.
For this there were signatories, back room pushes etc. to cancel him. Fortunately, he's respected enough that he didn't have to worry but any 'less famous' prof. would have been destroyed.
This is again similar to JK Rowling in that a very basic, factual and what should be 'not even controversial opinion' gets you in a lot of trouble.
Almost ironically, during a CBC interview, Pinker spoke politely at length about the issues and used soft language to refer to the 'more extreme' on the left - but hilariously he used the language 'Social Marxist' which is almost identical to the term 'Cultural Marxist' (a derogatory term coined apparently by some bad person). It's funny because the logic of the terminology, which is to say that while Marx spoke about 'class struggle', the 'Social Marxists' (Pinker's words) use the same language but for race, gender etc.. If Pinker would have been anyone else, on a US outlet and had used slightly different words, he would have been publicly pilloried. It's funny how that works.
The fact that even Steven Pinker has come to the very obvious conclusion that this is very similar ideology but instead of 'class' you have 'race' or 'gender' - but that literally using any terminology to reflect that could get you in hot water, is Orwellian.
Imagine if the Nazis made a rule to suggest that any reference to the existence of Nazism or the power of the government will be met with prison or death. People all running around in that totalitarianism without even the language to point to said totalitarianism. It's probably the most 'Orwellian' of all 'Orwellian' concepts.
There is an interesting historical parallel during the Weimar republic, the German Communist Party (KPD) hated the 'centre left' socialists (i.e. people like Rowling, Pinker) more than anyone.
"The party directed most of its attacks against the Social Democratic Party of Germany, which it regarded as its main adversary and referred to as "social fascists"; the KPD considered all other parties in the Weimar Republic to be 'fascists'."
Literally anyone 'less Communist' than them, was a...
Basically, holding views from both parties, and not just toeing one party’s line.
* These cases of minority students with 1600 on the SAT not being offered places in top colleges are bad. College admissions and grading should be name- race- and gender-blind.
* These cases of people trying to ban gay media and speakers for 'obscenity' or 'outraging public decency' are bad. People should be able to publish what they like, and colleges certainly shouldn't ban invited speakers, even if some students find their views challenging.
* These people writing about computers and always referring to the user as 'he' is pretty out of date. Generous use of 'they' in preference to gendered pronouns is the inclusive choice.
The same stances, when viewed from a few decades later, sound right-wing: To modern ears, those stances oppose affirmative action, oppose no-platforming, and say it's OK to ignore people's preferred pronouns. To some, those views would sound positively Jordan Peterson-esque.
"interesting" in the sense of the Chinese curse phrase "may you live in interesting times", perhaps.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motte-and-bailey_fallacy
That's not to say that you cannot convince people of new attitudes, so long as you appeal to their already held belief systems (LGBT rights, for example, animal cruelty, etc), but you cannot ram your beliefs down someone else by force and have that accepted and not have a reaction to it.
USC's poll predicts a Biden victory, but when experimental questions are asked to figure out how those polled really feel, it forecasts a Trump win (https://dornsife.usc.edu/news/stories/3338/experimental-poll...).
For those who are skeptical, put on a "Make America Great Again" hat and walk through downtown Chicago, San Francisco, Ann Arbor, or Cambridge before or after election day 2016 (or 2020). Now, put on a "I'm With Her" or "Biden/Harris 2020" shirt and walk through Provo, Fort Worth, or Pensacola before or after election day. In which scenario are you more like to be yelled at and/or physically attacked?
AS for America - last visit I made was over a decade ago but I learned to avoid political debate with a passion as people don't do debate and more argue you to death. Even then in the office had a chap come in and almost interrogated me upon political views, even worrying was others warned me of that and I dismissed them. You live you learn and I've found that the older people are - the more they are inclined to avoid such debates as they more often than not become toxic.
"Never mistake your Twitter feed for your country" (https://twitter.com/NickCohen4/status/1205273956078563328)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_2019_U...
Obviously social media is a terrible barometer for political mood. It's designed to build a self-co gratulatory bubble, but I'm not sure I buy the argument that polling is rigged or unscientific.
Polling is a statistical model of a rare event of human behavior - of course there's uncertainty!
Today the president voiced approval for his supporters literally running his opponents' supporters off the road.
That's the reality Trump supporters are using fascist tactics (and I'm not exaggerating here, these acts are rightbout of a fascist playbook) while complaining that liberals say mean things to them.
[1] https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.dailymail.co.uk/new...
BTW there are reports that police refused to do anything, if that is true we are really right in 1930s territory.
Do you believe that is a healthy police force in a democracy?
Surrounding the bus, while keeping to all traffic laws.
And before you say "But what about the Biden car behind the bus?", as this video (https://twitter.com/JackPosobiec/status/1322646326807568390) shows, the black Trump-supporter vehicle was already close behind the vehicle in front of it before the white Biden vehicle moved into its lane from the left.
Or if you think about it, of course you need much more Philantropists when you have Liberatism :D
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cato_the_Elder
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cato%27s_Letters#Influence
I don't care one way or another about banning, but yeah, people really should not put any weight into what comes out of it today.
Sometimes Cato has useful studies or data, and then it's worth reading. It's a moderate, academic, economics-colored point of view on the world. I wouldn't call it exciting, but this kind of complete dismissal in a thread about dismissal and silencing of moderate voices apparently looks silly to some people.
Though I do think their opinions may be skewed, I don't doubt the facts they are presenting in this article.
I now feel like I will hesitate to submit a Cato article in the future, and I don't even know what is wrong with them! Basically exactly what the article discusses.
Conservative think tanks posts can definitely stimulate good discussion, but if you don't moderate consistently, the community will eventually form a hivemind politically.
I think millennials might be quite a case study on bad parenting, because Gen Z are literally turning out to be bad apples. This is all of our faults, we are failing our kids more or less.
Reminds me of the recent violence in France “connected” to Islam. Where did you kids learn this stuff? Who is parenting you?
What is all this internet and global economy, and social connections via social networks for if this is how narrow minded our new generations are becoming? What is the point of all this exposure if you are literally turning out to be stupid people?
Gen Z are the kids of Gen X, not millennials
It’s not easy raising kids for sure, but it’s almost like you have to be callous to not understand what kinda rat race the working world can be, and how hyper competitive even the shittiest of jobs are.
Why are these values not being passed down? Usually, children of working immigrants see how hard their parents or people in their community work in jobs. Are Gen X so well off in middle management somewhere that their kids casually believe it’s aright to sack someone’s livelihood for their political beliefs?
Do we need to take Twitch and Phones away from these idiots and have them go work in the gig economy like a dog for a bit?
That is the most boomer thing I’ve heard in quite a while. What a complete disconnect you have.
The vast majority of people know fuckall about parenting, and in turn raise disfunctional kids that know nothing about proper parenting, and the cycle continues.
Intervention is needed, in the form of teaching better parenting.
I think the real issue with political polarization is that the stakes at the individual level are very very low when you are in an offensive position. People that think that people should get fired over donations have no risk of getting fired for that opinion themselves.
Generally there is a problem of escalation and individual responsibility, and its all being concentrated in the political sphere because of it.
There is another major trend which is that governments are directing themselves on polling more than ever: they are constantly making stances and policies on the latest hot-tweet, which makes the political sphere way too relevant to people's daily lives.
If your implication is true, I think there is going to have to be a serious re-assessment by the establishment regarding the divergence of their politics vs the populace --and there would be a realization that propaganda only goes so far and coercion is the missing ingredient.
If the establishment is right, then obviously they had the right pulse and nothing changes.
Things I've learnt in the last 2 months, Americans have real problems counting votes. I'm not talking about disputed votes (hanging chads), I'm talking about real actual undisputable votes. Also seem to be problems with the concept of free and fair voting - people having to queue for hours to vote is a sign of voter suppression, not of a healthy democracy.
In the UK, we vote either in person on the day (from 6AM until 10PM), or in advance by post (which has to arrive at the designated location by the time polls close, either by post, or by dropping into a voting station). If a charismatic person in a pub gets everyone to go voting you can get a rush just before the polls close as 300 people turn up, but an hour would be extreme.
Postal votes are opened daily in the run up to the election in front of observers from the various parties as they come in, verified, and stored in a sealed box.
On the actual day the in person boxes are sealed at 10pm (or slightly later if people are still queueing) and transported to a central counting location.
These counting locations tend to count 50,000 at a time, and in my experience 50-100 people do the counting (in front of observers from the parties), the counts start almost straight away, and the first results come in after an hour or so. Most results are in after about 6 hours, and unless there are transport problems (storms preventing votes from islands getting where they need to go) everywhere has declared within about 10 hours.
Now the US has more than the 32 million votes cast in the UK's December election, but this method scales easily enough.
So why does it take days for votes to be counted?
So a mailed in vote that needs to be tallied may not arrive to be counted till Nov 5 or 6 or 9 (depending on state deadline).
How do you know every vote is counted without a cut off period defined? It can take years to deliver some mail: https://www.itv.com/news/anglia/2020-05-29/soldier-s-letter-...
If the margin is less than the number of unreturned postal votes, surely there will be a question which can never be answered.
Yes.
The final Democracy Institute poll (https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/1354506/us-election-202...) that came out Saturday predicts a Trump victory contrary to most other polls, because it found that 79% of Trump voters do not tell others that they support him, while only 21% of Biden voters are shy.
USC's poll predicts a Biden victory, but when experimental questions are asked to figure out how those polled really feel, it forecasts a Trump win (https://dornsife.usc.edu/news/stories/3338/experimental-poll...).
The only change now is that social media is showing each side the worst content from the other side getting them angry and engaged.
As for GWB ....
> George W. Bush's Forgotten Gay-Rights History > He defied his party by endorsing civil unions in 2004. (But that same year, he backed a constitutional amendment forbidding same-sex marriage.
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/07/george-...
This might look inconsistent bjt I think the logic might have been to separate marriage, the religious thing from the civil union thing that is about tax deductions for couples etc.
This strikes me as somewhat pragmatic:
The government should have as little to say as possible on who lives with who - beyond not allowing close relatives to marry - while still protecting the religions of people living there.
I think the Pope fronted a similar conclusion recently.
Luckily I am no politician.
America in a nutshell.
I find it entirely bizarre that so large scope of population and media is fine with what is going on...
I reserve the term “violence” to situations described in Hannah Arendt‘s similarly-named essay, in which terroristic violence has historically been used by failing dictators against the legitimate power of the people as a whole.
If using violence to combat opposing political speech isn't your definition of fascism, then it's as equally sinister and takes us to an equally dark place.
We have seen many examples in the last few years of people feeling so entitled to combat what they consider fascism, that they use violence against anyone they perceive as the enemy.
Maybe we don't agree on the definition of words, but this is a bad development.
Like many in the US, I don't support the right but I don't support the modern left either and they ought to be very worried about that.
Political left and right both formed extreme wings that attack moderate opinions for not being extreme enough. The right is often threatening violence while the left is trying to get you fired from your job.
We need to get rid of engagement algorithms and actively try to counter echo chambers by injecting moderate content into news feeds.
Very well said. I hate all extremes of politics. I like asking questions and being critical. What I have noticed is that critical thinking is attacked viciously from both sides. Asking questions that go against your side's "hard fact" is greeted with intense hostility and vitriol. I would imagine that this behavior is encouraged because it teaches people to not ask questions and follow the herd.
Forming your own opinions, coming to your own conclusions, asking your own question -- this is all so offensive nowadays. It is sad because often there is real social risk in saying something that might offend the left/right. If you live in a community that heavily leans to one side, you are scared of stating your own opinions because people could shun you. This social punishment could extend to your children -- what parent would want to take that risk?
I genuinely blame social media for this "descent into dogmatism". Any time my belief is challenged in an online discussion, I can just retreat into my echo chamber and feel even more confident than before.
The issue is moderate really ends up meaning status quo (with basic changes), which if it's not clear a ton of people are suffering under the status quo.
So when you're a moderate you're in a way putting your seal of approval to the status quo, which ends up being pretty harmful for those who want to decrease suffering.
MLK is human he was capable of flawed logic just as all of us humans are. While I too revere him, invoking his disdain for moderates is a appeal to authority and does not make it a fact. I could similarly invoke Malcolm X and his realization in the end that, it was in fact not moderates but the people who thought they were helping that did the most harm (in his word radical white liberals). Both where wise men, both had irrational thoughts, as well as very rational lessons to teach humanity. But the fact that MLK saw moderates as a problem, speaks to the fact that while MLK moved more towards Malcolm's position, Malcolm, being an intelligent man as well, saw that his position was radical and moved towards pacifism and moderation. Where MLK started out. Neither were correct and both being intelligent moved their position, something that the dogmatic radicals of today's age have a hard time doing. Had MLK lived long enough he would have seen the error in his judgement. Unfortunately he was stricken down by a radical of a different belief system. Do you see the lesson in that? Is the lesson that the moderates helped the radical white supremacist? Or is it that radicals of all cloths, are full of hate?
Malcolm talked about that hate, and how it consumed him, that was a true from the heart message and it got him killed. In all respects humanity has more to learn from Malcolm given that he started out extremely flawed and hateful and thru educating himself and experience he reshaped his understanding of the world and reached the conclusion that what he wanted for the black man, does not need to be taken from the white man and that compassion for all man is the key, to ending the cycle. You see radicals (of all walks of life) want revenge. Revenge is a cycle, when what you should be seaking is justice. You can cloke it in whatever language you would like, but if the desire comes from hate it is revenge. Justice comes from sorrow but the realization that atonement has to happen.
Moderates by their very nature where not involved in MLK's death. They did not enable it, they did not condone it, they wanted nothing to do with it. Yet by your claim is that they did. I will spell it out clearly radicals on both sides are the problem, because you want to make everyone that does not eat your dogma the enemy, and your heart seeks revenge, to the point that it will take revenge on the innocent. The moderate majority is getting sick of it. Sorry for the harsh words but it's tough love time.
To be very clear I am not your enemy, I am a pacifist. I wish no harm to any human. I call them as I see them and I see the dogma of hate on both sides. I will stay where I am at, grounded in my pacifist principles, if that is worthy of calling me the enemy than so be it, but be very clear in your mind, you are labeling me an enemy, not the other way around and that strikes to the very heart of this very flawed thinking. Dogmatic ideology necessitates enemies, the prescription for that enemy is any that disagree with the dogma. Your dogma is creating the enemy not the other way around. This is at the very heart of why Malcolm left the Nation of Islam and why they saw him as such a threat. Malcolm shed the dogma, the Nation of Islam did not, we know who were the perpetrators of violence, thus who saw who as the enemy.
If you see someone getting attacked and you say you're a pacifist and you won't do anything to stop them then you're actively aiding the attacker and actively hurting the victim.
The fact that you're seeing this as a two sides issue means that you're honestly not actually aware of what injustices others are going through. If you were a victim of the injustices me and many other minorities have experienced you would expect more from others too.
No one says you have to join in on our fight. But if you're staying silent while I'm being killed then you're not going to be seen as a neutral player in this.
The reality is I am not going to support that as it is a doctrine of hate. You cannot couch hate in emotional issues and then label it good. If you are out supporting it, I am not going to support you. I am not with them, I am against the hate. I am against their as well hate, I will just as I am now, call out my opposition to violence, but I am not going to support or advocate hate or violence because one side feels it is justified. I used BLM because you mentioned minorities, feel free to swap them, for Patriots Prayer because the message would be the same in talking to someone that mentioned ultra-nationalist, right wing, zealots who package it up behind a message of god's love. The people I support are men like Ken E. Nwadike who are consistent in a doctrine and worldview of no tolerance for hate or violence and that non-tolerance starts with the only thing we can change in this world, ourselves.
If someone is being actively attacked no matter who they where I would try to stop the violence. This is very different that supporting any doctrine that espoused that it is acceptable to hate or be violent to others, this is the breeding ground of violence and I will not support it as to do so is to aid in violence. That being said if you are taking to the streets and you get killed don't expect me to come out to avenge you. You, just like the other side, took to the streets to push your grievances.
The grievances I see in the streets right now are back by some really nasty human desires. I want nothing to do with it, I am neutral because I am not lending my support to either side. If you cannot see that there is hate packaged with what is being sold, than you miss the point as to why I cannot support it, and why I am not lending the other side aid. To lend aid to hate would be wrong. Both sides will label me against them, and that is fine it's the way dogmatic hate works. Yielding to it, would mean that the cycle cannot be broken.
But once again, when you claim that a pacifist is participating in the violence by staying true to their belief in nonviolence. It is you that are placing the label on the pacifist, it is you that is putting into action blame and hate on a person that is correctly telling you that this is the fruits of hate, it is you that is placing blame, not me. Put simply the pacifist will not make someone their enemy, but that does not mean that people do not see them as the enemy and when you realize the truthfulness of that reasoning, you will understand the pacifists world view, and that is that hate starts from each and every one of us, to not condemn it oneself, while calling for the condemnation of it in others is hypocaracy. hate breeds contemptment and enemies, not the other way around. My actions cannot by their nature make enemies, anger and rage coupled with a feeling of justification are what makes them. You are justifying and rationalizing why it is ok to see a pacifist as the enemy, to the extent that you are claiming that they are participants in violence. I hope you can see where dogmatic thinking has led you.
You can argue there is a difference but I'm not going to agree with you.
You have a very majority oriented and "safe" worldview because frankly you're not being threatened. You're a bystander letting others do violence onto us.
I am not being threatened because I don't see people as a threat. I see ignorance, hate, greed, anger as threats. I have background that would allow me to claim oppression based on ancestral origin, but I choose not to claim it as I am not oppressed.
Hitler would have never been able to gas the jews had people adopted a world view of non-violence and non-agression. He would have never had the support that is bread out of hate. You see you are prescribing a remedy for the symptom, when I advocate curing the disease.
You do not need to see the difference for me, that is the point one has to see it and hold it valuable for oneself.
My worldview is anything but majority oriented, people think I am a wimp, they thing I hate America, they think I am a racist, they think I am a bigot, they think I am a homosexual loving pervert and a deviant and claim that I support all these things because I don't agree with their radical world views and they can only accept by their worldview that if I do not accept theirs than I am the opposite of their position. The reality is very few people agree with my worldview, certainly not the majority as I am constantly explaining to them their doctrines of hate. But again, just like you, I can only fix it in myself and explain to other how it is harmful to us all, but after that it is up to them. Most people do not want to do that level of self reflection because it removed their justifications for feeling the way they do.
Try it, take an inventory of who you dislike and why, more importantly what you would like done with those people. Really reflect on it, do you want justice or revenge on those people. Take yourself out of the equestion, do not justify your position with your feelings or the plights of past errors that have happened to others that you believe need vindication. If you want revenge then it flows from hate. Don't expect them to put down their hate if you are unwilling to put down yours. It is really that simple. I am constantly doing this, as hate is insidious and creeps up in us naturally, it attaches to emotion and hides itself with justifications. You have to strip all that away to see it, and you have to rid it in yourself before you can expect others to do the same. The old adage still hold true, be the change in the world you want to see. It's the hard road and most certainly not the majority "safe" worldview.
Or because you're white :)
More importantly rather than race, I identify myself as an enlightenment era, western liberal and that is the culture that I was raised in an identify with. Race is an artifact of eugenic era thinking.
Wait till you see the "guillotine for the landlords" crowd :-(
I've noticed what you mentioned too - people claiming that if you don't fight for their idea, you're against the whole left/right/whatever. I wonder if that's an inevitable result of presenting views as left/right and having two parties in the first place. Most European countries have many flavours of left/right and parties having to form various coalitions instead.
Violence like setting up guillotines in front of Bezos' house in Washington? Violence like when the Trump supporters held parades, shops were looted, people were beaten, buildings were burnt, and police were assaulted? So much so that shops boarded themselves days before the parades? Violence like protesters threatening "burn the system down" or "there is going to be a war" if they lose election?
Or violence like Hollywood actors and actresses openly discussing beheading or assassinating the most evil orange man, or politicians openly discussing how they wanted to snap Republican supporters, and how BLMs and Antifa chanted that they wanted to kill the police?
Of course there are extreme and crazy people in all spectrums, but where are the right except a few marginalized small groups?
Oh wait, I’m wrong. Anyone who disagree with the left is far right, right? So Shapiro should be beaten in Berkeley. Mayor Wheeler’s apartment can be stormed. Anyone carrying our flag can be sucker punched?
Yes, half of the nation is far right right and they threaten violence.
Perhaps because there were no signs or indications it was politically motivated?
> What matters are patterns of organizations and institutions.
Then you'll love this: https://www.politico.com/news/2020/09/04/white-supremacists-...
And also this: https://www.businessinsider.com/right-wing-extremists-kill-3...
And so on, and so on, and so on.
As for the first article I would agree with the DHS's assessment and it gets to the heart of why each side commits violence. The radical left tends to see violence as a means to get what they want (think a child throwing a temper tantrum). The radical right tends to see violence as a declaration of war (think the OK city bombing). When the left commits violence it tends to be against the populus that they believe disagrees with them and that violence tends to stem from a "how dare you disagree with me mentality". When the right commits violence it is generally against the government and is generally a mentality more akin to a suicide bomber. I can certainly see where the government would find one form of violence more concerning that the other even if the touch points of one side are more frequent than the other. Make no mistake about it, right leaning violence intent is to be more deadly and more violent than left leaning as they are not intent on getting what they want, they are intent on revenge whatever the cost.
Or you could just, like, check the date line.
The problem with social media is that it isn't enough like real life, where I have a choice of whose opinion I have to hear.
Therefore, I propose a system whereby the participants don't see content that's objectionable to them. The highest rated content and comments are the ones that the participant is most likely to agree and be comfortable with. Everything else is hidden until I decide to explore it.
We need user-centric systems, not "truth"-centric systems. Let me form my own bubble just like I do in meat space.
If 62% of Americans think homosexuality is wrong, does that really matter? Do we really wanna ask them that and act on it?
We are asking to many people what they think independetly of how much time and effort they spend with a topic or if that topic is not superseeded by something else (like an Amendment).
No one is going around and asking people what operating system is better.
My personal assumption, and this is now very critical for my inner conflict: I do believe every opinion should matter and i do strongly believe in democracy but this only works when the other requirement is true: People are reading up and educating themselfs on politics.
Enough people don't.
Enough people in politics don't.
They are there because they want something not because they care.
Some Americans were targeting even that. Apparently foreigners have no right to NOT RECEIVE political endorsements that mirrors their political views.
Your politics is too toxic. Sorry but it has to be said.
It's a campaign bus, not voters at a polling station. Drivers supporting another party are absolutely allowed to drive next to them.
Only california, fwiw.
Driving at that distance is wanton disregard for the safety of the persons in the bus, but that's open to interpretation of the officer at the scene.
[1] https://codes.findlaw.com/tx/transportation-code/transp-sect...
I'm just serving your point by quibbling about the law. The driver's intent is quite clear. Intimidating people because you disagree with them is unacceptable behavior. In this case, I suspect it's also illegal.
"Joe Biden’s presidential campaign canceled a Friday event in Austin, Texas, after harassment from a pro-Trump contingent."
and quotes:
"The Biden campaign’s Texas communications director, Tariq Thowfeek, said holding the event would have placed Biden staffers and supporters at risk."
But the CBS affiliate article says:
"The Biden bus has also been closely followed by Trump supporters while on the road, though Texas Democrats insist their presence didn't affect their decision to call off the downtown Austin rally ... Texas Democrats told us they canceled the event so not to take away attention from vice presidential candidate Kamala Harris"
Then the videos. The Twitter vids don't seem to show intimidation. They're all in vehicles, the trucks are just driving alongside the bus. There's a video of what looks like a failed merge on an overly busy highway, which is described like this:
“These Trump supporters, many of whom were armed, surrounded the bus on the interstate and attempted to drive it off the road,” he alleged. “They outnumbered police 50-1, and they ended up hitting a staffer’s car.”
Even the Daily Beast has to report this as "alleged" because he provides no evidence they tried to drive it off the road. If they'd wanted to do that they certainly could have done, given the number of trucks, but the bus was unharmed.
The only activity described in the article that could possibly rise to 'intimidation' is turning up and making some noise at rallies, but that's not normally called intimidation, is it? It's not exactly unheard of for anti-Trump people to turn up and make a lot of noise at his rallies, and the right don't accuse the left of intimidation or cancel events in those situations.
I suspect that the disconnect is far wider in scope. Most people are totally perplexed by the disparity between their own reality and what is portrayed in the news. For 3 years we had evidence-free but unrelenting Russia/Trump hate. This seemed insane, but it turns out that was just the warm up act to coronavirus!
The reality of what people see around them is sooooo far away from what is portrayed on the MSM. It amazes me that anyone pays any notice to the MSM at. But what it really shows, is that most individuals are not their own authority in their life. They defer to what is the consensus opinion that is blasted at them 24/7 from the MSM, rather than acting according to what they actually experience.
Imagine, somehow a person was frozen in time, and seeing how the majority live now - scared of living because someone said something on TV!
But that is the power of the media, and why it is such an effective control. The majority disagree with what is portrayed, but feel pressured enough to keep quiet and therefore acquiesce to whatever is being shouted out.
Edit: ug I mean identity politics has really been tainting the discussion! Who could be causing this?!
Adding in, before US folks bite this comment. Please understand that Socialism is not universal healthcare, it is not the right to reliable and inexpensive housing and it is not feeding the children of your country before they starve. These are basic human rights. When you parade around wanting to defend free speech, why not defend these basic human principles? You cant speak if you are unable to due to rent prices going up and not being able to feed your family. Or going to the doctors or university costs you your whole life.
Consequently, I express no personal non-work related opinions not only at work but in fact not even with “friendlies,” as loose lips sink ships.
It is a shitty way to live, given how much time one spends at work.
But yes, the second portion of my comment was intended to capture that even outside of work with co-worker friends I am reluctant to express opinions. Even if I am mainstream today, or on a particular issue, the winds can shift quickly.
That is a dangerous and toxic milieu.
So in essence, feels like a textbook example of what the article was talking about, with leftists having consider able freedom to talk about politics and everyone else marginalized.
We created a hard rule at our company in 2016: No politics / No religion. Most humans are incapable of discussing these topics rationally, and it only serves to increase division at work.
One person could not handle the idea of not being politically active at work, and we discovered after she quit that almost everyone was happier no having her toxic commentary omnipresent.
In the best case scenario, folks like this are a big distraction - at worst they are a source for litigation, security issues, and horrible employee productivity.
People who want to be politically active at work are absolute poison to creating a healthy cooperative team environment.
You're doing the right thing, and if everyone else's constant hammering of politics at work is creating a bad environment for you, it's probably doing the same for others. You may want to anonymously suggest to the higher-ups that a similar rule should be implemented. Everyone will be happier.
However what’s new(?), and tragic, is (a) omnipresent social media and/or digital footprint and (b) that discourse outside work with coworker friends — at least for me but I suspect for many of those of us working 80+ hours, our social circle is largely coworkers or industry colleagues — could massively negatively affect career.
The current environment likely leads to a sense of isolation , ironically likely shared by the /majority/ of people.
This attitude reminds me of the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” repression policy against gay service members.
People should feel they don’t have to unnaturally switch off core important parts of their identity at work. They need to have psychological safety to outwardly “be themselves” - without burden to exert extra effort to unnaturally be different.
If you want to talk about severe extremes like preventing hate speech at work or not being allowed to practice nudism in the office, then fine, there’s worthwhile discussion of limits.
But if you want to say “no religion” and “no politics” just because you personally have the extreme arrogance to say “most humans” can’t discuss those topics rationally, then you personally are just an authoritarian thug - and this comes through strongly with the pejorative way you write about religious people, political people and what you personally deem to be “toxic.”
It is far more likely that you are the toxic element, hoping to repress aspects of employee culture for self-serving reasons that change the workplace into an environment you personally prefer at the expense of basic humanity and inclusiveness for others.
No, this is a deeply arrogant and harmful thing to say. When it comes to beliefs, nearly anything that tries to generalize to “most humans” is at best arrogant ignorance and at worst actively repressive.
As a society we’ve mostly progressed past that bigoted point of view, but now we face similar battles about trans people being able to just be themselves and let their natural identity exist in the workplace. It is similar with many aspects of religious identity or political identity. Inclusiveness does not mean “we all equally avoid any reference to unique identity” rather it means “unique identity is encouraged and allowed to openly flourish.”
This attitude you express:
> “ Trying to redefine work from something it has been for all of human history (a place where you do work) into some sort of personal self expression is what is arrogant and harmful.”
is repressive and frankly anti-human. “Why can’t we just go back to the good old days when all the snowflakes would just shut up and do their jobs” - that is 100% not hyperbole - that is literally the level of regressive attitude you are endorsing under the disingenuous guise of “workplace professionalism.”
If you think my comment is a personal attack, that’s wildly unreasonable. The parent comment is the one behaving that way and it is absolutely fair and uncontroversial to point out their own words demonstrating thuggish repression.
In fact, not challenging their comment on these reprehensible points would be the far worse action.
No, it isn't: It wasn't critical for you to respond (particularly with insults) nor was the comment "repression".
> If you think my comment is a personal attack
Your first comment is a personal attack, and so is this one. You continue calling the first commenter you replied to a "thug". There's really no room for opinions or different thoughts; that you insulted that person is undeniable.
> The parent comment is the one behaving that way
The parent comment didn't insult anyone here, it's really odd that you're trying to say otherwise when we all can read the comment and can see that there's no insult to anyone here in it.
> it is absolutely fair and uncontroversial to point out their own words demonstrating thuggish repression.
It isn't.
> In fact, not challenging their comment on these reprehensible points would be the far worse action.
No, it wouldn't be, much less with insults.
No, you are wrong. The parent commenter expressed thuggish ideas - they did that and it is critical to hold them to account for it.
I didn’t make them state awful thuggish repressive comments like completely voiding out core personal identities of coworkers. I am not putting any spin or embellishment on their comment - they chose to write it. Calling it thuggish or arrogant is not unfair or insulting whatsoever - that is unequivocally what they chose to express.
It deserves to be called out and for people to stand against that type of repressive attitude. It is absolutely not insulting or personally attacking to do so. The commenter’s words simply have these consequences, regardless of you using completely unsubstantiated gainsaying to reply to me.
The original comment is deeply uncivil, and it highlights extremely broken community norms if you or others think that a reply which calls out that lack of civility (where calling it thuggish or arrogant is absolutely fair and not an insult at all based on the comment’s own terms) is somehow itself uncivil.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
What about a request to get time off to vote?
What if someone came to HR and said they felt they were being treated differently by their boss because they posted a news article that mentioned politics and religion in the team's Slack channel, and they think their boss considered that a sneaky attempt to circumvent your strict "no politics / no religion" rule?
Politics are inextricable from most plausible modern workplaces. I'm all for asking employees to try to avoid bringing it up if they can help it, but a "no politics / no religion" rule doesn't guarantee a reduction in "litigation, security issues, and horrible employee productivity."
> How would your company have dealt with a "Trump/Pence 2016" laptop sticker?
Presumably this would fall under the no politics rule. Remove it. It's a work laptop anyway.
>What about a request to get time off to vote?
Non-issue. Leaving to vote is not bringing your politics to work.
> What if someone came to HR and said they felt they were being treated differently by their boss because they posted a news article that mentioned politics and religion in the team's Slack channel, and they think their boss considered that a sneaky attempt to circumvent your strict "no politics / no religion" rule?
Nothing sneaky about it, posting in the teams Slack work be a clear violation of the rule. It's a work Slack channel.
If people are focusing on work, these little things go unnoticed.
What's great about it is that it's engendered a culture of eye-rolling to people who try to interject their religion or politics, and this has become somewhat self-perpetuating.
If someone spammed a political article into a common venue (we don't use slack because it's such a waste of time), then I doubt it would get reported - just ignored.
> Politics are inextricable from most plausible modern workplaces.
I don't see how you could logically make this argument. Our business plan and financial goals have zero to do with the current political landscape.
But I also don't live in California or work at a venture capital funded startup
- everyone agrees that there should be more viewpoint diversity - but most people still support silencing "dangerous opinions" - and far right and far left more likely to support termination for offensive views
https://joinlincoln.org/pdfs/lincoln-2019-viewpoint-report.p...
The reason for this is because people do not spend their time wisely. Instead of trying to convince equally powerless people to see reality in some manner which doesn't matter, the logical thing to do is work to increase your locus of control over your surroundings.
Politics don't matter, they are downstream from structures and incentives. Whether you like the police, lgbtq+ rights, abortion, equality, etc is completely irrelevant, how those things make you feel is irrelevant, stop wasting time on them and let other people waste their time on trying to validate themselves and their feelings with political games. Do real activities and increase your influence and control over your surroundings, then exert your values over that sphere. Caring about people agreeing with you is the position of the victim and slave.
2020s material comfort, education systems, insane technological 'tooling' .. and yet we're still a good old mob when too much ambient stress rises.
What should we do ? have gatherings to just dissolve tension and make people go back to normal lives without trying to find weird remarks or conspiracies about what's going on ?
People appear to be so emotionally vested in this election at this point it’s better to stay quiet. IMO.