97 comments

[ 1.3 ms ] story [ 182 ms ] thread
> Think twice before sending a message, even over Signal. You will likely not be able to predict when you will be sued, investigated, or otherwise thrown into the lime-light.

Or, radical new idea here, how about conduct yourself in a reasonable way where if everyone in the world read your text messages you wouldn't be fired or go to jail?

Why limit this to text based communication? How about also limiting what you say when talking with friends in a pub, just in case the conversation gets recorded and then leaked? What about conversations around the dinner table with your family? What about chat between you and your significant other in the bedroom? What about things you say out loud when on your own? What about your thoughts?
> What about your thoughts?

This is the endgame. The perfect citizen will not be capable of thinking the undesired thoughts.

Who says AI alignment / brain washing is impossible?! We are doing a pretty good jobs with humans.

[flagged]
No my friend, he aspires to be the one wearing the boots.
So “if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear”? Would you tell that to abortion rights activists in Mississippi, journalists reviewing the Panama Papers, or dissidents in China? Radical new idea here, but maybe you shouldn’t believe that everyone in authority from now till you die will only fire and jail people for the ideas that you personally don’t have or like, or suggest data privacy rules for others accordingly.
(comment deleted)
Not exactly what he's saying.

To be fair, he's expressing himself poorly. Because, yes, "If a law is unjust, a man is not only right to disobey it, he is obligated to do so."

He wants to say something more like "Conduct yourself in a way where if everyone read your messages they won't realize what a fucking miserable, intolerant asshole you are".

And let's be completely fair here. Tucker Carlson wasn't fired for holding any of the opinions that he holds. He wasn't fired for voicing those opinions. He wasn't even fired because people knew he had those opinions. He wasn't even fired because there was now evidence of all of that.

He was fired because it looks like doing something. And he made it really fucking easy for them to do it. He was a huge asshole in private messages and he could be sacrificed easily.

It's a similar thing that happened to Jon Gruden a few years back. While investigating Dan Snyder for several things, some emails Jon Gruden wrote during his time at ESPN saying some pretty stupidly racist stuff got "leaked". Then the conversation shifted from Snyder's trafficking of Washington's cheerleaders to Gruden's racism. Gruden resigned as coach of the Las Vegas Raiders as a result of all the hoopla.

All of those emails were sent to someone. They knew about it. Plenty of people worked with and for Gruden. They knew who he was. What kind of language he employs. Mike Tomlin, Sean McVay, Kyle Shanahan, and others all knew who the man was. The league knew. ESPN, knew. Not a single thing that got leaked was a surprise to anyone with any input or influence on Gruden's career. He was fired simply to distract from the Washington issue. However, like Carlson, he made it really easy for them to do so by being a miserable asshole.

I don't send a single work email or work message that I would have to defend in the court of public opinion. Even when I step outside the bounds of purely work related issues, I don't express negative opinions about groups of people based on characteristics they have no choice over. The worst you could hit me with would be that I'm not as funny as I try to be. You won't find me being a miserable asshole when* our organization's emails becomes a matter of public record.

*I say when because I work for an organization where this is a very real possibility.

That's clearly what I meant, but people will read what they want.
This is a good example of why being a decent person may not be enough to keep you out of trouble.
I’m not sure he’s in trouble, though.
It shows how easy it is for your communications to be misinterpreted, which in some contexts could cause problems despite your intentions.
Very well stated. It's not that we have to or need to conduct ourselves like we're being watched, we should just be decent human beings because we should be. I don't have to worry about the sexist or racist or bigoted emails or jokes I've sent coming back to me for one simple reason: I'm not a sexist, a racist or a bigot. That shouldn't be a hard box for most people to check. At least, it shouldn't be.
(comment deleted)
The bar for "things that could get you fired" is not set by Tucker Carlson's behavior. Remember donglegate, that time an overheard "dongle" joke got someone fired? The limelight is extraordinarily harsh. Having nothing to hide isn't just a function of your own record, it's an assumption that pitchfork-wielding crowds will act reasonably. That's just not how it works. Better to play it safe.
>Or, radical new idea here, how about conduct yourself in a reasonable way where if everyone in the world read your text messages you wouldn't be fired or go to jail?

This is ridiculous. There are so many things you can do that are ethical and illegal. Or ethical and legal and would still piss a lot of people off. Or, how about just wanting to rant off the record with friends?

This idea the default should be "act like you're being watched" is harmful, both to the individual and to society.

Or humour. Hard to make any joke in private that won't offend (or pretend to be offended) someone on the internet.
That's what I call "synthetically offended". It is where there is no offense intended, and none actually received, but the potentially offended party (or more likely a third party) can string together something to make it look like an offense. Often as a "gotcha" to the "offender".

So next time someone takes offense at something, ask them are they really offended, or synthetically offended?

> This idea the default should be "act like you're being watched" is harmful, both to the individual and to society.

Yet, that is oftentimes the reality. You _are_ being watched (online).

> This idea the default should be "act like you're being watched" is harmful, both to the individual and to society.

As George Orwell said in his 1984 "Big Brother is watching you".

I am requesting that publicly share all of your text messages for the past 10 years. Surely you have nothing you wouldn't want public, or things that any group would find offensive.
This only works if you are also clairvoyant.

There are plenty of things that were uncontroversial a decade ago that would now incite a twitter mob.

>Or, radical new idea here, how about conduct yourself in a reasonable way where if everyone in the world read your text messages you wouldn't be fired or go to jail?

There is no man on earth who has ever been able to do that.

Do you have any other impossible suggestions?

My dad always said "Don't do anything you wouldn't want people to read about in tomorrow's newspaper".

Many people also say "What would Jesus do?"

No one can live like Christians believe Jesus did, but it's a guide. No one can be perfectly honest and moral 100% in their lives. It's a principle.

I think the point of the OP comment is "the first lesson Tucker should get out of the ordeal is not being a racist fascist, rather than cover your tracks when you're a racist fascist."

I also think it's valuable for people to know just how revealing text messages can be, and so if you have any valid concern about being targeted by the state, clearing your communications history is wise.

IIRC, that's the kind of behavior that got people crucified.
Hold on there bud, please don't speak for all of us. I'm quite confident that I and most people, even some other men, do not share your risk profile. I prefer to just be a decent person.
It wasn't that long ago homosexuality was illegal and considered a medical condition.

There are plenty of other examples for why this is a bad excuse to not secure communication.

China is that way, friend.
Just wait until google sells your data to the insurance companies and they refuse to insure you because you searched once too often for "cancer".

"But it was for my mother in law," you will say.

And they will reply: "We'll cancel her insurance as well."

> Or, radical new idea here, how about conduct yourself in a reasonable way where if everyone in the world read your text messages you wouldn't be fired or go to jail?

Who's to say whether or not what is today a perfectly innocent message might be socially ostracizing or even criminal hate speech in 5 years?

how about conduct yourself in a reasonable way where if everyone in the world read your text messages you wouldn't be fired or go to jail?

This concept may be put to the test once platforms like Discord leak all their data. It will eventually happen. Discord save everything forever and messages are only marked as deleted. They may even do voice-to-text transcriptions in the background as that is also easy to save forever. This probably also applies to Zoom and Slack, if not now then eventually. Slack had very weak controls for 3rd party integrations in that any employee could add random-integration but hopefully that has changed. I am curious how everything will play out.

There's a lot of conflating making jokes with being racist in the replies here.
Oh yes. I see it clearly now. The problem this whole time was actually that he didn't sufficiently hide the evidence of malicious intent.

What a weird, bland, utterly oblivious take.

(comment deleted)
(comment deleted)
(comment deleted)
[flagged]
Are we asserting here that the traditional rules of martial engagement are the same across all cultures in the world? Or we are saying that European cultures are not fairly similar to one another in this regard, due to a shared religious heritage? I’m confused what people are angry about here.
There are no "traditional rules of martial engagement." White people surround, mob up on and beat the shit out of people just as much as people of any other race. To imply that white people are above such behavior (and thus that other races are less civilized) is a white supremacist and racist mentality.

But you already knew that.

You inferred a lot of stuff that quote doesn't actually say.
"Jumping a guy like that is dishonorable obviously. It’s not how white men fight."

Is this not implying that white men don't fight dishonorably?

Is not the implication that follows from that, that fighting dishonorably is a trait that belongs to non-white races? If not, why mention "white men" specifically? Why not claim this is not how honorable people fight?

What did I infer that wasn't there?

I stand by my interpretation.

If someone said, "That's not how Samurai fight", would you then assume that any non-Samurai is being disparaged? Probably not despite the rampant xenophobia in Japan.

At best, you have him gatekeeping all the white races and applying a no-true-Scotsman fallacy. If he'd mentioned a non-white race at all, I suspect you'd be making the same case then as well. People read into these things whatever they want to read based on whichever team they're cheerleading for.

>If someone said, "That's not how Samurai fight", would you then assume that any non-Samurai is being disparaged? Probably not despite the rampant xenophobia in Japan.

Yes. That would be the obvious reading. If someone looked at a group of Samurai fighting and said that isn't how Samurai fight, by implication a comparison is being made between "Samurai" and "not Samurai."

If someone sees a group of white people fighting and says that isn't how white people fight, by implication a comparison is being made between "white people" and "not white" people.

>At best, you have him gatekeeping all the white races and applying a no-true-Scotsman fallacy.

Yes, and that's racist.

>If he'd mentioned a non-white race at all, I suspect you'd be making the same case then as well.

Yes, it would still be racist, for the same reasons.

>People read into these things whatever they want to read based on whichever team they're cheerleading for.

Case in point.

> Case in point.

I've never watched his show outside of some occasional clips.

> Yes. That would be the obvious reading. If someone looked at a group of Samurai fighting and said that isn't how Samurai fight, by implication a comparison is being made between "Samurai" and "not Samurai."

Yet, very similar codes of conduct applied to other warriors from many different groups and races. At most you logically infer that this was applied to a subset of all the people it might be applied to. Further reading would conclude that his assertion is faulty in several ways (notably the no-true-Scotsman fallacy, lumping many races together based on similar skin tones, and the very obvious observation that every known group of non-sport fighters throughout history have taken every advantage they could).

There's plenty that is provably wrong with his statement without resorting to unprovable inferences, but that doesn't give the dopamine hit that outrage does.

> > At best, you have him gatekeeping all the white races and applying a no-true-Scotsman fallacy.

> Yes, and that's racist.

No-true-Scotsman isn't inherently racist. I agree that lumping in all white races together is racist, but most people in the US are ignorant that white is a color rather than a race and nobody has issues referring to any of these "collections" of races by their "color". It's simply not possible to determine here if he is ignorant of white racial diversity or if he was using a colloquialism.

This is a strangely hostile interpretation of what Carlson said and also of what I have said. You seem very ready to be angry about this. I am interested in a lucid discussion of the topic, and I would be happy to engage with you in that way if you are so inclined.

I think it is pretty clear that in context the Carlson quote means "how white men [should] behave [according to their culture (which is not completely homogenous but does have a bulk of fairly common values sourced from Christianity and longstanding cultural cross pollination on the continent and related colonies)]".

Other cultures have different cultural traditions and rules for behavior. This is a fact and it is not innately offensive, in a vacuum. We see N-on-1 combat as immoral because we have been brainwashed with a particular morality. I don't believe it is the case that all groups throughout history have seen N-on-1 combat as immoral. Would you claim that they have and do, and that N-on-1 combat is universally immoral?

My best guess at why people are angry when this is discussed is because they have internalized our time-and-place morality as universal, and so any mention of people having a different morality is interpreted as equivalent to calling them "bad people". Calling other groups "bad people" is itself highly immoral in today's time-and-place morality, so, transitively, anyone mentioning other groups' differing morality have themselves committed an immoral act. The moral impulse in the observer is thus inflamed.

There is an extremely ironic submerged Eurocentrism in this way of thinking (i.e. internalizing our Euro-rooted time-and-place morality as universal).

I note how you and other posters here are referring to "cultures" when Tucker Carlson was explicitly referring to race, not culture. "white" is not a culture. Tucker Carlson was not making a comment based on a neutral anthropological analysis of European cultural values as derived from Christianity and as they apply to the ethics of organized combat, which, again, don't actually exist but one based on racial stereotypes, specifically, black racial stereotypes related to violence and criminality.

He even admits this. It shouldn't even be debatable.

I'm not going to continue further because it's obvious you're trying very, very hard not to grasp such a simple and obvious point. I'm afraid you might sprain something reaching so hard.

And no, calling someone racist is not itself highly immoral in today's time and place morality, and thus equivalent to racism itself. Your rationale is as puerile as it is obviously in bad faith.

Good day.

> calling someone racist is not itself highly immoral

You have completely failed to understand my post, please relax and reread. My views are based on a personal first principles analysis, I am not simply shouting and parroting things I have read in the media (unlike some other people).

It'd be less offensive if it were even vaguely true. Lots of guys willing to jump you or slit your throat for a nickel or whatever.
Well, sure, not everyone follows the moral code of their culture. It is like if the Jones family tells their misbehaving son “this is not how Jones’ behave” and the son replies “I am a Jones and I am behaving this way, so your statement is inaccurate, QED”.

Other groups have different cultures, and it is reasonable to speak for one’s own group and one’s own cultural moral code. It is only offensive if you believe European values are universal - do you? I am a moral relativist, personally.

That's sort of the offensive part, that the claimed culture meaningfully exists and also does not engage in the criticized behavior. Both are wrong.
It’s offensive that a pan European base culture exists? Have you met people from many different European countries? They are different, but compared to non-European cultural groups they have an absolutely tremendous amount in common culturally.

There is no claim that Europeans do not engage in whatever immoral behavior. The claim is simply that European culture prohibits whatever behavior, even though of course this rule does get violated by Europeans (as all moral rules do get violated by whatever groups hold the rules).

Moving countries or continents does not delete one’s base culture, it’s weird that people pretend it does…

This is an extremely misleading representation of what his text said. Shame on you. Here's the rest:

> Then somewhere deep in my brain, an alarm went off: this isn’t good for me. I’m becoming something I don’t want to be. The Antifa creep is a human being. Much as I despise what he says and does, much as I’m sure I’d hate him personally if I knew him, I shouldn’t gloat over his suffering. I should be bothered by it. I should remember that somewhere somebody probably loves this kid, and would be crushed if he was killed. If I don’t care about those things, if I reduce people to their politics, how am I better than he is?

More people should do this kind of self-reflection.

You are the exact kind of Liar (yes, it deserves a big L) that Tucker was talking about in his tweet the other day when he said the media was full of lies:

https://twitter.com/TuckerCarlson/status/1656037032538390530...

Oh yes, that makes it much better.
Yes, it actually does. You've never had intrusive thoughts or been caught up in mob/tribalisitc mentality?
The excerpt you quoted makes it worse. In it, he acknowledges that he has absolutely no empathy for the person being beaten. Yea, great clarification! thanks!

And no, I have not fantasized about a mob beating a person to death.

No, it doesn't make it worse.

I loathe Tucker and am joyous to see him fall. He is a disgraceful human.

BUT, for him to say "I had this thought, and I don't like it. Even though I don't like a person, I realize I shouldn't wish him to be harmed because that kind of thinking is toxic" shows self reflection and a desire to not be the bitter death-wishing brand of human.

> I have not fantasized about a mob beating a person to death.

That wasn't my question, nice try. You've never had an intrusive thought that made you uncomfortable, ever?

It doesn't improve the racism, which ostensibly is what got him fired. But beyond that, he went right back to his job riling up mobs, so it's a bit empty.
>if I reduce people to their politics, how am I better than he is?

His "self reflection" is an attempt to feel self righteous and better than the stranger getting beaten for political reasons that he does not know.

People that reject the use of political violence are better than those that don't and I'm not going to pretend they aren't.
People that say they reject the use of political violence, yet continue to encourage it on national television and anywhere else they can, are worse than those that don't and I'm not going to pretend they aren't.
If you're going to claim he did this you really should back it up with a source.
I have, but I don't then proceed to fill multiple sentences with how much I still baselessly hate said person while also trying to make myself look like a saint for thinking something that should have been obvious to anyone beyond toddler years and well before having witnessed it first-hand. I also don't then proceed to host a TV show pushing to get that exact response out of the audience.
These are the thoughts of an utter sociopath. He's a skilled propagandist trying to dress up his racism and psychopathy and put it in a more presentable package.
It wasn't his hating on the victim that got him fired. It was his stating that the raging mob was not behaving appropriately for his race-based expectations of them.
It's much more likely that he got fired because of the Dominion lawsuit from his election fraud claims.
You are missing half the quote, "I really wanted them to hurt the kid. I could taste it. Then somewhere deep in my brain, an alarm went off: this isn’t good for me. I’m becoming something I don’t want to be.".

His point is the exact opposite of what your truncated quote suggests.

You'd be surprised at how many people on social media display the same inclinations, minus the self-awareness and reflection. The racist connotation sure makes me cringe, but I'm far more afraid of people cheering on violence and persecution thinking they're "on the right side" than of someone with the awareness to attempt to suppress and correct intrusive thoughts and biases.
The tenor of the complete message is the OPPOSITE of what your misquote implies.

> A couple of weeks ago, I was watching video of people fighting on the street in Washington. A group of Trump guys surrounded an Antifa kid and started pounding the living shit out of him. It was three against one, at least. Jumping a guy like that is dishonorable obviously. It’s not how white men fight. Yet suddenly I found myself rooting for the mob against the man, hoping they’d hit him harder, kill him. I really wanted them to hurt the kid. I could taste it. Then somewhere deep in my brain, an alarm went off: this isn’t good for me. I’m becoming something I don’t want to be. The Antifa creep is a human being. Much as I despise what he says and does, much as I’m sure I’d hate him personally if I knew him, I shouldn’t gloat over his suffering. I should be bothered by it. I should remember that somewhere somebody probably loves this kid, and would be crushed if he was killed. If I don’t care about those things, if I reduce people to their politics, how am I better than he is?

As to the situation, IIRC it was related to this same guy having previously beaten up some other people. You should consider why NOBODY quoted the actual context and felt the need to resort to libel.

How does admitting it is wrong to want someone hurt for their political beliefs counter him saying "that's not how white people fight" which is the actual derogatory thing people don't like that he said?

IE, where in the full quote does he then say "I was prejudiced to think only non-white people gang up on others"

He was commenting on his own race. You are the one inferring it implies anything about other races, but if he did critique other races, then you'd also call him a racist.

I suspect the only case where he could mention the white race would be in the context of disparaging all white races as evil colonizers.

You couldn't convict him of what you claim in any impartial court because your claims (based on this statement) have no evidence to support them.

I'm not sure this really improves "it's not how white men fight" at all.
Obviously not exactly this word-for-word, but I'm pretty sure most people have told equally objectionable things that they regretted afterwards or didn't fully think through at the time.
Yeah

When I was 14!

Not when I'm a well educated, rather privileged adult who spends his day job telling people that trans people are targeting them and that they are at ideological ("culture") war, and actively talking about how the guy I'm publicly pushing is someone I personally think is despicable.

You know what I do when I say something that hurts someone now that I'm an adult? I apologize.

Was there someone in public life in recent memory who sincerely apologized for something and was offered forgiveness by the general public?

It often seems like those who double down on something bad end up better off. It doesn't mean that it is the right thing to do, of course.

Doing the right thing does not always end with you in a better position. That doesn't mean you shouldn't do it. All you can do is apologize, and that should really be the only acceptable next step after you as a public figure make an oopsie. Whether other people are willing to forgive you or "take you back" is up to them, and people being judgemental assholes when it comes to a very public and controversial figure is not an excuse to not do the right thing. That's just what it means to live on the knife's edge of being a controversial person.

Forgiveness is earned, not expected. You won't always get a second chance.

And yet you left off:

"The Antifa creep is a human being. Much as I despise what he says and does, much as I’m sure I’d hate him personally if I knew him, I shouldn’t gloat over his suffering. I should be bothered by it. I should remember that somewhere somebody probably loves this kid, and would be crushed if he was killed. If I don’t care about those things, if I reduce people to their politics, how am I better than he is?"

The way his phone was compromised was likely with targeted malware like Pegasus v2. Even if you're deleting messages it wouldn't matter, because whatever you're seeing on the screen / typing is all being logged and transmitted somewhere else.
His phone wasn't compromised, it was subpoenaed in a lawsuit.
“Never write if you can speak; never speak if you can nod; never nod if you can wink”
From The survival guide to an Orwellian world.
Or as Jan Werich said "Don't think. If you do think, don't speak out. If you do speak out, don't write it down. If you do write it down, don't sign it. If you do sign it, don't be surprised."
I postulate that given HNs political guidelines, this whole submission has a high chance of being flagged for some reason.

Most people have no need to auto-delete something that was recorded by a 3rd party already.

The small political portion of this post is almost irrelevant to the message.
(comment deleted)
The problem with Signal is that other party can turn auto delete off for both. Clearly bad design. It should be that the smallest timer wins.
If you can't trust the other party, you have already lost.
This isn't only about other party, you are missing the point. Other party can be hacked or played and I certainly do not trust that people are competent in that domain AT ALL.