As some one who lives under a blasphemy culture, I think American greatly take for granted their freedoms of speech, and it boggles me that this is not a corner stone of the American Left.
While I could link to hundreds of example, this one example (out of hundreds) that occurred at a university is example of offense culture taken to extreme and weaponized:
Just the implication of possible offense caused this incident. Sure, the main culprits had other ideas, but the mob was there purely due to supposed offense. If you dare, you are welcome to look [1] the videos of the incident, it's horrifying.
And as a proxy, you can also guess just how guarded and buffered speech here is, and yet such events happen.
This is a slippery slope, and just because this happened for a few decades in the West doesn't mean it can't happen at all. And it's not the just the left, January 6 has shown that the American right are threat vector also..
Needless to remind you, it contains some NSFL material, I only linked because I think some education of reality is in order. This is the extreme end for the tolerance to offense.
One thing Americans do not have much experience with, is how the exercise policing speech eventually becomes the exercise of policing coded speech.
People will always get around speech rules by speaking in code. China has probably some of the richest history of speech suppression followed by very clever subversive speech. The most recent example being the use of empty white sheets of paper to get around censorship algorithms.
So the censors now must police coded speech as well, and this is where things get extremely dangerous. Because one can take great liberties in defining what contains encoded wrong speak. You already see this in the left's frequent accusation of something being a "dog whistle" for something else.
During the cultural revolution, people were persecuted by the metaphors supposedly hidden within their speech. A setting sun? That's code for the downfall of Mao, who was frequently compared to the sun.
Many people have had the idea that fascism will only be able to make entrance into America under a different name and guise. And most likely then disguised as anti-fascism.
And currently it seems fairly clear.
I don't think most of the historical left should be equated with the modern left. To me it seems a different beast altogether. The modern left is mostly created or lead on by the upper classes, spreading divisiveness and authoritarianism in the ranks of the less fortunate, with the rather obvious goal to keep and expand power and control.
That’s just a clever quip. It comes from a time and a place.
Nobody is rewriting history, because (1) this conversation is about the current and the future and (2) it’s intellectually dishonest to essentialalize the content of quip.
We can see the religious right openly backing repression and those who try to seize power, and that they have the support of one of the two major parties, and continue to have people and advocates in the most powerful positions in the country (President, congressional leaders, Supreme Court, leading news commentators such as Tucker Carlson).
And the conservatives aren't lead by the upper class to the same degree?
Remember, the only politicians calling for campaign finance reform in the US (I'd argue this is the problem you have?) are key liberals. No conservatives advocate for this.
liberal != left. Trust that there are those of us who take just as much umbridge with Clinton/Obama/Biden as trump/bush et al.
The blue/red differential isn't a right/left matter. Each party is responsible for bringing one of the two large cultural groups in line with the banks and capitalism.
Left-wing authoritarianism is by definition not fascism. It lacks the ethnonationalist and patriotic elements for it. Fascism is exclusively pushed by the far-right.
The minority of the historical left that were marxists replaced class struggle with identity struggle and found a much wider base to take over the current left. In that sense it is indeed the same left but in the sense that the cancer has metastasized and overrun the host.
> As some one who lives under a blasphemy culture, I think American greatly take for granted their freedoms of speech, and it boggles me that this is not a corner stone of the American Left.
It absolutely was a cornerstone value for American liberals in the past.
A documentary about the director of the ACLU, back before the ACLU abandoned it's principles, looks at how far the organization went to protect the speech of literal Nazis. The ACLU winning a Supreme Court case for their right to hold a public protest march was widely celebrated by those on the left.
>[The First] Amendment assures that even the most odious among us (with “odious” being the term that we apply to those we loathe, but who might view us as odious) the right to express themselves either orally, in writing, or by demonstrating or marching.
It was the freedom to march that caused a major flare-up back in the late 1970s, when members of the American Nazi Party, in uniform and bedecked with their decorative swastikas and stormtrooper boots, applied for a permit to march through the town of Skokie, Illinois...
To Glasser and the ACLU leadership, including David Goldberger, who headed the local Illinois chapter, freedom of speech is meaningless if it is not accorded across-the-board to all those along the ideological spectrum.
For speech to be illegal, the legal standard is that it needs to incite specific lawless action and be likely to succeed.
For instance, Indiana locked up an anti-war protestor:
>The case involved an antiwar protest on the campus of Indiana University Bloomington. Between 100 and 150 protesters were in the streets. The sheriff and his deputies then proceeded to clear the streets of the protestors. As the sheriff was passing Gregory Hess, one of the members of the crowd, Hess uttered, "We'll take the fucking street later" or "We'll take the fucking street again." Hess was convicted in Indiana state court of disorderly conduct.
The Supreme Court reversed Hess's conviction because Hess' statement, at worst, "amounted to nothing more than advocacy of illegal action at some indefinite future time."
In addition, Hess' speech was not directed at any particular person or group. As a result, "it cannot be said that he was advocating, in the normal sense, any action."
In Supreme Court terms, 1973 is eons ago - there has been a consistent and very fruitful effort to change its thinking on a range of subjects since then, and as a result, I no longer really understand much of their previous rulings as having much relevance today.
You asked about drawing a line between speech and violence, not whether the supreme court's ruling is legally relevant today. The only relevant question is whether the argument the OP described clarifies your confusion on where and how to draw that line, ethically, not legally.
Ethically speaking, I think there are all sorts of things that just shouldn't be said, regardless of legality. I'm not sure if my personal sense of ethics is relevant though?
Firstly, "things that shouldn't be said" include matters of etiquette and not just ethics, so just be clear about the line between being a good/ethical person vs. being a polite person.
Secondly, your personal ethics are absolutely relevant because ethics advances by persuasion in rational debate. Everyone's views on such matters are relevant, if not persuasive.
Great, you're free to not want them, but everyone has to justify their actions, so an action like banning a group still requires justification. If that justification is sound and based on accepted ethical principles, it should arguably become an ethical rule. I personally haven't seen an argument that satisfies the requirements.
They're all capable of attempting to justify their actions, but rarely is that justification sound. "Justification" here means a deductive argument from principles, sort of like what you'd find in a court of law based on except based on ethical rather than legal principles.
Not just inciting violence, but a credible and immediate incitement to violence. "Hurtful" describes a feeling felt by the listener. Would people have felt hurt by someone opposing racial preferences in admissions [1]? Maybe: their feelings are their own, and I'm not going to tell someone their feelings are wrong. But it's unambiguously not a credible and specific incitement to violence. The questions to ask are: is the speech calling for an immediate act of violence [2]? And is the speech calling for violence against a specific identifiable person or group?
2. Sometimes people will try to argue for an indirect threat of violence. E.g. that opposing trans men in female sports amounts to a call of violence because it reduces respect for trans people, which in turn increases likelihood of violence perpetrated against them. But this is a very indirect relationship. As a general rule of thumb, if someone is making a claim that some speech is probabilistically increasing violence, it's not a incitement to violence.
What I think is going to inevitably happen in sports is that the gender segregated (but not sex segregated) women's leagues will become dominated by trans women, and cis women will leave and form their own female-only league.
Another alternative is for women to refuse to participate in such competitions en masse, or to threaten to. Basically taking strike action against unfair conditions.
"The UCI's decision came amid a growing backlash from within the sport, with the Guardian understanding that a number of female riders were talking about boycotting the event in Derby because they felt that Bridges, who was on the Great Britain Academy programme as a male rider until being dropped in 2020, had an unfair advantage."
> How can we know the difference between speech that incites real violence and mere hurtful language
Easy. Speech that is hurtful aims at portraying someone as lesser compared to other people, speech that incites actual violence tells you to do something about it.
Me disagreeing with gay marriage (I would never, but let’s entertain that notion) is very different from me saying we need to forcibly imprison homosexuals as criminals.
Case by case. Generally, if they commit to no violence then they should be supported, even protected by police. Uncomfortable conversations should be allowed to happen.
Exactly. It’s really this simple. The American rights inability to reconcile their love of “free speech at all time for everyone” with “businesses have the right to refuse to associate with anyone they don’t like regardless of anti discrimination laws” is probably the front cover for American Hypocrisy.
Both parties are very much so the war party. If you're saying the left supports war bc Ukraine that is really tough to swallow. There was not a conflict under trump, but it is not hard to find tweets from him celebrating our military capability. Plenty of conservative politicians in the last eight years have statements of "war mongering" if you want to call it that.
I don't know why Ukraine is a tough pill to swallow, the US has no interest in a proxy war with Russia, no matter what the mainstream media tells you. The left fully supports this to the tune of $100 billion so far and counting. $100 billion that could be used to build up our own infrastructure, combat homelessness and mental illness, hire more teachers, etc.
The main reasons I've heard for this is that we are weakening one of our main enemies for a measly $100 billion and counting, without having to put boots on the ground.
Another is that we should support democracies everywhere. This coming from the super power that has meddled with other countries and overthrown more democratically elected governments than any other.
These are really BS reasons. Why do you feel it is in the best interest of the US? Especially considering that Ukraine is way more important to Russia than it is to the West, they are willing to fight tooth and nail for it, and possibly risk nuclear war. Is it really worth it?
- We should support sovereignty, as you said. As the US should be against slavery today though they were for it in the past, poor decisions don't make you a hypocrite when you take the correct course of action in the future.
- Ukraine is a somewhat ally of the US, though not in NATO. You support your allies.
- A weaker Russia is good for the US, especially a weaker Putin. Putin and Russia are not neutral with their actions against the US.
- Appeasement doesn't work. You may be correct that Ukraine is more important to Russia than Ukraine is to the west, but it was the same with Poland and Germany during WW2. Things change, but appeasement doesn't work. And before you say that was a long time ago, appeasement already did not work with Russia with Crimea.
- The US did win the cold war. The soviet union failed. This was much due to the same tactics being used today with Ukraine: containment and deterrence.
- Not good to encourage countries to invade each other.
The cognitive dissonance of this reply is astounding. Do you really not understand the difference between free speech and forcing people to platform views they don't want to? Why does your cohort want to force MIT to allow Nazis to march through their campus, but not force a baker to bake a cake for a gay couple?
> Why does your cohort want to force MIT to allow Nazis to march through their campus, but not force a baker to bake a cake for a gay couple
Honestly, there are many possible reasons to justify making such distinctions. The most obvious is that campuses are explicitly intended to be venues for free speech and debate among diverse views, while a bake shop is intended as a venue for the free expression of only the baker.
> Why does your cohort want to force MIT to allow Nazis to march through their campus, but not force a baker to bake a cake for a gay couple?
Compelled action, versus compelled inaction. One requires you to force someone to do labour to further a cause they disagree with, the other requires you to stand aside and not physically prevent people from expressing themselves the way they want.
> it boggles me that this is not a corner stone of the American Left
In my memory as a kid who grew up in the US south in the 80s, this was a cornerstone of the left. Maybe my perception was wrong back then, or maybe my memory of it is wrong, but that’s what I recall.
I suspect this is a pendulum. Maybe those who are in power devalue freedom of thought / expression and those who are out of power champion it. The incentives for such an effect are pretty clear.
Anyway, I tend to be libertarian (classical liberal) for this among other reasons. It’s not because it’s “the best” political philosophy, but rather because I dislike the holes in other philosophies more than the holes in this one.
Yup, I remember the 80s. The moral majority types were the biggest supporters of censorship and threat to free speech. It was the young and the artists etc protesting for free speech.
> I suspect this is a pendulum. Maybe those who are in power devalue freedom of thought / expression and those who are out of power champion it. The incentives for such an effect are pretty clear.
Those who are in power value freedom of thought/expression for themselves, and devalue it for those out of power. Those who are out of power value it for themselves, and to get it, they sometimes advocate it for all, rather than just for those out of power.
The classical liberals stand out by advocating freedom of thought and expression for all, even when they themselves were in power. The current American left... not so much.
> As some one who lives under a blasphemy culture, I think American greatly take for granted their freedoms of speech, and it boggles me that this is not a corner stone of the American Left.
I am not an American, but my own observation as a leftist of the situation there is that there's what I'd call the 'performative left' and the 'real/old school left' if you will with the second camp being mainly about economic issues, class solidarity, foreign policy, freedom of expression etc. (say Chomsky, Richard Wolf), but much smaller than the performative left, (student activists trying to deplatform etc.), which is the one the right loves because they give them so much material to work with.
That part of the right on the other hand claims to be pro free speech but ends up not behaving anything like it, aka Elon Musk.
Boycott was long seen as a necessary behavior to preserve democracy and free markets; flush old ideas. It’s free agency; can’t force people to do business with someone or believe in their figurative identity.
“Cancel culture” is boycott rebranded as a pejorative, to make the public mean and nasty for not wanting to heap figurative privilege on particular people anymore.
Those shrieking loudest about the loss of speech in the US are usually those who are privileged at the expense of speech that would improve conditions for others (do not speak of sick days for railroad staff, or making Walmart pay worker benefits to get their employees off social programs!)
Simple propaganda techniques are being leveraged to relabel free speech that suggests rethinking evolving society. Universities that are heavily dependent on government protections to exist fear change.
Unless research requires exotic hardware (nuclear reactor or something) there’s little reason to provide special accommodations for data mining academics that make up the majority of university work these days.
They can go freely speak in a park, or video chat about their findings. What’s funny is if you bring up how bloated with middle management unis have become you’re anti-intellectual too.
When a corporation, celebrity, or institution are complaining about being oppressed as they rely on “essential workers” who are effectively not allowed to speak out of line, I laugh.
People have a freedom of who they associate with and do business with:
Boycott is when you decide not to spend your money someplace because you don’t agree with them. You’re exercising your freedom of association.
Cancellation is when a 3rd party demands that a employee/employer sever their relationship because the 3rd party disapproves of the employee. Here, a 3rd party is imposing on two other parties’ freedom of association.
Also, the substance of the speech is quite different:
- “You are wrong, and here are the reasons why” is debate.
- “You are wrong, and you should become unemployable” is cancellation. Cancellation is technically speech, but it is speech that is focused on imposing a high cost on other speech. Talk about the “paradox of intolerance” argument that the modern left loves to use.
Cancel culture == swatting. Same thing, abusing the system to get what they see as justice. Heavy cancellation usually involves stretching the truth or outright lies; an employer is very likely to drop a (male) employee based on an anonymous sexual assault tip for example, even if it turns out to be unsubstantiated depending on how high profile the employee/business is sometimes they'd rather play it safe & fire them anyway.
As easy as it is for one of the many Indian scam centers to take your grandmothers money, it is just as easy for a wide-eyed innocent figure to tell you lies about someone and have you believe them. I don't think most people realise how many biases we all carry.
Cancel culture is not boycotting. At least not what most people consider boycotting. Boycotting usually there's to not giving money to a company to try to get the company to change their ways (yes you could argue it is a way to try and cancel the company) cancel culture is trying to get someone fired, or get their event, contact, whatever cancelled. Because you don't like them.
It isn't the same thing. Boycotting is telling people "please don't prize company x" while cancellation is going above that person and asking them to remove the person.
Totally different concepts.
And it is mean and nasty, it is basically giving someone a death sentence for something they may not have even done.
And of course you have every right to ask for someone to be cancelled. But you should use that right judicially. And make sure the punishment fits the crime.
I think you are spot on, but I have one small quibble. You use the word "performative" to mean something like "just for show", or "primarily concerned with symbols". Performative is a technical term from linguistics which means something quite different (and interesting!):
For some reason, that word has become widely used for your meaning. But I think it's not the right term! We should say something like "theatrical", as in security theatre.
As an aside, I think a Marxist would describe the divide as idealism vs materialism (both technical terms in Marxism).
> We should say something like "theatrical", as in security theatre.
How about "hypocrite"? If I understand correctly, in Greek, that originally meant "actor". So when Jesus called the Pharisees hypocrites, he was saying that their religion was just theater - it was just for show.
I dont think it's so much that the right likes them more. I think it's mainly that the non performative left can basically only really get noticed by appearing on, say, PressTV or RT.
They dont tend to own or control TV stations and the people who do control popular "left" media megaphones trend neoliberal and are overtly hostile towards them.
Hence why there's no hike in the minimum wage or single payer healthcare still but you can pick your pronouns at work now :/
I think your example inadvertently proves why there is no left representation in America at all. Picking pronouns isn't some policy that was signed into law, it's just that the far right wants to make it illegal. The difference lies in the political figures touted as "left" in America have no left leaning policies, just watered down versions of the American right's agenda.
The right does not want to make the picking of pronouns illegal. Where did you get that? Nobody cares what annyone identifies as.
The right’s position is that you are free to identify however you wish, but you still have to abide by certain things based on your biological birth when it directly affects other people.
So do I but I would not characterize the conservative position on trans individuals that way at all.
I think the conservative opposition is more directed at how early the modern left wants to introduce the concept to children. Primarily in schools and the desire by some on the modern left for educators to have private conversations about the topic with their children without the parent’s knowledge. Also, the notion of government funding any transitional medical procedure is opposed, but that is less a bias agains Trans individuals and more a standard conservative position on any sort of elective medical procedure receiving public funds.
There is not a single conservative that I know who cares one iota what a trans adult does, identifies as, or believes about themselves as long as the trans individual isn’t using taxpayer money to make the transition.
The laws being brought into effect by The Party beg to differ. They forbid the use of terms of "gender identity" among others. This is pretty obviously only being enforced against trans individuals. They also have restricted access to gender affirming healthcare even in the private sector.
>They forbid the use of the terms gender identity among others
Please cite the laws where this term is legally forbidden to be used. And please don’t give us examples where a government agency that might just use a different term, because that is not the same thing. Pleas give us so e specific laws where it’s use is overtly forbidden.
> They also have restricted access to gender affirming healthcare even in the private sector
You are making a blanket generalized statement here but how about you give us what “they” are actually restricting and what their argument as to why they are restricting it actually is and why that argument is wrong.
Not knowing what specifics you are referring to, but my suspicion is the what is the use of puberty blockers and the who is young children. That would make your statement lack some important nuance. It’s also not necessarily an unusual or even controversial stance for conservatives to act conservatively in regards to supporting novel medical treatments on children. Especially treatments that are even polarizing within medical circles and can have a lifelong impact.
I included more than enough information for anyone with basic reading comprehension to be able to generate their own Google search terms. Laws are public record.
No offense but it’s lazy to just give partisan generic talking points and tell people to “go Google”.
I think the conservative positions that are specific to trans and gender issues seem to center around children. At least from the conversations I have had with conservative friends on the topic that has been the concern they have. If that is not the case, provide something to prove me wrong. You do your argument a disservice if you cannot provide depth beyond generics.
You have not given any sources in your comments, this person is just operating in the mode you set them up for. Where is the left pushing these policies on children? Is there any substance to your claims?
I made no claims other than conversations I have had with conservatives that I know personally and am not arguing the merits of the policies for or against.
Do you really think that needed sources cited? Literally the most publicly prominent piece of legislation that was specifically passed by the GOP on this topic was in Florida last year with HB 1557. That legislation specifically created public education prohibitions about the topic with children aged 6 to 10 and had parental notification rights in it as well. The left opposed it vehemently and it was literally all over the news for months in the spring. Disney even fired a CEO over the fallout caused from his choice to publicly voice opposition to it.
For what it’s worth, here is your source, if you can think of a more public piece of legislation than this that expands prohibitions for trans topics beyond children, post it.
Sure, except…that particular bill was a response to specific real situations that happened in Florida related to educators not informing parents and specifically using age inappropriate materials in the classroom. Additionally, the coordinated opposition wasn’t arguing that it was unnecessary, but rather the prohibition would not allow educators to do it.
And only because like religious circles, conservative circles need to be the _only_ ones to have private conversations with their children; how else are they to be brainwashed into hating everyone that isn't the same colour/sexuality/traditional gender roles like them and their mammy & daddy and grandpappy & grand-mama going back generations.
> Primarily in schools and the desire by some on the modern left for educators to have private conversations about the topic with their children without the parent’s knowledge.
You'll have to substantiate this, because I'm not aware of "the left" pushing these policies.
If there isn't a "problem" with trans people, what's wrong with kids knowing about them, similar to gay people? I'm not saying educators should say "hey, did you consider if you're really a boy?!?!" but avoiding the topic altogether, which is what it seems like the right wants to do (have you looked up "trans social contagion" at any time? this talk is EVERYWHERE).
They think there is a problem, and it is only natural to not want problems to exist. There is a gradient, but most conservatives, in my view, do not want trans people to be a thing - they think there is a problem with it.
I am aware of people in my circles thinking trans people is a disease or a medical condition and want it to go away.
> There is not a single conservative that I know who cares one iota what a trans adult does, identifies as, or believes about themselves
Does this extend to them using bathrooms, or whatever, as well as the "women need their own private spaces!!" narrative? I'd certainly say that caring what bathroom a person uses falls in the "caring about what they do" category.
Why should anyone support these men and their misogyny? Why should they be allowed into any space for women?
It's basically equivalent to white men wearing blackface in terms of offensiveness, yet we're expected to go along with the pretence that all of these guys are women.
If the trans movement wants to gain support across the board, they need some serious gatekeeping to exclude these type of men from parasiting the wider activism.
Uh, how is this related to school policies? I don't see things through the same lens you do, so it would be helpful if you could explain it to me.
> It's basically equivalent to white men wearing blackface in terms of offensiveness, yet we're expected to go along with the pretence that these guys are women.
You have to break this down for me! Do you think this applies to all trans people? Or just trans people who want to be stars on social media by acting like everyone else does on social media? I think it is often cringe too, but I don't think it's b/c they are trans, I just think social media is cringe. Maybe your problem is partially with social media?
Like, maybe you're not familiar - but the guy whistlindiesel was constantly talking about how he's going to go to Hawaii and drive on sacred land there as a joke b/c it pisses off Hawaiians. That was super cringe, but I didn't take his views and suggest that all white dudes, or white conservatives, or [WHATEVER] are supporting or pushing similar policies (tho my younger cousins watch this shit and they do learn from him and seem to lack maturity b/c of this). Great conversation about this here, interesting perspective, and I think we can BOTH agree with the "social media influencers want attention" take! https://www.reddit.com/r/CasualConversation/comments/ozsska/...
> Does this extend to them using bathrooms
Since the primary argument behind that is related to concerns about child safety, so I’d say it falls within their primary fears.
I am not arguing that their concerns are valid or not BTW, but just what my understanding of what they are. However, I feel like much of the approach the left has taken towards the conservative position in this debate has been ineffective because they don’t work to address the concerns but instead obfuscate behind slogan, sound bite, and generalizations.
What do you mean by they don't want trans people to exist at all? Same way trans people do not want conservatives to exist at all, or something more sinister? Because I have many conservative friends and they may not agree with different life choices, but that doesn't mean they won't tolerate it.
If you have a circle of people who want to eradicate trans people, I would not label them as conservatives first, they are psychopaths and I would not let them in my circle.
If you are not familiar with the local/state laws going into effect which legislate official identification and presentation in ways that impact trans people, they're particularly easy to Google. The differences between the positions of cannot exist in public view and cannot exist at all are insignificant in practice.
I'm not familiar with that, give me a link or Google search term to use so I can see for myself.
edit: actually, I think you're referring to ID laws where you have to pick male or female, correct?
I don't think that's the same as someone not wanting trans to exist at all. Not knowing a lot about this, but my personal opinion would be to allow people to choose trans or non-binary in official identifications, it doesn't seem like it would matter, but I'm not sure what the conservative objection is on this.
Yes. They are not the same, and you know this. These social pressure tactics do little but turn people against your cause at this point. The difference is in intent. While it is possible they look the same from the outside, one intends to protect what they love, while the other intends to hurt what it hates.
Making these people out to be the same serves to turn people who might be convinced to help you into your worst enemies instead. No one likes being made out to be a bad person simply for seeking to protect what is important to them. The two are not the same, and too many people screeching that they are, and that conservatives all hate trans people is the issue in the first place. It's weird.
I'm saying that they have different motivations behind their views, and should therefore be argued against in different ways. Lumping them together like that is not helpful, it is shameful.
I know all about not being allowed to exist, just for being who you are, trust me, I do. I also know a lot about convincing people to LET you exist, rather than choosing between crushing your enemy, subjugating yourself to them, or running away. There is usually a better way. That seems to have been forgotten in modern days, but it certainly still exists.
It starts with following the site guidelines of arguing in good faith and assuming the best out of your opponents. In your view, "cannot exist in public view" and "cannot exist in practice" are one and the same. In their view it is not.
What you are doing is ASSERTING your reality over someone else. That's not a very nice thing to do, whether you're right or not. You WILL have pushback. If you want to convince people of the veracity of your views, you cannot hold that pushback against them. Certainly react to it, certainly defend yourself, but don't hold a grudge against people just for daring to fight you in the first place.
They might be wrong and you might be wrong. In this case, I'm inclined to agree with your view here, but that doesn't mean that people who don't are bad people. Just misguided.
If you want people to show compassion for you and your plight, start by showing compassion for them and theirs. Anything else is quite frankly a waste of time.
Thanks for asking me to clarify. I mean it in the literal sense: they want a world without trans people. I'm not interested really in getting into my subjective views on the harm I believe that leads to, but Ill answer and say no, I don't believe very many people want direct violence against trans people.
I don't know if you can group trans people into a political category where you can say they all don't want conservatives to exist??? I literally know trans conservatives who voted for trump (you'd not be able to tell they are trans).
I don't know what you intended, but phrasing it that way is a literal denial of the existence of trans people. Transitioning is a realization of who the person has always been, not a "life choice" to suddenly be someone different.
Denying the existence of something and not wanting something to exist are not exactly the same thing, but there is a lot of overlap. Again, I don't know what you intended, but many people pointedly use the word "choice" around this topic. Your phrase would be more accurate if it said "they may not agree with different life experiences" or "they may not agree with different lived realities". Those are decidedly more cutting than the phrasing you used.
Phrasing it the way you are is a literal denial of the existence of conservative people, because having conservative viewpoints is a realization of who the person has always been, not a life choice.
The person has always been a trans person. Like a gay person has always been gay. If conservatives don't believe that, them being wrong isn't a denial that conservatives exist.
Ideally the growing resentment against capitalism and push for strong unions takes off even further. Blaming whatever minority is at best a band-aid on the gaping holes in the ruling class's narrative.
Musk supports speech that Musk likes; that isn't freedom. For example, Musk is against speech that criticizes Twitter or Elon; some are intimidated and harassed (e.g., called pedophiles), and some are silenced (or 'canceled') including journalists and others.
>what I'd call the 'performative left' and the 'real/old school left'
What you're referring to are known more commonly as Modern Liberalism and Classical Liberalism, respectively.
Modern Liberalism is, well, the Left: Control of speech, adherence of expression, safe spaces, equal results rather than equal opportunity, wealth redistribution, controlled markets, etc.
Classical Liberalism is liberalism as it used to mean originally: Free speech, free expression, free markets, equal opportunity, individual responsibility, etc.
It probably doesn't need to be said that Classical Liberalism is almost never associated with the Left.
Also remember: The word "liberal" and name "liberalism" are derived from the Latin word "liber", from which we also get words such as "liberty". Liberalism is about freedom, something that the Left staunchly argues against.
I said I am not American for a reason, I am also familiar with my terms and what you write is somewhat a modern, American-centric distortion of terms as well. You listed what seem like talking points in the so called 'culture war' that I am not interested in fighting as it is very much an American phenomenon, (with some spillover) that in the end doesn't serve interests of anyone but the few profiting off of being spokepersons for one side or the other.
It's very much a modern distortion that leftism doesn't stand for free speech and that classical liberals, (in your context, I understand them to mean right-leaning libertarians), are somehow the only ones that do.
The left intellectuals I am familiar with are very much pro free speech, equal opportunity, (not outcome etc). As for markets, I very much question if such a thing as a free market could ever truly exist, (even without state interference), and if it's such a good thing but that's neither here nor there.
Point is, the left is very diverse, not a single box you can put everything you don't like the sound of in, label it 'the left' and be done with it. Same thing as not everyone on the right being a 'Nazi' if you will.
As a non-American calling liberalism 'left' is so weird. I grew up with the word liberal being a slur for right-winger. But even in an US context painting it as classic vs modern liberalism is wrong. Chomsky is definitely not a liberal, and the US obsession of collapsing every position to the left of conservatism into liberalism is dangerously reductive, and limits the answers for political questions immensely.
As an American I also find it weird. There’s multiple axes getting reduced to just one. It’s impossible to have any proper discussions about political positions of people when you’re collapsing it down and then leaving it up to the reader to decide how they want to split it back out in their heads.
Despite its etymology, liberalism is not primarily about freedom, it is about individualism. This is what connects "classical" and "modern" liberalism. Freedoms and so-called "human rights" shake out of this foundational idea that the individual is sovereign.
Thank you for sharing this. I remember a while back there was a major social justice controversy at Basecamp which started with a senior exec using some insensitive language. An employee then shared the “pyramid of hate” with “biased attitudes” at the bottom and…you guessed it, “genocide” at the top. This annoyed me at the time.
I thought what you described is the perfect antidote to that argument, with “speech policing” at one end and “mob lynching” at the other, or even worse.
It seems odd to oppression by religious conservatives in Pakistan to the American left.
> it boggles me that this is not a corner stone of the American Left
It is. Freedom of speech is not simple: When the powerful continually intimidate and harass the vulnerable into silence, the vulnerable do not have freedom of speech.
People like Musk advocate not freedom, but anarchy. Anarchy gives more power to the powerful, as protections of the vulnerable and their speech are removed. Look at Musk threatening people with online mobs, which are actively riled up and encouraged with these so-called votes, including calling people pedophiles.
Freedom of speech must be more than ten wolves and a sheep debating what's for dinner.
The left very much cares about freedom of speech, they are just culturally focused on certain speech and expression right now, such as gay and trans rights. I feel like these freedoms are very related.
I'm not sure if this was asked in earnest, but you could look into the recent Canadian laws around preferred pronoun use, applications and enforcement in universities there, as an example. Googling "compelled speech 2022" will yield many articles worth reading for further examples.
Please remember that Google strongly prefers to rank search results according to what Google's däa indicates the known-or-probable user seems to prefer. This can result in a "bubble" of search results, effects of which can include that user finding more of what that user already knows/expects, while another user performing the same search receives substantially different results.
To avoid this, one possibility is using StartPage.com or eu.StartPage.com (which use Google search results while presenting all users to Google as a single user). Another option may be duckduckgo.com (which uses primarily Bing search results in similar fashion). A new option is kagi.com, which I haven't used much yet, but offers ad-free search for erther a low number of searches per month or a monthly fee.
Yes. Anyway, the Canada bills don't mention pronouns at all. That Google search did not give me much. I can't find any law enforcement getting involved in Canada at universities regarding pronouns. General articles about what compelled speech is but no laws. Reading those articles tho is interesting bc I'm not sure what I think you are describing is compelled speech anyway. It bans a certain type of speech potentially but doesn't force you to interact with someone. I'm also talking about the US not Canada. Where do you get your news?
I've taken some time to look at your other comments and don't have faith that any amount of information will sway you in the slightest. Your bias is very strong, and while there's absolutely nothing wrong with that, I don't have interest in continuing.
Well, I'll tell you that they will if you give me any data. At least, I will read it and tell you my opinion of it. If that is not worth your time, ok.
I promise you that I have changed my opinion about things after learning more about them :)
For example, if you could substantiate that certain policies are being enforced by the government in Canada, likely I would agree that they should not be enforced that way! (I just can't find that anywhere someone was arrested for misgendering a person).
I've seen instances of wealthy or powerful individuals publicly calling for private platforms to deregulate speech not because of a dedication to the ideals of free speech (the ostensible reason) but as a tactic to achieve some political goal, e.g. in order to promote confusion about anthropogenic climate change to benefit the fossil fuel industry.
I've also seen instances of individuals defending free speech because they hold unpopular (or sometimes even hurtful) opinions and want to be taken seriously, or want a megaphone – both of which they are free to demand but which no one is obligated to give them.
I signed the MIT Free Speech Alliance's petition and signed up for its newsletter because I agree with the aims of the movement, but I had the impression that some of the alumni leading the alliance have political motives, or are less angry about the loss of freedom at universities [1] than they are about the social opinions of the rising generation, which worries me somewhat.
[1] which IMO ought to be the paragons of free speech.
Free speech as a concept means that the unpowerful, unpopular ideas are protected by the same laws that protect powerful unpopular ideas. If you want to protect only the latter, you need to convince your culture that they want free political speech with exceptions. The whole point of lumping all speech together for the purposes of making it free is that the powerful can't make exceptions. Once you've said one kind of speech is coming from "the powerful," you've said that they are the ones deciding which ideas get to be exceptions! Surely we know better than to give the powerful more power as a means of protecting the powerless from them. Is it not contradictory to imagine that "the powerful" will not write these laws and decide how they are interpreted and enforced, when their ability to do those things is the definition of the set we, in this thought experiment, identify them as?
In fact, the point you are making about unequal protection under imbalances of power is perhaps even an argument for maintaining an absolutist stance against reasonable exceptions - because that's an effective tactic for protecting something in a flawed political world that can turn those exceptions into things you didn't imagine when voicing support for them.
If the powerful have no protections then they won’t be the powerful for long and then the shoe will be on the other foot and a new powerful elite will be created (ostensibly what is happening right now as a certain group of elite have largely taken control of both the media system and the school system).
The "Free Speech" movement started on American campuses as a reaction to the red scare. At the core it was anti-war and a lot of college students who wanted to talk about the little red book without ending up on a list. College students died in some of these protests
Kinda similarly, the "right to bear arms" interpretation of the 2nd amendment didn't really happen until the Black Panthers. Everybody talks about the "right to bear arms" part of the amendment but for some reason we no longer bring up how that sentence starts: "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State"
It's kind of a confusing amendment in general. For most of it's history it was basically treated like 3rd Amendment (about soldiers not having to be quartered). It seemed kinda odd and in fact was the second least often cited amendment behind the 3rd amendment because of this.
It was actually the Black Panthers, a bunch of young hip highly educated commies (mostly), that strongly pushed for this interpretation.
Both "right to bear arms" and "free speech" are much more recent in American politics/history than most people realize. Yes the original amendments had those words, but the meanings of them weren't really hashed out until rather recently.
Your interpretation of this is pretty popular today, but is completely historically false on both the first and second amendments.
On the second, privately owned ordnance weapons and warships were extremely common in the 1800s, and the definition of "well-regulated" was closer to "well-equipped" than to the modern word "regulated." In fact, the earliest "gun control" laws were about when and where you could fire your cannons. It took until the really 1920s to start thinking of the second amendment as a "collective" right which allowed any restrictions.
On the first amendment, it has been under societal attack since the founding of the country. The laws against sedition were some of the first laws ever passed, and were an attack on speech. In the early 1900s, it was all about preventing protests from labor groups and women who wanted to vote. The red scare was a very recent instance. Thankfully, the judiciary, since 1800, has been very good at striking down governmental attempts to control speech, and created the strongest legal regime around free speech that has ever existed. This regime had its last great test with the red scare. Twitter-FBI "state-informed" moderation and these ridiculous speech codes are just another attempt, in a 200 year old tradition, of the powerful to control other people's speech.
You are looking at a narrow slice of American history and generalizing from it. The whole history of the country is quite encouraging in terms of the rights of the individual, and I think we will see a turnaround on the current situation around speech, as we have every other time.
By "pretty popular" you must mean the majority of historians, right? Here's Britannica's take:
> Despite the Supreme Court’s rulings in Heller and McDonald, many constitutional historians disagreed with the court that the Second Amendment protected an individual right to “keep and bear Arms” for the purpose of self-defense in the home. Indeed, for more than two centuries there had been a consensus among judges as well as scholars that the Second Amendment guaranteed only the right of individuals to defend their liberties by participating in a state militia. However, by the late 20th century the “self-defense” interpretation of the amendment had been adopted by a significant minority of judges.
It was certainly the popular consensus view among historians (registering about 95% democrat) at the time of Heller, but that does not in any way mean that it is or was the consensus view of notable legal scholars, Supreme Court justices, or anyone else who is actually well-informed on the issues and history of the second amendment. And also facts, which matter a lot more than "consensus."
If you would like to back up your argument from authority with actual evidence, can you pull out a gun control law from before 1900 that bans anything close to the weapons that are banned today?
Where can I read about the Black Panthers starting the contemporary Second Amendment movements? As I'm sure you know, it's an especially right wing movement.
True! I was just pointing out that this is different from defending free speech; it's simply wanting people to listen to you. (And so it may be deceptive to claim your goal is free speech when, in reality, you will only fight for free speech while your opinion is the unpopular one.)
Ignoring the abhorrent treatment of women in Iran, using the current protest as a measure of popularity would be as faulty as using the Occupy Wall Street protests as a measure of popularity, or in Canada, the Convoy Protests.
Unfortunately, as far as most of what I can find on the subject, most Iranians (who live in Iran) are either indifferent or opposed to the people currently protesting in Iran and Iran has a majority population that is highly religious and loyal to the current government.
It's mostly in the big cities, like Tehran or Shiraz where the protests enjoy support and the population is more liberal, but outside of the big cities in more rural areas people are much more religious and supportive of the regime.
I am certainly welcome to be corrected on this though.
I don't think it's unlikely that there's more people in the big cities in Iran than there are outside, and that the people inside those cities should get laws that they agree with, well, even if the people outside the cities disagree with them
There is often a wide gap between a popular opinion, perhaps softly or unspoken, and what is widely accepted and popular expression. Often popular opinions have few protections, and it leads to double-speak and coded or indirect language. Assuming that what is freely expressed is a reflection of popular opinion can lead to important misunderstandings.
It is entirely normal and correct that a free society harbors many diverse and even rancorously disagreeing and opposed political agendas.
Of course we disagree with our political opponents and feel that the policies they advocate are not optimal. It might be convenient to your politics if your opposition’s voice is dampened, but your opposition feels the same of your voice and does so for reasons no less sincere than your own.
That’s the fundamental bargain. You are neither obligated to hand anyone a megaphone, nor obligated to confiscate theirs.
Your comment has made me realize that I could have written my original comment more clearly; my dissatisfaction in re the MIT Free Speech Alliance (if my impression was accurate) isn't about political agendas, but about deception – promoting free speech for the moment as a tactic rather than out of a dedication to the ideal, while claiming the latter.
Indeed, when people say "let's keep politics out of it", they're in effect trying to quell any challenge to the status quo, which arguably is inherently political, and this should probably be called out more often.
For sure. E.g., MLK was seen as outrageously political for challenging a status quo that in retrospect we can see as obviously political ("let's use state violence and unequal treatment to oppress black people").
"You deplore the demonstrations taking place in Birmingham. But your statement, I am sorry to say, fails to express a similar concern for the conditions that brought about the demonstrations." From "Letter from a Birmingham Jail", which everyone should read: https://www.africa.upenn.edu/Articles_Gen/Letter_Birmingham....
> Indeed, when people say "let's keep politics out of it", they're in effect trying to quell any challenge to the status quo, which arguably is inherently political, and this should probably be called out more often.
This is a pretty uncharitable take, and one that I see too often.
I could just as easily say that people pressure others into turning every space political because they feel entitled to dominate every space with their politics, and they cannot tolerate any kind of truce or neutral ground. It's just another tactic to control the conversation.
And I think you're right! It seems very likely to me that that happens.
Playing devil's advocate for myself, however: the comment was not uncharitable because it did not attribute intent. Someone saying "let's keep politics out of it" may be trying to avoid conflict or simply be respectful, but unknowingly in effect quashing challenges to the status quo.
The comment was meant to be an observation of unwitting outcomes rather than secret intentions, but maybe that's in fact what you're objecting to ("it's easy to be pessimistic about the aggregate effects of small, inoccuous actions, and that attitude deserves some pushback").
Your last paragraph reminds me of a line of thought I once had:
Libertarianism works better without libertarians. It works better with collectivists than individualists. It works better with people who care about other people's freedoms than with those who care about their own freedoms.
Freedom of speech as a negative liberty means that the government does not criminalize speech. Some people would like to extend that to other powerful entities banning / limiting speech, but then the government would be suppressing those entities' other liberties.
The freedom of speech people care about is a positive liberty. It's about being entitled to have a platform for your speech. Maybe even a platform with an audience, or a platform you feel safe to use. In order for your opponents to have freedom of speech – a platform – your liberties must be suppressed. Either by an authority by force, or by yourself voluntarily.
Ultimately, freedom of speech is about you being obligated not to confiscate the megaphone.
Exactly. I’d rewrite that last paragraph as: You are neither obligated to hand anyone a megaphone, nor [delete: obligated] permitted to confiscate theirs.
It's a curious analogy because in many contexts, use of a megaphone is quite abusive warranting confiscation.
If I attend a political rally and the speaker uses a megaphone, that's fine, I have consented to it's use.
However other places I have witnessed their use has questionable legality due to breach of the peace because the audience has not consented e.g. getting heckled when entering a University site or getting assailed by someone promoting their batshit Christian cult when trying to do some shopping. I don't think anyone would assume a universal right to make unwanted amplified noise.
The megaphone analogy is limited in applicability. It only applies where the recipient never opted to hear the message, but it is forced upon them.
Free speech issues are about interfering with speech where there is a willing audience. Even in cases where someone is offended by a message, often it's not that they don't want to hear the message; it's that they don't want others to hear the message.
> "I've also seen instances of individuals defending free speech because they hold unpopular (or sometimes even hurtful) opinions and want to be taken seriously, or want a megaphone – both of which they are free to demand but which no one is obligated to give them."
Convenient that we're only doing that because "we have unpopular opinions". But did it ever occur to you that they're unpopular because we're not allowed to speak our minds fully and rationally convince others of our ideas' merits?
> But did it ever occur to you that they're unpopular because we're not allowed to speak our minds fully and rationally convince others of our ideas' merits?
Bold claims have a heavy burden of proof. One could quickly retort with the opposite, i.e. perhaps they are unpopular because they have been refuted many times but the proponents believe the 97th time will be the charm. Who's right?
It's possible, but if, say, pro-pinapple speech and reesearch is effectively and heavily suppressed, then even if the lone nutters who are pro-pinapple (and you'd have to be a bit of a nutter to be pro-pinapple in an anti-pinapple world, both due to lack of exposure to anti-pinapple resources and for social reasons) speak up they are probably not going to make a good case, not having had the opportunity to explore the idea with a large number of different people helping them figure out the arguments and doing the experiments.
That retort does not work when the suggested policies work every single time as promised when they have been implemented and their primary reason for failure is that they have been made illegal and brought to court.
Also, the refutals that supposedly make them unpopular seemingly have no impact in reality. That kind of suggests that either the models used for refutal are grossly incomplete or big errors have been made due to political reasoning.
If you believe you have the best ideas with the best evidence backing them and find you can’t reach and convince people with the plethora of modern communications tools, I’d spend at least as much time examining possible faults in your beliefs as I would the possible faults in communications.
> But did it ever occur to you that they're unpopular because we're not allowed to speak our minds fully and rationally convince others of our ideas' merits?
Notwithstanding my ignorance of the particular unpopular opinion you hold, did it ever occur to you that no matter how fully you express your mind, and no matter how rationally you believe your points, the popular resistance to your unpopular ideas may simply be proof that they do not have merit?
If history shows us anything it’s that intelligent people can become convinced by unintelligent ideas.
History has also shown us, that it doesn't matter how many people say you're wrong, you could be right. In fact, this is usually how major progress was made in science.
The whole "popular opinion" game is very one-sided from the start, especially in a setting where only a few people have immediate access to reach others like today. I've seen popular, but ultimately wrong, news travel around and solidify often enough to conclude, at least for myself, that "resistance to your unpopular ideas" is not sufficient to make any statement about its quality.
Given all information that has ever been observable, absolutely not… and while that doesn’t mean they should be silenced, it absolutely means they shouldn’t be allowed to present their idiot ideas as facts, absent opposition and loud disclaim.
People are free to hold stupid ideas, and they’re free to state those ideas in public, and the rest of us are free to jeer them for doing so… freedom of speech does not imply freedom from being laughed at and abused for holding on to such manifestly stupid ideas.
That’s just it: I believe they must be allowed to present their (manifestly stupid) ideas as facts. The rest of us must also be allowed to present evidence and data to prove their ideas are wrong, but they have to, in moments and mediums they choose, be able to say “yup, the earth is definitely flat.”
Not to their children, or to anyone else’s, in any context in which there isn’t an overwhelming voice of opposition always present. Allowing someone infected with stupidity to willfully infect those who cannot consent in an informed manner is unethical in the extreme.
Are you proposing that we interfere with parents teaching their children their beliefs? That is more unethical and fraught with peril than the alternative, IMO.
If someone believes in a powerful sky wizard who oversees all of humanity, they can teach their children of this magical being. They can even take them once a week to a place of education about this belief. IMO, it’s none of my or your business or right to be constantly present to present alternative points of view.
In every part of the world that has developed public education standards the public good already interferes with parents teaching kids their beliefs about physics, math, basic world history, economics, etc, and for a very good and entirely ethical reason… a basically functioning and employable human being must be capable of basic arithmetic and the usage of technology that rises above simple machines in order to survive within a modern society. That’s why home-schooled children raised to hold their parents non-falsifiable beliefs — ie belief in particular sky wizard(s) — still have to be able to pass qualification tests that demonstrate that they have sufficient exposure to the facts that belie their falsifiable ones — ie belief that they live on a constantly accelerating disk, possibly atop elephants and a turtle — to at least handle the minimum cognitive dissonance required to both actually live on an oblate spheroid around which satellites travel and promote their parents’ fictional ideas using technology that depends in its entirety on the entirely self-evident and easily observable fact that the world isn’t flat.
Personally I’d go further… teaching children that the world is flat should be considered criminal child abuse, as you’re intentionally impairing a child’s ability to function in any society, including your own echo chamber.
I don’t mind (and in fact come close to insisting that we) have adequate public education to help mold our future society members.
What I do object to is insisting that there is never a time when parents can teach their children arbitrary topic X without always having someone from the societal ministry of truth to be there to fact-check/align it.
Depends in its entirety on the specifics of arbitrary topic X… for instance, if X involves putting ethic group Y in to gas chambers, then send in the ministry, post haste.
This does go both ways, doesn't it?
Especially since a ministry was the main proponent of putting people into gas chambers once. They even killed anyone that would advocate for peace or provide help in this case.
There seems to be a significant power imbalance between the ministry and a parent.
That particular ministry was, of course, composed of those who’d been infected by rightly unpopular ideas that were allowed to grow and fester until the Overton Window had shifted to the far right, encouraged by parents and not sufficiently discouraged by the state.
A state of affairs that’s now pretty much been replicated, about a century after we first tried to learn the lesson that Fascism is a bad idea.
Should we lock parents up for "abusing" children because they lie about the existence of Santa Claus too? Or do you think it's possible that those children might grow up one day and become capable of forming their own conclusion in whether Santa exists or not?
If you're answer to that question is, "no, because those children were abused by others lying about Santa, they will never be capable of overcoming that lie and will continue to propagate that lie" then it begs the question: what right does anyone have to tell anyone anything since all of us have experienced some sort of indoctrination at some point? Are we not all "broken" in that sense?
Sheesh it entirely works both ways. 70 years ago most didn’t want to hear about equal rights for homosexuals. But after 70 years of discussion, celebrity, pop culture, expiration of the issue, society has basically done a 180.
The Majority is very often simply wrong.
In fact is, look at all progressive movements (those that you’d have to be pretty insane to dispute today). They all began with the majority opposing them. Women’s suffrage, civil rights, homosexual rights, etc.
Each of the movements responsible for those achievements went directly against the grain. You were crazy to side with any of those at certain dates in the past.
The most fascinating part is to think which movements haven’t occurred yet. Which topics are we all collectively wrong about. Whatever they are it’s the first amendment that will enable them to be rectified.
I have many ideas what these will turn out to be, but that’s another topic.
Those are, indeed, historically unusual beliefs… though the rise in their popularity being directly coincident with the spread of more-than-minimal literacy and the slow degradation of traditional and institutional obstacles to higher education does imply that inequality and religiosity are even worse proxies for “truth”.
>the popular resistance to your unpopular ideas may simply be proof that they do not have merit?
No matter how many people believe the earth is flat or the sun circles around the earth, it won't make it true. We have day and night cycles because earth is a sphere that is rotating so that only one side of earth is exposed at the same time.
No matter how unpopular this opinion is and no matter how big the mob's desire to lynch me is, it is still closer to the truth than the potentially popular opinion of earth being flat and the sun circling around the planet.
In all the thousands of years of recorded human history there has never been a time where you could find enough people who actually believe the Earth is flat to fill a room sufficiently large to constitute “popular” opinion.
That is, not until after the advent of the Internet and YouTube… both of which, ironically, depend on the Earth being non-flat to function.
The observation has nothing to do with the correctness or goodness of the opinion. The intention of the comment was to point out that this is different from defending free speech; it's simply wanting people to listen to you. (And I don't think that's inherently a wrong desire!)
I have seen very very good arguments that climate change is happening, but human's impact on it is most likely miniscule.
If this is the indeed the truth, then the trillions we currently invest in "reversing man made climate change" would be better invested in "preparing for the inevitable".
Even if powerful people rally for free speech in order to achieve an (maybe evil) political goal, THATS OBVIOUSLY BETTER THAN using censorship to achieve a (probably evil) political goal.
I find it unbelievable that this is such a hard concept to grasp.
If powerful people use free speech to spread nonsense, then just present your counter arguments, god damnit.
I know that it "takes more time to refute bullshit than to produce bullshit", sadly, that's just how it is. The bitcoin community has spent more than 12 years now to refute bullshit and people still fall for all the debunked FUD. This just means that we need a better tool to refute bullshit faster and more efficiently.
Wikipedia was a good first try, but of course since it succumbed to the woke mind virus, it is no longer viable.
There is a civilisation altering opportunity here to produce a new tool like it. I don't know how such a tool would look like.
> I have seen very very good arguments that climate change is happening, but human's impact on it is most likely miniscule.
How do you know it's not disinformation? My understanding, from many years of reading, is that those questions were settled long ago and there is not even somehwat evidence or arguments.
> The bitcoin community has spent more than 12 years now to refute bullshit and people still fall for all the debunked FUD.
Cryptocurrencies are an example of credible, true information?
> woke mind virus
Pejoritives are a signal that there are no facts or reason to support the claim.
The next twist of free speech is trying to distinguish between "real" speech and shills (and worse, bots). If you allow free speech on your platform, do you allow freedom of dishonest speech? Do you allow freedom of automated speech? If you do, you won't have a platform that humans care about.
> both of which they are free to demand but which no one is obligated to give them.
I think the university is trying to find a middle ground here: The university - as institution and administrative body - is acting as the entity that "gives free speech to them" here: They are permitting those arguments be made in public events, on flyers, posters, etc. Of course they can't force students to listen to that speech. So I'd imagine that calls to boycott certain classes still remain valid. However, what they do is forbidding people from blocking others from listening, e.g. by demanding that certain people don't speak at all, blocking entrances to lecture halls, etc. That seems like a reasonable approach to me.
More generally: I've seen the "free speech does not apply to private entities/free speech is no right to be listened to/free speech is not freedom from consequences" arguments online a lot - they seem to be the standard counter arguments of some groups - and I've always found them deeply problematic.
First of all, I think there are a lot of authoritarian states who would be more than happy to adopt the "public only" definition of free speech without any substantial loss of control: "Yes of course, dear dissident, you're perfectly in your legal rights to accuse me of human rights violations on your website. But I'm afraid, I won't be able to help you if the country's ISP makes a private decision to block your site, if your employer spontaneously exercises its right to fire you the next day and if a crowd of concerned private citizens with privately-owned baseball bats will gather in front of your house tonight. Consequences!"
Secondly, the arguments rely on a situation where most services that faciliate discussion in a society - i.e. the media sector - are provided by private companies and are not subject to democratic decision making. So basically they rely on a weak state. That's originally a right-libertarian vision of society and I don't think anyone who calls themselves "left" should be comfortable adopting that vision.
> That's originally a right-libertarian vision of society and I don't think anyone who calls themselves "left" should be comfortable adopting that vision.
Indeed, but right leaning libertarianism with a weak state is where conservatives have been leading the country for decades. Now it’s the right leaning libertarians like the Freedom Caucus who are are the loudest that private platforms should be forced to carry certain speech, which is what they’ve been fighting against this whole time (at least if you take them at their word).
I don’t think many leftists are arguing that the status quo is okay. At least what I’ve argued is that today it’s wrong to force Twitter or any private entity to carry speech they don’t want to. By doing so I’m not adopting a right-leaning libertarian worldview, because that doesn’t preclude public options that would carry all speech.
Universities are agency normalizing agents of government.
We’re not talking launching some professor from a cannon but doing as humans have done for years and updating colloquial language models. This is freaking out the establishment as it does and has, and of course the establishment labels it as anti-freedom to teach them anything, because of course it’s the establishment; it teaches us not the other way around!
MIT is like a rack of Twitter servers; we could unplug it and society will keep going because it’s not immutably reliant on society. Many thousands of workers are though and only “essential workers” have an obligation to output real results.
Also in the Soviet Union most people publishing and spreading unsanctioned works, did so because they did not propagate the blessed and (therefore) popular views of the party. How strange.
If you don't have any unpopular opinions you're not a very interesting person. And if you can't even argue as a devil's advocate for the other side, you're not a very skilled thinker. And institutions that don't foster and protect divergent thinkers do not produce interesting science or engineering.
> For most people, another person doesn’t need to be contrarian to be interesting.
I’d go one further and say that contrarians are intrinsically uninteresting. They are very predictable and tedious in their inability to accept ideas just because they are accepted by others. Being systematically opposed to ideas because they are perceived as mainstream is just as much of a fallacious reasoning than the other way around.
The problem is that being justifiably critical of laws and policies that eradicate female-only spaces is now being framed as a bigoted and intolerant anti-trans viewpoint, and this reframing is being used to suppress such critical speech.
Institutions are intentional normalizers. That’s the definition of the word “institution”; an entity that exists to service an idea. To build consensus around its attributes and parameters.
Corporations normalize utilitarian agency. Government social policing. University thinking.
Institutions never produced interesting science or engineering; people did. Institutions took all the credit.
There are perfectly acceptable, even scientific arguments against CO2-induced climate change theory. Not only that, but even if we accept the premise that CO2 is inducing climate change, we can debate about to what degree, and whether or not it is "an existential crisis" as some have argued. Further still, if we accept that it's a crisis, we can also debate on the trade-offs civilization should make in order to contend with it. All of those positions should be perfectly acceptable to take up. We do not know with anywhere close to 100% confidence what the climate will do over the next few decades. It is a non-linear, dynamic, chaotic system that by definition becomes exponentially unpredictable as a function of time: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaos_theory
They didn't deny anything. They stated that the issue isn't so black and white as you'd like it to be. You responded in kind by simply labeling them a "denier" even though nowhere in their response did they deny anything.
The original statement was proposed in a September report by the Ad Hoc working group on free expression. The report is much more interesting since goes into quite a bit of detail on MIT's current de facto policies and proposes real steps for moving forward. The cancelled 2021 lecture by Dorian Abbot is discussed. Their recommendation #6 explicitly says that "Rescinding an invitation to deliver protected speech, as defined and explained in this report, conflicts with freedom of expression." . Their full report, including the original proposed statement and their recommendations, is here: https://facultygovernance.mit.edu/sites/default/files/report...
Let's see how this pans out but, if I were a student and deciding between MIT or Standford I'd likely choose MIT if Standford didn't have the equivalent of this. However, I don't have much faith in this actually happening or being implemented without carveouts or exceptions.
I honestly don't think statements like these mean that much, nor do I think speech policing quite takes the form people expect. Columbia's president Lee Bollinger is well known as being a free speech advocate and scholar, but Columbia usually strikes people as having a more social-justice sort of climate (if I'm not mistaken Latinx as a term originates from Columbia).
Usually, I believe that undergrads are typically the source of protest and these sort of policies. These policies really just indicate whether the university will formalize student demands, but de jure doesn't really do much when you'll still have tenured faculty doing their own thing and students protesting regardless.
Additionally, I don't know if many students will share your convictions. Chicago has long had a free-speech policy, but even though they're probably the most academically serious/legitimate institution alongside Princeton and Caltech, I think their usnews ranking has done more for their applications than free speech.
Still a good thing, but I'd think it'd be more meaningful if MIT brought back stallman
Anecdotal only - when I was in university (20 years ago) a lot of the student protest stuff was coming from the student equivalent of professional politicians. They were undergrad mostly (a few grad students) but usually had been in university for like 8 years and were ideologically motivated to stick around pursuing political aims, rather than just be there to advocate for their fellow students.
I was marginally involved in student government, and there was a big difference between the (majority) that were there to make sure their faculty/department got representation, and those that were trying to co-opt student government for some broader political aim. Unfortunately, there is rarely enough of an opposing force on these people, and inevitably they have an outsized influence.
So I wouldn't really think of it as undergrads as a whole, more like some 30 years old taking 1/4 course load and pushing their politics.
I’ve encountered a few… obsessive people like what OP describes. College costs too much to maximize your time in it, but between taking a bare minimum number of courses and staying below the retake limit there were some really strange people who managed to stick around longer than 4 years. One guy was a personal thorn in my side for my entire tenure as president of a hobby student org because he had some beef with a previous administration years prior of whom all were long graduated. Found out later he was like 9 years into his degree yet spent most of his time trying to be influential among hobby student orgs.
>Usually, I believe that undergrads are typically the source of protest and these sort of policies.
Statements like this one probably serve to discourage some of the more censorious undergrad applicants though. Basically telling undergrads what they can expect and what they're signing up for.
I would encourage you to read why Stallman resigned from MIT [1]. The emails that were “leaked” were not private discussions. They were sent to email lists that included everyone in CSAIL and to be frank, were awful.
He apologized for all this, though. His initial comments read, to me, as basically someone who is pretty clueless about those topics. But this is the exact kind of speech that should be protected- he wasn't trying to offend or antagonize people, but voicing his philosophy/opinions. He then heard other people's perspectives and they seem to have led him to him reassessing his own, which is how this sort of thing should work, instead of publicly shaming or what have you.
As long as we're talking career impact, I'm pretty sure Stallman's net effect on peoples' careers has been massively positive. In all likelihood, GNU, Emacs, and the FSF have materially increased world GDP.
Personally, I wouldn't require or expect an apology either, but as the OP said, the discussion was sent out to CSAIL mailing lists which hardly seems like the proper venue. I don't think social graces are Stallman's strong suit, but most people would know blunt discussion of pedophilia/sexual assault in that manner would probably offend a number of people in this public setting - nobody signs up for those lists expecting this sort of discussion - so I think an apology was in order [but shouldn't have been a requirement to keep his position].
He was hypothesizing their motives, and definitely down-playing the severity of the abuses, which understandably could offend people who have been in similar situations. I think part of his message was "don't jump to conclusions" which is good, but he went a lot further than that. In a leadership role, he should strive to be as unoffensive as possible imho - he doesn't want to alienate people.
That makes sense. Then perhaps a "retraction" would be better with a statement it wasn't the correct forum for such a discussion.
On your second point however I must disagree.
I'm afraid being inoffensive is a losing battle. If people see you try to avoid offense they simply start nitpicking harder. Desire to not offend should never stifle academic speech.
No, I agree with you in general, and from an ideological point of view, but from a practical standpoint, you have to choose your battles - I think it's usually worth the effort, even when it seems tedious, to go out of your way to not offend people you're working with in order to reach your goals.
Plus, once you've offended someone, you have very little chance of influencing them. Once you've established mutual respect, people won't take things you say in bad faith, so discussing controversial topics can actually be a discussion instead of a heated argument.
People shouldn't, in general, have to resign for their mis-steps, even if somebody gets offended. Who benefits from a society where a mistake or unpopular view ends your career?
That depends heavily on the severity of the mistake or the nature of the unpopular view.
I personally like Google's approach to this internally: mistakes are to be expected and are often a sign of bad process, not faulty people. But egregious repetition of mistakes of the same kind indicates a failure to learn and grow that can slate someone for dismissal, and treating one's coworkers as less than human is also a short path to the door.
(There are some outliers also. Crafting yourself into a walking Title VII violation ties the company's hands regardless of whether they'd be willing to let an employee grow and change, because the law isn't structured that way).
But what if their unpopular views are rooted in evidence, yet goes against what's morally fashionable (at present)? Who would adjudicate this and why should we trust their judgement, especially when bad optics could become a concern?
For instance, biological sex is binary/bimodal for all intents and purposes. It is discrete, and very much not a spectrum. However, there are activists who are trying to override empirical findings to justify their ideas about gender (I have no horse in this race). Furthermore, their voices have found a home in organisations like big tech. In such a case, and given the zeal of these activists, wouldn't someone who remark that sex is binary (in a casual conversation about biology) be punished? Or to put it more precisely, how can we trust those in authority to fairly judge that the innocent remark made isn't a "mistake"?
In a climate where "speech is violence" and "intent doesn't matter", people are free to project their views onto others and accuse them of tall crimes. Without free speech, the case I've mentioned above seems likely to end up in unjust persecution. Unfortunately, my hypothetical scenario isn't theoretical, but has happened in academia already. The system you proposed doesn't seem immune to this.
> For instance, biological sex is binary/bimodal for all intents and purposes. It is discrete, and very much not a spectrum.
This is such an interesting example for why free speech protections are important, but good faith discussion culture is even more important.
The first sentence is correct, the second isn't, when taken literally. The overall thrust of the statement still has merit, but it pays to be careful about one's phrasing.
To be clear, biology is messy and there are exceptions, which is why biological sex is not literally discrete in the sense that, say, binary logic is discrete. But it's also fairly reasonable to say that this is one of those cases where the exceptions confirm the time: There is a spectrum, it's just incredibly focused around two points.
The two extreme groups around this discussion both completely distort this nuanced observation. On the one side, you've got people that pretend that because the bimodality isn't perfect, it doesn't matter at all (and saying that it matters is hate!). On the other side, you've got people who pretend that there is no nuance to the bimodality (and many of them do actually hate people who don't fit perfectly into the binary).
It's pretty frustrating (to put it mildly), and free speech or lack of it has nothing to do with why it's frustrating.
> The two extreme groups around this discussion both completely distort this nuanced observation.
AFAIU one group think gender should be a social construct, rather than a biological one. I don't this whole debate has even been about the 0.1%(?) who are not XX or XY.
> AFAIU one group think gender should be a social construct, rather than a biological one.
No, one group, pretty much without exception, recognizes that gender always has been a social construct, and that it has historically been socially constructed differently in different culture. The other side may or may not recognize that; that’s not actually the point of disagreement. The point of disagreement is that the first side things that the proper social construction of ascribed gender is to align it with the subject’s gender identity. The other side, whether they frame it in terms of “gender isn’t real, only biological sex is”, “gender should reflect biological sex”, or in any of a variety of other terms, believes that the correct social construction of ascribed gender is that it should be based on some aspect or combination of aspects of biological sex (often based on a stereotype that elides the fact that choosing different aspects of biological sex for this purpose would result in different assignments.)
[Members of the first group may, in fact, view gender identity as a biological sex trait, in which case their disagreement with the second group can be viewed as a disagreement over which aspect of biological sex should be the basis.]
> I don’t this whole debate has even been about the 0.1%(?) who are not XX or XY.
Not being XX or XY isn’t the only biological divergence from simplistic stereotypes of biological sex that occurs.
I can tell which group you identify with by the bias in your comment. ;)
I have been on the fence about this whole subject, and I have read quite extensively. At least, get the facts straight.
Large groups of people classify people by their gender at birth, and 1) would disagree that this distinction is social in nature (eg. all religions identify the gender thus, and the source [at least from the POV of the adherents] is not social. 2) Would also disagree that it has historically been socially constructed differently in different culture. You won't find any example where such a norm became dominant, and you won't find any society which lasted more than 50 years after such ideas became even speakable in public.
More than that, many will disagree whether "identifying" with something (such as being a girl) is any more "real" than liking ice cream; They definitely do not consider it to be a legitimate source of defining an identity. (As legit as saying a girl is someone who identifies with Pecan ice cream - its not "which aspect of biological sex should be the basis", but "does this aspect even exist?")
> Large groups of people classify people by their gender at birth, …
Strictly speaking, they did - but then for a time in the West (70s to about ten years ago) they just observed sex at birth and indoctrinated against the social imposition of normative gender expectations … but then all of a sudden people were born ‘gendered’ again, albeit with the novel twist that innate gender was no longer necessarily tied to their biological sex.
It’s a bit of a puzzle, as it appears that forty years of individual liberalisation (“See the person, not the stereotype”) something which transformed the lives of half the population is being reversed in order to please a small group of trans gender / gender non-conforming people for whom identifying as a one or other specific stereotype is apparently at the core of their identity.
> Strictly speaking, they did - but then for a time in the West (70s to about ten years ago) they just observed sex at birth and indoctrinated against the social imposition of normative gender expectations …
Nope, that didn’t happen. Socially ascribed gender, with important social consequences (most importantly, ones coercively imposed by, or with support of, the power of government), did not go away.
If it had, though, the grounds for the dispute would be somewhat different, but the overall character would be the same, since the side opposing ascribing gender in accord with identity is also fairly universally in favor of coercive discrimination and/or segregation on the basis of (their preferred form of) ascribed gender, which is a fairly central point of their argument.
You're right, socially ascribed gender didn't go away across society, but there was a string conscious effort by many - still is, by the way - to make it go away or at least make it significantly less impactful.
Importantly, the normative consensus among progressives was as GP describes. The trans activism movement is a move backwards in that regard, since it tries to shift the normative consensus back towards gender being important and that gender should be impactful. It's no wonder they clash with some feminists.
> Large groups of people classify people by their gender at birth, and 1) would disagree that this distinction is social in nature
The disagreement is not over the factual physical observation. “Was born with (or without) a penis” is not a social distinction, but is also not the source of the disagreement.
The social weight given to it, OTOH, is. “Gets addressed in a particular way, is allowed in certain shared spaces and banned from others, etc.,” are, factually and indisputably, social distinctions, and are the focus of the disagreement.
> 2) Would also disagree that it has historically been socially constructed differently in different culture
This is just factually wrong; systems with more than two gender roles, and/or where one or more of the most closely corresponding to the supposedly universal binary defended by the side that claims one exists can be ascribed on bases other than the physical traits that faction demands should control ascription of gender have, in fact, existed (before now.)
> You won't find any example where such a norm became dominant, and you won't find any society which lasted more than 50 years after such ideas became even speakable in public.
This is, simply false; there are, for instance, very many examples in the indigenous cultures of the Americas.
> The other side, […] believes that the correct social construction of ascribed gender is that it should be based on some aspect or combination of aspects of biological sex (often based on a stereotype that elides the fact that choosing different aspects of biological sex for this purpose would result in different assignments.)
Gender distinguishes men from women, male-like thoughts, acts, emotions, capabilities and appearances from female ones. Other than for the direct purposes of reproduction, why would we want or need to classify individuals into the social groups of men and women?
You see, there’s a third group that flatly denies the desirably of socially constructing something called ‘gender’ at all.
> Other than for the direct purposes of reproduction, why would we want or need to classify individuals into the social groups of men and women?
Because men and women behave and think differently on average and treating them the same is going to cause a lot of problems in life. I mean sure, there's overlap and some men will behave in a feminine way only on one particular axis and vice versa, but ignoring the information gender gives is a very bad idea.
Couldn’t disagree more - I think those differences are primarily the result of socialisation, and dare I say it, socialisation historically designed to make females subordinate to male interests ie to be sexually desirable, good mothers, good housewives and good carers.
If you consider a definition of feminine (prettiness, gracefulness, gentleness, empathy, humility, and sensitivity) it’s not someone who acts to make their mark on the world as a man might - it’s someone who at best achieves that by supporting a masculine partner. What a terrible vision of the world that is, and what an incredible waste of individual human talent.
Why is being famous in history important? Why isn't raising strong, morale children important? Ensuring good relationships in the community? Defusing tensions? These are traditionally feminine things.
I think you're both kind of wrong. So much time is spent on worrying about the 'thinking' part of 'are women and men different?' (Or AFAB and AMAB if we want to use the language usually used in spaces dedicated to gender discussions). To me, the purpose of differentiating women and men is just down to efficiency, improving design of society and the items in it, and giving outliers (such as myself) language for why we feel so weird and don't fit in.
For example, men being so much physically stronger and larger than women does impact a fair amount of basic things in life. Car design is a pain in the ass (it's super fun that if I adjust the steering wheel in my car I can't see the speedometer), office chairs and tools are only made for men's bodies (my hands are small and I'm short), etc. Erasing sex just means things get designed for the average and large swaths of the other sex are ignored. (I'm not male, but I'd imagine large men have similar issues with things like sewing machines, bottles, diaper changing stations, etc. being designed for females only).
I also have a hard time fitting in in female-dominated spaces because so much of it is based around mollification/preventing conflict. Which makes sense because if you're female, starting shit with the other half of the population doesn't end well for you. Het and bi women generally live lives where they spend their time being aware that they will not win physical confrontations. (Aside: I'd guess this is why DV is more of an issue in lesbian relationships: The risk of being an abusive prick isn't being offset by the fact that your victim could pin you to the floor and punch you until you pass out). Being aware of this means I can place my own assertiveness/aggression in context and be like 'ah I feel out of place here because I am a statistical anomaly for my sex, not because anybody is wrong'.
> If you consider a definition of feminine (prettiness, gracefulness, gentleness, empathy, humility, and sensitivity) it’s not someone who acts to make their mark on the world as a man might - it’s someone who at best achieves that by supporting a masculine partner. What a terrible vision of the world that is, and what an incredible waste of individual human talent.
This I find really interesting, as I spent a lot of my life fighting any parts of myself that were traditionally feminine. I'm a more masculine than usual cis woman; bordering on butch but not quite there. And in my 30s I'm unlearning a lot of messiness around that and starting to accept the part of myself that likes teaching and nurturing + has a very strong passion for making sure the next generation is armed for the world we're sending them into. After all, surely wanting to pursue an academic career creating digital skills and history curricula for K-12 (mostly K-8) education is a 'waste of my individual human talent' when I could be writing new algorithms, isn't it?
I submit that the only people who get to determine whether something is an incredible waste of human talent are the people possessing the talent.
> I submit that the only people who get to determine whether something is an incredible waste of human talent are the people possessing the talent.
I think that's an excellent way to consider the topic as long as we remember the protections like title VII and title IX were put into place to bar obstacles to employment and education such as "We don't think it would be worth our time and effort to train you because people like you don't succeed here."
If gender is separate from biological sex then what meaning does it have for someone to say they identify as a man or a woman? What is a man? What is a woman? Are they a grouping of mannerisms? If we engineered ourselves to have no sex and then we all selected our genders, how would we quantify what those genders represent without any biological context?
“Gender” in the broad sense is one of several possible social constructions of divisions of people into groups and associated distinct expectations and roles; it is a feature of the social context. While there is considerable variation in between social milieus, it is always grounded, to a greater or lesser degree, in current or historical stereotypes associated with some subset of anatomical sex traits; in fact, that’s part of what we use to identify which of the many socially constructed divides in a society is gender.
“Ascribed gender” is how other people treat a person with regard to gender.
“Gender identity” is how a person sees themselves and prefers to be treated with regard to gender.
None of these things are disconnected, in either practice or the theory of the major factions, from biological sex (the last is arguably itself either a biological sex trait, a set of biological sex traits, or an interaction of biological sex traits with the social context; for it to be anything else either requires dualism, or an arbitrarily restrictive definition of “sex”), except that maybe the side opposing recognizing gender identity as the basis for ascribed gender thinks gender identity is divorced from biological sex.
It depends on who is doing the identifying. When a woman identifies as a woman, or a man identifies as a man, they are making a statement about their sex, on whether they are female or male.
When a man identifies as a woman, he is expressing his desire to be a woman, based on his ideal of what a woman is. Similarly, when a woman identifies as a man, she is expressing her desire to be a man, based on her ideal of what a man is. Neither have any direct experience of actually being the opposite sex, of course, so this ideal is based around gendered stereotypes and superficial cosmetic traits, particularly those related to sexual attraction.
It's not just about XX or XY. It is about many other biological features that are correlated with XX and XY, but not 100% correlated.
Besides the big one (penis vs vagina) there are things like the rest of the reproductive system, breast size and functionality, brain structures, muscle function, bone structure, facial features, and others.
These develop at different times during fetal development, and don't have to all come out "male" or "female".
In programming terms it is like XX/XY is a master setting for a complex distributed system, and then there are a bunch of flags that control implementation of that master setting in various subsystems of the distributed system which are "supposed" to all be set if the master setting is XX and all clear if it is XY, but sometimes you end up with some set and some clear.
> AFAIU one group think gender should be a social construct, rather than a biological one.
No, gender critical people very much don’t want gender to be a biological construct - they find the idea of innate biological masculinity or femininity appallingly regressive. They prefer to think of men and women as primarily unique individuals, ones who are incidentally sexed purely for reproductive purposes ie not for social ones.
If gender is a social construct (an idea which I'm sympathetic to), shouldn't it just go away entirely? I'm happy to move towards a society where we abandon stereotypes of masculine and feminine behaviour, I just don't understand how that's compatible with saying 'I wish to identify as a different gender because my behaviours match the stereotype of that gender.'. Doesn't that just reinforce those stereotypes?
I agree. I wish to go away from traditionalist views “Alice should stop playing with trucks and play with dolls because she is a girl” to “Alice can with trucks if she wants”. But I was shocked to find that instead, some people now believe “Alice is really a boy if she likes playing with trucks”
Then why the fuss about transgender people? It's all about treating them as a different gender, no-one seems to care about adults getting bottom surgery on their own dime.
Mostly because some places - prisons, for example - need to be segregated by sex, and the transactivists want to abolish that.
And because they're also pushing a large-scale redefinition of the terms "woman" and "man", and trying to make it law, which most people don't agree with.
> AFAIU one group think gender should be a social construct, rather than a biological one
Gender is a social construct by definition.
This all starts with the purely descriptive observation that when you analyze the informal man/woman distinction that exists de facto in society, there is a component that is inherently biological (visible traits, hormonal differences, etc.) and a component that is arbitrary social convention (clothing, color schemes, etc.). Having different terms for those components helps, and so the first one is called sex and the second is called gender.
This is all purely descriptive and I don't think anybody reasonable has major disagreements about it on either side of this topic.
The question is whether and what kind of normative conclusions one can or should draw from the observation.
For example, very conservative folks would make the normative statement that gender expressions must align with sex (women can't wear pants, men can't wear dresses, that sort of thing). There are two major strikes against this position as far as I'm concerned: first, it's clearly very illiberal; second, even ignoring the illiberalism, it doesn't leave room for the few people who, through no fault of their own, don't fall neatly into the sex binary. Those folks are left in a Kafkaesque situation of having no real way of complying with such a rule.
Some trans activists also make questionable normative statements, such as "transwomen are women". That's a normative statement because it implies that the word "woman" should be used to refer to a person's gender instead of a person's sex. It's no wonder they clash with some feminists who point out that, while there may be significant overlap, the life experiences of transwomen are generally not the same as those of women (in the sex sense), and there are situations where the distinction matters.
>
It is discrete, and very much not a spectrum. However, there are activists who are trying to override empirical findings to justify their ideas about gender (I have no horse in this race).
"Lysenko's assertion that all science is class-oriented in nature."
Stalin Russia had Lysenko's Science. We have Critical Race Theory. Though not to the same extreme, we are seeing seeds of Ideology taking root in the west.
It sounds like you may be alluding to Damore's situation.
I had a side-row seat to that event, and that's what I meant by "Walking Title VII violation." For American law, the question of the capabilities of men and women is settled and a workplace is not the venue to question it.
Believe me, there were plenty in Google who were willing to give Damore a second chance, but (a) being offered that second chance, he refused to step back from his position and (b) the lawyers made it very clear the consequences for the company would be... Unfortunate, in the courts, if they were perceived to be supporting him.
(And, to be clear... None of that implies he was right, either. Sometimes, there are things you "can't" say because they're both wrong and hurtful, not because they're secret taboo wisdom.)
That sounds nice, but then look at James Damore. I don't think he treated anyone less than human. He had an unpopular opinion and Google cowered to activists
Due to the nature of Google's approach to self-management, his "unpopular opinion" immediately constituted creation of a Title-VII hostile work environment. Google didn't have a lot of options when he chose not to back down.
He can certainly support his opinion, but he can't do it in the context of an American workplace by law.
We don't have to guess because while a final NLRB ruling on the topic was not given (due to Damore withdrawing his labor complaint for unlawful termination), the published memorandum from Jayme Sophir regarding the case suggests strongly that judges would have ruled Damore's speech unprotected and, therefore, the termination legal.
"""
[] statements about immutable traits linked to sex—such as women’s heightened neuroticism and men’s prevalence at the top of the IQ distribution—were discriminatory and constituted sexual harassment, notwithstanding [] effort to cloak [] comments with “scientific” references and analysis, and notwithstanding “not all women” disclaimers... Once the memorandum was shared publicly, at
least two female engineering candidates withdrew from consideration and explicitly named the memo as their reason for doing so. Thus, while much of the Charging Party’s memorandum was likely protected, the statements regarding biological differences between the sexes were so harmful, discriminatory, and disruptive as to be unprotected.
"""
We are not talking about if the termination was legal or not, we are talking about title vii. Damore's opinion does not meet the criteria of a hostile work environment
I see what you mean. I think I'd say "correct, kind of." Also from the memo:
"""In furtherance of these legitimate interests, employers must be permitted
to “nip in the bud” the kinds of employee conduct that could lead to a “hostile
workplace,” rather than waiting until an actionable hostile workplace has been
created before taking action."""
In essence, the memo from Mr. Sophir does not claim Damore had already created a hostile work environment. It does not have to consider that question one way or the other, because it is legal for Google to fire Mr. Damore on the expectation that his conduct would lead to a hostile work environment. The fact Google had already lost two candidates in the pipeline who cited Damore's memo as their reason for withdrawing was evidence enough of the risk.
(This reminds me of the rule of thumb regarding forum moderation: the line for when content can be curtailed and users can be banned is well away from the actual line of legality, because the goal of such policies is to not end up in court in the first place).
Agreed, though that is what I am criticizing Google for (being overzealous). As unfortunate as it is to lose 2 candidates, I would value employees who can tolerate people with opinions they don't like
But whether Damore's were valuable or not isn't really up to Google, as an American company. Title VII carves out several opnions as, by law, not "valuable" in the sense that expressing them constitutes either harassment or creation of a hostile work environment. And doing business in America means complying with that law; debating the philosophy underpinning such a law is not the purpose of an American workplace.
> Title VII carves out several opnions as, by law, not "valuable" in the sense that expressing them constitutes either harassment or creation of a hostile work environment. And doing business in America means complying with that law...
Yeah, but the thing is that what Damore did was nowhere near the criteria of title vii hostile work environment. You're making it sound as if there was some legal obligation for Google (or any other American business) to let him go, but there was not. It was cowering to activists which lead to the termination, not any legal obligation for doing business. The argument that it had anything to do with title vii holds no water for me
Google's not obligated to figure out exactly where the line of legality is. Especially when they've already lost two candidates. They're not in the business of protecting the Damores of the world (nor should they be).
The title VII argument may hold no water for you. If you find a way into the NLRB board of judges, that may matter to companies.
> Google's not obligated to figure out exactly where the line of legality is.
Sure, but it is in their business interests to have a good approximation for where the line is, hence why they have lawyers. My point is that from everything I have read about it, it doesn't even seem like they were close to said line
Both of those links straight up lie about what Stallman said. The first even accurately quotes him and then proceeds to directly lie about what it just quoted.
Still now I fail to see how these emails could be intrepreted any other way than someone being pedantic with legal terms. Not good timing, yes. But there is no trace of malice. You'll read this as a defense of epstein or child trafficking if you want to read it as such, not if you're reading what's written. Are people incapable of keeping their heads cool and holding off their a priori judgments when reading something?
A few days ago Stanford published some guide on words you can't say like "American" and "grandfather", so it seems the universities are total opposites in their stances now.
Given it was still published by the Stanford (not "Standford") admin and the link you posted doesn't do much to disavow its contents, I'd say it's pretty clear that the spirit of the guide is still very aligned with the political spirit of the university.
If Stanford wanted to do the right thing, they could very easily distance themselves and say that this kind of language policing isn't something they support. Instead, they double down.
"Its aspiration, and the reason for its development, is to support an inclusive community"
The document says it’s about education, not policing. Insofar you can consider it to police anything, it would apply to the Stanford IT department, not Stanford students or faculty. All departments that communicate with the outside world police their language, whether explicitly or implicitly. That a department has a list of words they don’t want to use in their communications is not surprising or interesting.
It seems like you're explaining something everyone's already very aware of. Nobody's under the impression these policies were made for Stanford students to abide by. That said, it's perfectly reasonable to cast judgement on an institution for the actions of one department, it'd be strange for one to suggest the two be conceptually separated. If Stanford is happy to employ language-policing for its IT department, it's not hard imagine similar policies creeping into place elsewhere in the institution. Decisions like this don't happen in a vacuum.
> Nobody's under the impression these policies were made for Stanford students to abide by.
This is not the impression I’ve gotten in the discussions I’ve had regarding the document.
> If Stanford is happy to employ language-policing for its IT department, it's not hard imagine similar policies creeping into place elsewhere in the institution.
To be clear, Stanford has always policed the language on its websites. Like I said, any department (in any org) that communicates with the public will police its language. The only thing notable here is that some people disagreed with the particular list of words when it was made public.
They don't need to distance from anything, as noted, it was never part of any policy, it was a discussion-piece / list of suggestions within a single department
To disavow such discussions would be to disavow free speech and expression.
And even if it was a suggested form of "policing", Free speech does not become stronger by obsessing about shaming and ostracizing those who disagree with its concepts.
It's a strange premise that a department should operate in complete autonomy from its parent institution. Is that your mental model of all departments at Stanford? That they can do, say, and publish arbitrarily, and any action on the institution side is a disavowment of free speech?
the premise is that a couple of people (more accurately, the CIO council) in the IT department said "I think future changes to the site should consider these points". And academia generally does have websites per department.
- - -
Realistically, almost anyone at any university can put content onto university websites / servers. This isn't some crazy notion of website usage: the same applies to this very site too.
I, too, am suspicious of this statement. It brings to mind the context of the similar one issued by the University of Chicago a few years ago. While the administration was publicly affirming its commitment to free speech, individual departments and organizations within the university were unobstructed in contravening it. My sense is that, at the time, a number of wealthy private schools had made the national news for the nonsense in which their students were engaging. Rich parents started balking at sending their kids to them, so enrollment (and thus vast sums of tuition money) declined. The University of Chicago put out that statement to buttress its public reputation as an elite, exclusive private school without ever enforcing it.
My sense is that this MIT statement serves a similar purpose in that it panders to the sensibilities of parents paying the tuition bills. However, if their conviction is, in fact, sincere, I think there is one good way to demonstrate it --- officially sanction professors and students engaging in behavior contrary to the free expression of their peers. Has MIT ever done this? If not, I cannot think of this announcement as little more than an advertising stunt.
>While the administration was publicly affirming its commitment to free speech, individual departments and organizations within the university were unobstructed in contravening it.
This is really interesting, do you have a source for this?
> Rich parents started balking at sending their kids to them, so enrollment (and thus vast sums of tuition money) declined
This is almost certainly not correct. Top schools get far more applications than they have seats, and so can choose their enrollment. If some rich people don’t want to send their kid to school, there are other rich people to take their place. There’s really no shortage of them.
We need an equivalent to the "secession of the plebs" in universities as a way to protest against this kind of administrator tyranny. The administrators alone are useless and don't produce anything of value.
Are you sure? I think while there are a lot of vocal "woke" students, there is still a large but less vocal group of students who would support freedom of expression when given a chance to do so.
Given the amount of demand for MIT they can afford to shed the students that don't support freedom of expression (then again, MIT is not Oberlin so I doubt there are many pro-censorship student).
Yeah. If there aren't enough top American students, there would be a lot more foreign students who would cherish their freedoms more, having experienced the consequences of the lack of freedom in their home country such as China, Russia, or Iran.
Can anyone say what this section means in practice?:
>A commitment to free expression includes hearing and hosting speakers, including those whose views or opinions may not be shared by many members of the MIT community and may be harmful to some. This commitment includes the freedom to criticize and peacefully protest speakers to whom one may object, but it does not extend to suppressing or restricting such speakers from expressing their views.
I'm interested in hearing how the process for selecting speakers currently works, as well as how the signatories would like it to be changed. If a single faculty member wishes to invite a speaker, does that give that speaker the right to talk in an official capacity? What if a speaker has no support on campus? Are they entitled to be hosted by MIT? If not, are they being 'restricted from expressing their views'?
> I'm interested in hearing how the process for selecting speakers currently works, as well as how the signatories would like it to be changed.
I think any student or faculty member can invite a speaker. The policy is about when it’s acceptable for the university to step in and say that an event (or protest) can’t happen.
> If a single faculty member wishes to invite a speaker, does that give that speaker the right to talk in an official capacity?
I think that currently a speaking event can be canceled on the basis that the speaker promotes harmful ideas. The signatories want to remove this from the list of acceptable reasons for cancelling an event that someone wants to happen.
It seemed to me like the actual problem was not intolerance of free expression per se, but rather that the administration had adopted a position of submission with respect to student activism. As soon as students raised a hue and cry over some issue — any issue — the administrators just rolled over, as though they were not actually in charge of the institutions they nominally oversaw. Frankly, as though they were terrified of their own students. The loss of academic freedom follows from that, but only as a consequence of the administration losing their grip and being unable (or unwilling) to sustain it. Others in this thread are, I think, safely predicting that this declaration will turn out to be toothless — if so, I think the explanation will be that you can't drive from the back seat.
That's the problem with bureaucracy- risk aversion wins because the administrators end up only caring about their own jobs and power and lose sight of the original point of their jobs. It's happened everywhere in society. Once you're number one priority is minimizing risk, you've failed the core mission.
MIT admin specifically have repeatedly shown themselves to be cowards who don't care about students/values/etc on issues other than free speech, so it's not like they're being inconsistent here. (the aaronsw situation, drinkordie, war on student life after the scott krueger alcohol death, etc.)
This happens when titles, prestige or unfairly high compensation gets attached to any otherwise easy job. People hold on for dear life, because they know they're getting out way more than they're putting in.
Let’s not forget that administrators who allow views unpopular to some are attacked and harassed with some who will try to destroy their livelihoods and future.
> It seemed to me like the actual problem was not intolerance of free expression per se, but rather that the administration had adopted a position of submission with respect to student activism.
Contrast this "capitulation" to activism to, say, UC's lengthy reluctance to capitulate to the grad student union's wage demands. Even more instructive: compare it to UC Davis' outright refusal to allow a handful of students to camp out on a grassy area in front of the dining hall on a Friday.
Student activists barely have sufficient solidarity and numbers to successfully demand something as universally desired as a higher wages. And they didn't have sufficient leverage to even complete a successful sit-in at Davis (and similar "occupy" groups got easily shut down at other universities).
Yet in your assessment, there are enough students in lock-step against free speech to terrify the admin into working against its own professed principles. How did that organizing prowess happen-- seemingly without any struggle-- in the latter case but not in the former cases? This doesn't pass the smell test IMO.
Alternative explanation: an administration vastly prefers less chance of unpredictable controversy over a dissident speaker, less chance of run-ins between dissident students and law enforcement, less chance of lawsuits over a prof's material, etc. It's not capitulating-- rather, the admin would naturally support any student move that limits the kind of speech that could potentially cause problems for the university.
If it were my first day fresh out of college admin boot camp, that's the first thing I would do to try to rise up the ranks. It's a no-brainer.
>Yet in your assessment, there are enough students in lock-step against free speech to terrify the admin into working against its own professed principles. How did that organizing prowess happen-- seemingly without any struggle-- in the latter case but not in the former cases? This doesn't pass the smell test IMO.
I think you want to consider the admin as individual agents, and think about their career downside risk.
Remember how James Bennet had to resign after publishing the Tom Cotton editorial in the NY Times? Imagine if L. Rafael Reif had taken a stand on the Dorian Abbot lecture. Students start calling for his head, fellow admin say "you're on your own bud". He goes the way of James Bennet. Then just like Bennet, his personal brand is tarnished. He struggles to find further work in academia.
Alternative explanation. They are happy to fall over to student demands about issues related to "social justice" and the culture war because it costs them nothing and they don't care and they know there is nothing to be lost or effort on their part. In contrast things like grad student wages becomes a very painful thorny issue that actually bothers them and would inconvenience them so then they'll put the foot down.
Basically rainbow capitalism or focusing and elevating issues that are less likely to have a direct impact in order to divert us from meaningful change.
It isn't that they're terrified of their own students, but rather that the free expression things are easier to just surrender on instead of having it potentially blow up, since usually there isn't enough opposing sentiment (either because students don't want to risk their careers or because they're just busy trying to move on to paying back their loans).
I've noticed similar behavior at my own university over the years. There are always several emails from the university president and the mental health office promising assistance when anything even slightly likely to matter to some of the student body happens anywhere in the world. IIRC some time ago they sent out an email to the entire student body about something scrawled on the wall of a bathroom stall.
Yet it took a lot of protesting and boycotting to get fair action taken back when Covid was just getting started (IIRC they tried to kick everyone out of the dorms without refunds and without enough time to arrange for alternative housing, which was especially bad given the large international student body and lack of clarity on student visa handling at the time). Similarly, the graduate student union has been gradually dialing up its activism just to get the university to pay enough to keep up with local cost of living with no acknowledgement from the university.
Right. The fact that the administration, like so many others, has simply given the loudest radical students carte blanche — is definitely crucial to understand and to acknowledge. I am encouraged though to see language in this statement that they won't disallow speech even if it "may be harmful to some." I feel like this is a direct blow to the safetyism and "words are violence" that has taken over some college campuses. They seem to be preemptively taking the legs out of attempts to quash speech by claiming it's "harmful."
> The fact that the administration, like so many others, has simply given the loudest radical students carte blanche
I don’t think it is purely about how loud and radical some students are, it is also about how they align with the pre-existing ideological dispositions of the average university bureaucrat. Imagine, hypothetically, that the loudest and most radical students on campus were right-leaning rather than left-leaning: somehow, I doubt the same university administrators would be so quick to give in to their demands.
I disagree. Bureaucracy as an institution is psychopathic and only cares about power. If the establishment was right wing (as it had been in the past and still is in some places) the bureaucrats would line up behind it. It's about power, institutional power, not about ideology.
Let me put it this way: assuming the current situation in which most university bureaucrats lean centre-left, I think they are far more likely to resist the demands of loud and radical right-leaning students than loud and radical left-leaning students.
Now, if we are talking about a different situation, in which most university administrators were centre-right, then it could well be the other way around.
Bureaucrats respond much better to activists who (in broad outline) agree with their ideology, but who claim they are failing to live up to it, than to activists who are promoting a very different ideology instead.
Many of the demands which radical left-wing students make - such as cancellation of events, or that academics be fired - could also in principle be made by radical right students, just with different individual targets and justifications
For example, right-wing students might demand an art exhibition at the university be cancelled because they believe it to be “blasphemous” or “obscene”. Or they might object to a Marxist being allowed to deliver a guest lecture on the grounds that it is insensitive to the victims of communism.
I guess that makes sense. I don't think of there being a lot of prominent marxists or whatever in economics circles, but surely they're around somewhere.
There are some prominent Marxist academics – just off the top of my head, Adolph L. Reed Jr (professor emeritus of political science at the University of Pennsylvania). Although he is probably one of the Marxist academics right-wingers are least likely to want to cancel, because he's actually very critical of the contemporary "social justice" left. Reed (who is African-American) attacks Black Lives Matter as making the fundamental mistake of viewing race-based oppression as more fundamental than class-based oppression, when in his view it is actually the other way around.
I knew of Reed but didn't know he was a Marxist. I guess it's not terribly surprising. The closest thing I could think of would have been David Graeber, but he's dead now.
I don’t think Graeber identified as a Marxist. He identified as an anarchist, and Marx and the anarchists were opponents of each other. I’ve read an interview with him in which he expresses sympathy for some aspects of Marxism, but also says Marx and his later followers got some fundamental things wrong (which is pretty much what you’d expect a left-anarchist to say)
Thinking of contemporary academic Marxists - how did I forget Slavoj Žižek. Another is the Marxist feminist Nina Power (although I’m not sure if she still identifies as a Marxist). Both, however, like Reed, are the kind of contrarian leftists who are probably more useful to the right uncancelled.
Surely that statement admits the possibility that some words are 'violence'. It just specifies that the signatories think that harm is a necessary cost of the speech. If the signatories instead thought that words were incapable of violence, there would be no worry of speech which is "harmful to some". I would also argue that that view severely downplays the power of speech, both for good and evil.
This seems so opposite to me to the only example of student activism at MIT that I'm aware of, which was against the closing of Senior House. Administration didn't care about students raising an issue. Students felt totally unheard and disrespected.
What's the difference here? Different, better-connected students? A campaign that better aligns with the broader zeitgeist in our society? Something administration _wanted_ to capitulate over?
Admin just doesn't care that much which speakers are allowed on campus. Like many progressive things students loudly champion, it's pretty immaterial and easy to just give in. It's not like it affects MIT's status or funding as a world-leading research institute.
By contrast, Senior House was a significant legal liability due to large, public parties with a habit of sending people to the hospital for more interesting reasons than booze. That, the institute has financial, practical, concrete reasons to care about.
It's unclear to me that SH created more liability than frats and alcohol, but maybe, and it was certainly the perception.
>By contrast, Senior House was a significant legal liability due to large, public parties with a habit of sending people to the hospital for more interesting reasons than booze. That, the institute has financial, practical, concrete reasons to care about.
Did they think about putting Senior House on probation or something like that?
I honestly forget. I don't think they were ever on probation per se, but it's not like SH was blindsided. There was plenty of awareness that admin was increasingly unhappy. What I won't claim to understand is what pushed them over the line to actually doing it. I think it was more slow, evolutionary decreasing of tolerance for everything than any particular incident.
I'm bitter about the whole thing, and also the upcoming [renovation of EC](https://www.reddit.com/r/mit/comments/nfpumq/east_campus_is_...) (the next dorm over, physically and culturally). The building is realistically past due for some TLC, but it's hard not to feel like it's motivated from more than that.
I suggest you hit 'em where it hurts: Refuse all alumni donation requests, and give your money to impoverished people in Africa instead. https://www.givedirectly.org/
It’s all about incentives. The downside to more drinking deaths if the university did nothing is much worse than the downside to killing off Senior House. In the latter case, students are annoyed. In the former case, there’s a probability of expensive litigation.
In the case of cancelling speakers, there’s a bit of outrage and annoyance on the part of free thinking folks and fascists (who are two separate groups with a bit of overlap on the Venn diagram on this issue). But those groups don’t tend to form effective mobs on campus and aren’t terribly litigious compared to the vocal cancellers on the left.
> As soon as students raised a hue and cry over some issue — any issue — the administrators just rolled over, as though they were not actually in charge of the institutions they nominally oversaw. Frankly, as though they were terrified of their own students.
How familiar are you with the students and the faculty of MIT? Are the students even pressuring faculty enough on any given issue that we could characterize this statement from MIT as capitulation?
The report from the MIT faculty working group on freedom of expression, who originally proposed this statement, touches on this topic:
"Recommendation 5: The chair of the MIT faculty should explore how to develop a
faculty-governed resource for the MIT community when contested matters of speech arise. "
The faculty-governed aspect seems to be a counterpoint to the administrators. Though in this proposal they clarify that this would just be a resource and wouldn't have "adjudicatory responsibilities".
> As soon as students raised a hue and cry over some issue — any issue — the administrators just rolled over, as though they were not actually in charge of the institutions they nominally oversaw.
If the students and their parents pay the administrators' salaries, they are in charge. These clashes between students and faculty tend to be much more maintainable in countries with free public education, because the students aren't customers.
If the students are united against this statement, and only the administration and current faculty are for it, then the battle is already lost. Because the students of today are the faculty of tomorrow, making this statement a temporary patch that masks how bad things have gotten.
I don't think that's necessarily true. Some of the students of today are the faculty of tomorrow; in my experience the students that eventually become profs are not representative of the student body as a whole.
For example, much of the funding available in US physics is DoD funding. Many students (and grads / postdocs) have ethical issues with working on DoD projects. However, refusing DoD funding is not a good move for early-career researchers. So in my experience successful new profs tend to be more "hawkish" than grad students in general.
There's little chance this will ever be supported by the administrative class at MIT or any other institution. By expanding protected speech it limits their power. They have fewer punitive options and less dominion over campus activities.
I always come back to this exchange between the Yale administrator and the protesting students:
Prof: I stand behind free speech; yes, I do.
Student 2: Well then that sorry doesn't mean anything.
Student 3: Even when it's offensive?
Prof (addressing Stud 3): Even when it's offensive. Especially if it's offensive. Even if-
Stud 3: Even when it denigrates me?
Prof: Even when it denigrates you, even though I don't agree with the content of the speech. I have the same objections to the speech that you do. The same ones.
Stud 2 (interrupting): But it doesn't submit(?) afflict to you-
Stud 1 (interrupting): But what about the swastika-
Prof (cont'd): But, I defend the right for people to speak their mind.
Stud 3: So when the IAC (Intercultural Affairs Council) sends out an email saying...
Prof: So who gets to decide what's offensive? Who gets to decide guys?
Stud 2: When it hurts me!
Stud 1: When it's offensive to me!
Prof: What if everybody says, "I'm hurt"? Does that mean everyone else has to stop speaking?
Student 4: But that's not what was happening!
Stud 1: No! Because you don't- No, but you don't under-
Prof: Hold on. So I agree with the content of your speech. I am as against racism as you are. I am as against social inequality as you are. I have spent my life addressing these issues, even some of the students in my class can speak out to this, but that is different than the freedom of speech. The right to defend people to say whatever they want including you! Including your right to write what you want and speak to me; which I will also defend.
Professor seems to forget that freedom of expression includes the freedom of association. You’re free to say awful things, and <private university> is free to not want their name associated with yours.
These freedoms always seem to extend just far enough to protect the person who offends, but never the reaction to the offense. I guess being offended is too offensive?
...but then don't want free speech after similar groups have control of the institutions.
It doesn't seem to be based on principle, but what is good for promoting their own ideology at the time. Which of course is something discussed in the book Rules for Radicals and similar, that one specifically arguing against principles and to pay attention only to achieving the ends.
Attacking the group here is funny, because it ignores the idea to go after the flawed people implementing it.
Instead, you should try and explain why it’s okay to be offended when someone expresses disgust at your viewpoint, but not okay to be offended by a viewpoint. Why does freedom of expression stop arbitrarily at the person saying the disgusting thing?
It’s almost as if you want to prevent the expression (manifest in the form of bans and boycots), or something…
> but never the reaction to the offense. I guess being offended is too offensive?
Exactly. It seems tortuous to me that this "debate" is even happening. "Now hold on a second, I don't agree with what this guy is saying about wanting trans people dragged away by cops and beaten, but it's important we have him here on our stage to say it!" Then they toss a bone, "remember, that's what let you people spread your silly communist musings around back in the 50s!" Sure, rarely on stage though. Usually in some dark corner of the university's "Free speech zone." Usually with a line of armored cops facing them down.
These institutions seem inherently conservative to me. Look :
> A commitment to free expression includes hearing and hosting speakers, including those whose views or opinions may not be shared by many members of the MIT community and may be harmful to some. This commitment includes the freedom to criticize and peacefully protest speakers to whom one may object, but it does not extend to suppressing or restricting such speakers from expressing their views. Debate and deliberation of controversial ideas are hallmarks of the Institute’s educational and research missions and are essential to the pursuit of truth, knowledge, equity, and justice.
Leftists don't want Matt Walsh giving a talk at a university because he's going to do what he always does and in some form call for violence against LGBT people. They protest. "That's not speech!" says the university, finger-wagging liberals, and smirking reactionaries happy for any opportunity to throttle leftist speech, "speech is how we define it, how we have always defined it." The conservativism, the reaction, is right there, staring us in the face every single time. The reaction to Kaepernick kneeling was the most blatant example of this selective enforcement of "time and place."
"Just debate them in the marketplace of ideals! Don't protest at the event, don't speak up when they're talking!" Yeah, sure, the university gave Steven Crowder a microphone, and will enforce his "right" to speech with the campus police if necessary. We will "speak" on their terms. So... when is that? When will we get to debate Steven Crowder in a public space? When the police escort him through protest lines onto the stage? When they do it afterwards? We have to depend on his good grace to do a Q/A session?
These people have the advantage of having abandoned civility, but they still get to weaponize civility to make sure their voice is heard without interruption, without immediate critique or debate, without consequence.
The protest, called "suppression," is the only option left. America's broken overton window means the university and the media at large somehow see this as a more violent suppression of free speech than a conservative asking whether a gay person should have human rights through a microphone on stage. Leftists are forced to lash out at the false definition of civility that lets people say "I dunno, trans people are icky, let's just not let them pee in public," but doesn't let people say "that's fucked up, where are trans people supposed to pee then?" Because these counter points don't get platformed nearly as much, either because of conservatism or, cynically, because what they have to say is less surprising / offensive / infuriating and thus they won't generate as much attention / clicks / eyeballs / outrage / engagement.
Civility, tolerance, should not be a suicide pact.
You need to spend less time in your emotional echo chamber. Much of what you are saying isn't grounded in what is happening, Matt Walsh doesn't call violence on campus.He has a youtube channel. Why not at least watch one of the videos. Your point about trans people and toilets doesn't address what is actually being said or the concerns around it.
Matt Walsh says things on Twitter that resemble the GP comment more than yours, though he’s never been moderated or un-checkmarked for it. His reaction to a shooting at a drag queen event was to call everyone there a pedophile.
Though his more notable takes are that Russia would win a war against the US because our recruiting ads are gay:
and that time when Trump wanted a photo op at the church across from the White House and had the priests tear gassed, that they deserved it because Episcopalians are Satanists. (Can’t find that one.)
IIRC also said yoga, anime, Ouija boards, and the Persona series were all Satanist. Maybe I’m just confused and he’s some kind of Catholic insult comic?
Your (and liberalism in general) inability to understand humor when it comes from someone you dislike is quite concerning.
I recently watched a socialist YouTuber argue against Ayn Rand because someone might read her books and fail to understand it was fiction. And thus her books should be banned. That’s an argument against all fiction books but he made this argument with a totally straight face while speaking against the dangers of capitalism in general.
You're going to argue that it's a joke? Well no wonder we don't understand this kind of humor, it's not funny.
> I recently watched a socialist YouTuber argue against Ayn Rand because someone might read her books and fail to understand it was fiction. And thus her books should be banned. That’s an argument against all fiction books but he made this argument with a totally straight face while speaking against the dangers of capitalism in general.
Smells like tankie to me. I've yet to hear a good leftist argument for the banning of any book. Who was this? I'd like to watch the video, because I do more than argue against the "dangers" of capitalism, and I love a good lefty infight.
This is off topic here so I prefer we chat over email or similar about this, my email is available in my profile. I do love talking about this though and I especially love being challenged on it, so by all means.
In short, a system without private property. Please email me rather than continue discussion here though! You can feel free to publish our conversation wherever at your whim.
This is off topic here. If you want to chat with a communist about this, you can feel free to email me, I'm happy to clarify any points to the best of my ability.
Is “oh those Episcopalians, so Satanic” a joke? I don’t think you can have a joke with the word “Episcopalian” in it. It’s just not a funny word, I mean, it’s a lot of effort to type. The rest don’t appear to have a punchline either - well, unless he was the punchline for the Russian one.
I think most Catholic humor is about guilt or their mom’s statue collections rather than calling people pedophiles, maybe he can try that. Or call them angelic instead.
>Leftists are forced to lash out at the false definition of civility that lets people say "I dunno, trans people are icky, let's just not let them pee in public," but doesn't let people say "that's fucked up, where are trans people supposed to pee then?" Because these counter points don't get platformed nearly as much, either because of conservatism or, cynically, because what they have to say is less surprising / offensive / infuriating and thus they won't generate as much attention / clicks / eyeballs / outrage / engagement.
They just want us dead, literally, read it a hundred times. Whether is being killed or suicide, it's the same. Sadly we are an absurd minority (<0.2%) and the tides are already turning for their relief. I gladly don't live in the USA, I would be planning to leave if that were the case
Just so we’re clear, Matt Walsh has never said any of the things you straw manned, he has never called for violence against anyone, explicitly or implicitly, I’ve seen many people call for violence against him.
In one breath you decry the supposed calls for violence against your chosen victims and in the very next sentence claim you must commit violence against others because it’s your only option. Do you not see the extreme irony in that?
You’re saying not only are you alone allowed free speech but also you alone are allowed to decide when to commit acts of violence, lest those you disagree with are allowed to speak and say something you find unacceptable and thus “verbal violence”.
> . For one thing, the pronoun situation is all over the map, okay? It’s not clear of the various people mentioned here, which are actually females, though they all use female pronouns.
> the adults are creeps and degenerates and worse either way,
> I was not previously familiar with the term drag mom, though from context it seems that this is just another way of describing a professional groomer.
> And just like cancer, stopping it is not a gentle or a painless process. The farther along the cancer is, the more aggressive you have to be in fighting it. Culturally, we are approaching, if we haven’t already reached, a terminal state, which means we have to be all the more aggressive, which calls for two things.
> You know, this doesn’t stop until police are breaking down the doors at these places and carting the adults away in handcuffs. Charge them all as pedophiles. Throw them in prison, and whenever they get out, if they do get out, put them on the sex offender registry for life.
- Matt Walsh on drag show performers
> In one breath you decry the supposed calls for violence against your chosen victims and in the very next sentence claim you must commit violence against others because it’s your only option. Do you not see the extreme irony in that?
I find it ironic that you're arguing from a position that usually rejects the notion that speech can be considered violence, then accusing me in a post where I never mention physical violence, only forms of speech, as calling for violence against the intolerant.
> You’re saying not only are you alone allowed free speech but also you alone are allowed to decide when to commit acts of violence, lest those you disagree with are allowed to speak and say something you find unacceptable and thus “verbal violence”.
Doesn't need to be me, but if you can't tell the difference between "intolerance," and "tolerant, yet intolerant of the intolerant," that says more about you than me. Do you want to give some examples of people you think were unfairly labeled as intolerant? Maybe some people you thought were "cancelled?" I use quotes because I still haven't found a good definition for that word, people just seem to use it.
If you perform a sexual show in front of children you’re a pedophile. The negative effects of ultra sexualization on children are well documented.
That being said, that article and clip are presented without context. It’s not at all clear what he’s talking about, he appears to have just shown a 3rd party video of some kind and is now commenting on it. Without seeing the video we have no idea what he’s actually talking about. He could have just shown a pedophile attempting to justify cp under the guise of a drag show and is now saying these people (rightly) deserve to be jailed if they’re abusing children, alternatively maybe he’s talking about a male person putting on a hyper-sexual dress and reading to toddlers in a library (which I also find abhorrent as it objectifies women in the worst possible way to young impressionable minds that literally cannot comprehend nuance). But it’s not actually illegal or necessarily something we want to make it illegal. Additionally it is not a call to violence to say the law should be followed. Until you can present a clip in context of him calling for violence you’ve shown nothing.
You on the other hand do call for and justify violence against those who you disagree with in your GP comment. Not sure why you’re denying it now:
> Leftists are forced to lash out
So far in this thread I’ve seen you be intolerant of the tolerant and call for violence against those who tolerate your intolerance.
You’ve responded to me twice in this thread with the same dishonest link attempting to present a false narrative in hopes of not being called out.
> If you perform a sexual show in front of children you’re a pedophile.
You're creating a dangerous precedent here. You should know that various cultures have various things that are considered sexual. I really hope you won't wander into a culture that doesn't sexualize women's breasts and start accusing shirtless women of pedophilia.
I also really hope you won't do the same of women showing their ankles in the USA! Please remember that whatever you find gross, icky, and sexual about a drag show, people genuinely felt the same about regarding women showing ankles, cleavage, etc. In some cultures, people feel the same about women showing their hair!
Given this massive fluctuation in what we all find sexual, perhaps you should err on the side of caution, and save the accusations of pedophilia for the actual pedophiles, you know, the ones that are actually interested in sexually harming children. A pretty easy cross-cultural definition that spares us from disarming a word that should only be used for a crime anybody could relatively safely describe as "the worst we can imagine."
> So far in this thread I’ve seen you be intolerant of the tolerant and call for violence against those who tolerate your intolerance.
I never called for violence, I've always been referring to protest and the like. If you agree with me that speech can be violence, I find that actually quite delightful, but contradictory with the rest of your apparently conservative position.
> These people have the advantage of having abandoned civility, but they still get to weaponize civility to make sure their voice is heard without interruption, without immediate critique or debate, without consequence.
This sounds similar to conservatives/right-ish people complaining about cancel culture. Generally most of your text strikes me as hyperbole, having actually made an effort to understand conservatives despite not really falling into their camp. Nothing you assert sounds familiar to me.
This matters to me because the thing that made me listen to conservative voices in the first place was that their self-expressed beliefs never lined up with what people told me they thought. Crying wolf etc. At worst they’re religious freaks that don’t want to call a gay marriage a marriage (petty) and think trans stuff is a sexual fetish (out of touch). Yet I’m to believe in 2022 I’m going to get lynched for liking dick. I actively stopped caring about politics bc I can never tell anymore when people are trying to freak me out to get me to listen to them. This being said as someone who grew up gay and scared in the traditional underbelly of the US.
Some specific reactions follow:
> I don't agree with what this guy is saying about wanting trans people dragged away by cops and beaten
Are you referring to some specific event, or is this just what you believe all non-lefty people secretly want? In what context, just generally if a born-X person publicly presents as Y? This version of trans opposition is foreign to me and makes no sense.
> Leftists don't want Matt Walsh giving a talk at a university because he's going to do what he always does and in some form call for violence against LGBT people.
I’ve only ever seen his JRE interview, do you mean explicit, general advocacy of literal physical violence against LGBT persons? I think he exploits general confusion around gender vs sex and concern for children, but I’ve never heard anyone advocate anything close to that. Matt specifically comes off as a troll.
> So... when is that? When will we get to debate Steven Crowder in a public space?
Doesn’t he literally go to public spaces with signs saying “change my mind”?
> Leftists are forced to lash out at the false definition of civility that lets people say "I dunno, trans people are icky, let's just not let them pee in public,” but doesn't let people say "that's fucked up, where are trans people supposed to pee then?"
In the bathroom associated with their biological sex? Also who is preventing trans activists from speaking? I think you have the power dynamics mixed up, every major US institution appears on-board with affirming trans identity. Honestly I don’t really understand why women need a whole separate bathroom to begin with.
Re matt walsh it seems his most recent public statements haven't trickled into much of the HN consciousness, I recommend listening to him say in his own words how he wants people that do drag shows to have their doors kicked down and thrown in prison:
> Doesn’t he literally go to public spaces with signs saying “change my mind”?
Not anytime recently I'm aware of. He's a single example of the notoriously hard to pin down and debate conservative crowd. He famously dodges debates with liberal intellectuals. Sam something. I'm out right now, can't remember name.
> In the bathroom associated with their biological sex? Also who is preventing trans activists from speaking?
Schools across the usa are limiting trans students rights to use bathrooms, getting banned from participating in sports, etc. Weird legislation is being proposed to check student genitals. It's getting super weird in America and I recommend poking around a bit if interested, though I also avoid usa news now, mostly because it depresses me.
> Honestly I don’t really understand why women need a whole separate bathroom to begin with.
I don't understand why men have a different bathroom lol I think it's a little curious you said it like that instead of "I don't understand why we separate bathroom based on gender
" Neither do I for what it's worth but it's kinda moot when LGBT people are being shot because of the rhetoric in the usa right now
> Yet I’m to believe in 2022 I’m going to get lynched for liking dick.
In the usa it's more likely you'll be shot while congregating in places known to serve LGBT people. I don't get why you're like... Downplaying that there's violence against LGBT people in the usa?
> In the usa it's more likely you'll be shot while congregating in places known to serve LGBT people. I don't get why you're like... Downplaying that there's violence against LGBT people in the usa?
To be flippant (and gay): I'm also likely to be shot at a Walmart, a parade, or any other place just going about my business.
Luckily I'm not a teacher, so I don't spend a ton of time in schools.
I'm pretty sure I'm more at risk statistically in going grocery shopping, to the movies, etc.
> I recommend listening to him say in his own words how he wants people that do drag shows to have their doors kicked down and thrown in prison:
Fair enough, this guy seems pretty out of touch with reality listening to this clip. I’ll listen more carefully to similar speech in the future.
> Sam something. I'm out right now, can't remember name
Sam Harris maybe?
> I think it's a little curious you said it like that instead of "I don't understand why we separate bathroom based on gender "
I assume men aren’t protesting women (gender or sex) entering their bathroom, the issue has always come across as a protect women from creeps thing. Your version is better though.
> Schools across the usa are limiting trans students rights to use bathrooms, getting banned from participating in sports, etc.
Just more protection stuff afaict, in the case of sports around sex-based physical differences leading to unfair advantage and possible physical harm. Am I uninformed and transpeople are getting banned outright?
> I also avoid usa news now, mostly because it depresses me
Yeah feel that, I just feel helpless and scared reading the news. It’s a beautiful country though, and on a person-by-person basis I’ve found people to be mostly wonderful. I try to hold on to that.
> I don't get why you're like... Downplaying that there's violence against LGBT people in the usa?
Violence against LGBT people is a reality, it’s just rare enough and punished sufficiently now that I’m prepared to mourn but write it off (from a personal risk perspective) as the occasional savage and continue going to gay bars unworried. I’m more frightened about getting mugged on my way to the bar. That or people not listening if it does start getting really bad because people just stop believing us.
> Just more protection stuff afaict, in the case of sports around sex-based physical differences leading to unfair advantage and possible physical harm.
To be clear, women have been asking conservatives for specific changes to the law that would better protect themselves. Conservatives have been largely deaf to these requests, and instead have just completed their 50 year political project of gutting Roe v. Wade, which has been a huge step back for women's health and rights. So the idea that conservatives who are championing bathroom bans and sports bans are doing so to protect women doesn't pass the laugh test. In 2022, conservative politicians and SCOTUS justices are far more dangerous to women's health than anything else.
The bathroom and sports bans being made into law by conservatives are not to help women; they are to hurt trans people as a signal to their political base, because they can't signal with gay people anymore. Indeed, they tried the same thing in the decades past with gay people, labeling them a danger to society, the army, public health -- anything. Now being gay is more acceptable in society writ large, but the political animus against them still exists in conservatives circles. So just dusted off the old playbook, crossed out "gay", replaced it with "trans", and they ran it again like it's 1985. Saddest part is that is that it works so well.
It works so well b/c people are ignorant of the past. If you copied your last sentence to anyone who rails on trans people with crazy comparisons, their response would be "huh"
Dorian Abbot is a perfect example of why you're wrong.
He opposes affirmative action and as a result got cancelled at MIT for a _completely_ unrelated talk about climate and life on other planets.
If you yourself disagree with him and do not want to participate in the talk, fine. don't watch it, don't listen to it, don't attend it, and use YOUR speech to recommend others do the same.
What happened here is that he got cancelled so that those who _WANTED_ to associate no longer could. This is not about association, and it's not about speech, it's about preventing others from hearing and it's about harming him for daring to have that opinion.
When the cancel culture stops happening, THEN I'll start believing when people say the things you're trying to say here. Not before.
I looked into this Dorian person, and it appears we have different definitions of "cancelled," as this person did give a talk at MIT, at a different building than originally planned.
It seems this person has made a handsome life being a spokesperson for conservative denial of systemic racism in America, I don't see someone actually harmed or "cancelled."
Also it sounds like students did exactly what MIT approves: they protested. For whatever reason the University decided then to move the venue. What exactly is the issue you have with this scenario?
gp asked specifically what "cancelled" means. You seem to be trying to avoid providing any definition and instead creating and attacking straw men based on your imagination of a leftist argument.
In our various conversations on this thread, you're continually posting in bad faith, because I and a few others aren't granting you your base assumptions.
I've found it to be both enlightening and effective in these kinds of conversations to make sure to ask very simple questions about what we're really talking about. Why? Because for example I often have people say to my face that the american democrat party is a communist party. Hah. Or, more grim: that queer people are groomers. Terrifying.
So it's an entirely fair question to ask you what you mean by "cancelled." I genuinely don't know. You said a professor was cancelled - but the professor was able to give a speech at the same university. I don't understand! I really don't! What does "cancelled" really mean? Because if you can't answer that, maybe this thing you fear doesn't actually exist. Maybe you really are just functioning as a reactionary enforcer of status quo and lashing out against actual counter-cultural speech, against arguments that are actually being "cancelled" by you and those that support your position.
The same for gender. You said to me on another comment, that "you aren't talking about gender identity," but you earlier in the same chain said "care givers tend to be women." Yet it's as obvious to me that that is a circular definition of a gender completely detached from biological markers ("women are caregivers") as it is to you that men are big masculine lumberjacks. So instead of letting you get away with, I don't know, some kind of assumptive bias? Begging the question? Argument to tradition? Instead I'm simply asking you to demonstrate why it's acceptable to assume "care givers tend to be women." Personally as a man I reject this because it leads to pretty shitty outcomes like me being given stink eye from people when I'm "alone" at a children's playground... until my kid runs up to me. To give a concrete example.
Not to mention I reject that "race car drivers tend to be men" for the obvious nod towards the very annoying stereotype that women are worse drivers than men. Ugh. I'll give you enough good faith to assume that was unintentional on your part.
TLDR you presented a presumptive conservative position and got reactionary when asked, by different people (annoyance at me is normal, I am an annoying person), very simple questions about terms setting and definitions. So? What's up with your ideas? They don't stand to scrutiny? I mean you're doing what your position tends to accuse my position of, which is for me why I put my foot down so damn hard in conversations like this: you're acting offended, you're responding rudely and, frankly, irrationally, and straight up I don't see any rhetorical, logical, ethical, deductive, or evidential basis for the broad vaguely conservative smear I find your belief system to be.
Sorry, I'm not reading all of that. I stopped at the second paragraph.
The answer to the question doesn't actually matter, not to you, and not to me. It's a ploy to try and confound the conversation. If you and the other poster really feel it needs to be defined, then define cancelled as "the thing that happened to Dorian Abbot". boom, you're done. It now has a definition, tautological, but valid nonetheless.
The thing that should be getting discussed is whether or not what happened to him should have happened to him. And the answer is no, it shouldn't happen to anyone.
And now I'm going to leave you with an observation by Richard Feynman.
> Sorry, I'm not reading all of that. I stopped at the second paragraph.
Then, you aren't actually interested in rigorous debate, challenging your ideas? Why are you even here? You have an opportunity here, someone that might have completely different ideas from you, and repeatedly engages with you in good faith in spite of your insults, and your answer is "tldr." Forgive me if I doubt your commitment to the spirit of the value MIT claims to espouse regarding the importance of having these kinds of conversations.
> , then define cancelled as "the thing that happened to Dorian Abbot"
Great! Nothing really bad happened to Dorian Abbot. He got to give his speech and now has defined his career around opposing affirmative action. So, why were you using him as an example earlier as a counter point to me as the negative potentials of not tolerating the intolerant?
> The thing that should be getting discussed is whether or not what happened to him should have happened to him.
But nothing bad happened to him.
Your video link is my favorite ever instance of irony I've ever encountered on this site. In it, Feynman says "you know all the names for that bird, but you know nothing about that bird... People tell me 'did you hear about Jackson Fleugrn experiment?' well no, what's that, can you explain it? I get in trouble cause I never learn the names of things."
You've been asked, what does "cancelled" mean, you answered, "Whatever happened to that guy." Yeah, what happened to that guy? "He got cancelled!"
Posting such a response is attempting to impose upon me time that I am not willing to spend on you. It's disrespectful.
The argument you're trying to formulate here is that being uninvited as a speaker at the grammy's isn't a big deal because the person was able to give their speech somewhere else in front of a completely different audience eventually. That's not how that works, the talk he was uninvited from is considered an honor in his profession.
Then you try to imply he benefited from it, so why is everyone opposed to it? That's akin to arguing that the reasons for naming a boy Sue is valid parenting advice.
> Posting such a response is attempting to impose upon me time that I am not willing to spend on you.
You’re willing to spend the time to write 12 replies, but you’re too busy to define the terms you use? Defining terms (especially when they are highly politically charged) allows everyone to get on the same page. Playing games with your terminology to the point you admit they are tautological is the definition of disingenuous discourse.
No one was asking you for a novel-length response. Took me 2 minutes to read lol. If you don’t want to read something, you don’t have to. If you don’t want to respond to someone who has taken the time to respond to you, don’t. But taking time to reply only to say you don’t have time to reply is a lie. You want to reply, and you have plenty of time. If you didn’t, you wouldn’t reply. If you had better things to do, you’d be doing them.
Just define the terms you use; that you don’t allows you to slip around the debate. You’ve spent far more time dodging questions and rationalizing your dodges than it would have taken to just define the terms you use.
Very hard for you to explain how someone was “cancelled” when they are standing on a soapbox and their message is getting out to a huge audience. Really cuts against your argument, so it’s not a surprise you want to hand-wave your way through that (“it’s tautological!”).
> I'll buy 'Shit that makes no sense' for 500 Alex.
What you’re saying here still doesn’t make sense because you obviously do have the time to read a few paragraphs of text (not a novel), or else you wouldn’t be here still responding in a day-old thread. Instead, of making up a lie that you don’t have time, just admit you don’t want to engage with the arguments made whatsoever.
> We defined it as "that which happened to Dorian Abbot".
And is that something you made up to win an internet argument, or something that you could support through some external citation? Usually definitions aren’t personal feelings.
Regardless, if I am to take your personal definition of “canceling” at face value, it doesn’t seem to prove your original point in bringing up the term. As far as I can tell, you’re just retreating to this position because it’s the only way to keep your argument consistent. If you were to attempt an actual definition of “cancel”, you’d be forced to admit that nothing really bad comes of it (unless you can bring up more examples, but you seem to only cite the one).
I'm wondering how long before we get to the part where you tell me you're a troll who has been misconstruing everything I say to keep me going to ultimately win by wasting my time after I claimed not to want to waste it?
> If you were to attempt an actual definition of “cancel”, you’d be forced to admit that nothing really bad comes of it (unless you can bring up more examples, but you seem to only cite the one).
What's happening here is I and others are demonstrating that the concept of "woke mobs cancelling people" is essentially a totally fabricated non-issue that is being used as reactionary fear-mongering to oppose progressivism. It's a way to maintain inequitable hierarchies and disparities, through various rhetorical strategies, such as claiming the very act of trying to dismantle said hierarchies is creating them ("cancelling" conservative viewpoints, accusations of thought-crime, etc).
What you're blatantly failing to do is demonstrate that our accusation that this is all made-up fear mongering is incorrect. You simply can't defend "cancelled," you can't point to more examples, to use your terminology, you've well "lost" this conversation. I don't like that framing though because I'm not here to "win arguments," I do that in my head in the shower every day lol, I'm here to hone my own values and viewpoints against people that genuinely disagree with me.
I actually did want you to provide a real definition of cancel and what you're concerned about because to be honest I'm not going to go out of my way to research the potential negative side effects on rich successful white men of not being allowed to be openly misogynistic or racist or supportive of unjust power structures, and so if there actually are unexpected outcomes, I want to know, and see how these things that are my values (lifting up minorities etc) can be improved. Normally that means talking with people who want to throw my values out with the bathwater, but that's fine and expected. What's frustrating is when they throw their own values out with the bathwater. At least with you, quite happily, that hasn't ended in an anti-semitic or racist rant, which is how it usually goes.
I'm not actually misconstruing everything you say, now am I? I misunderstood initially what you were saying in your back-and-forth but I think we've gotten past that by now, because no matter how you slice it (whether it was about reading a reply or writing reply), you obviously do have time.
Now back to the meat of the discussion and the questions you dodged: I was wondering if you had any references to support your assertion about the tautological definition of "cancelling" someone, which read to me as "you know it when you see it", which seems overly broad to me. Did you have a citation for this definition?
The “it hurts me” argument is a very-very obvious red herring.
If just saying “let’s kill xy” is not okay, then somebody already decides what is offensive. That somebody is for example the judges. The question always whether restricting something is beneficial to the population in general, or not.
Spreading distractions to real issues is absolutely not beneficial. This video, and comment does exactly that. The real problem is what we do with this non beneficial behaviour for example. The absolutist viewpoint of freedom of speech, thinks that everybody can decide on their own what’s good for them. That’s obviously not true, we know countless examples of that. We just need to restrict access to real information, which happens currently to most of the people everywhere. Fortunately, the general population is not stupid, but we don’t have enough time/attention to details (I think). So we just needs to be sure, that everybody can get the real stuff in their own limited time. The problem is, you cannot achieve this without control, and probably, restricting others freedom of speech, because otherwise they can fill that “limited time”. Another obvious problem is what is the “real stuff”.
One interesting idea is to restrict the amount of content which can be created per day, for example. The content still could be quite free. Obviously, these won’t be achieved in a free market, and I’m absolutely not sure that there won’t be new ways to break the system. What we can see today, is another idea, the context bubbles next to obvious lies, but this also have issues regarding deciding what’s true.
> If just saying “let’s kill xy” is not okay, then somebody already decides what is offensive
No, that is not disallowed because it is “offensive”. Someone (the courts and legal system) can decide if this was a credible threat, given all the context. This is still not perfectly objective, but it is much more objective than whether something is offensive.
Yes, it’s more difficult to prove, but it doesn’t matter at all. There are already similar laws in US, and everywhere in the world, that are very difficult to prove that somebody broke it. Especially doesn’t matter in the context of social norms.
1. Repercussions for harmful or bigoted speech, as well as escalation of responses. For example what if a person or group is being bullied but it’s claimed under free expression? What recourse is allowed within the realms of their free expression? What happens when things escalate between parties beyond just words but physical harm?
2. Similarly how do they stop majority dominance and snowballing into group think? E.g if there are way more men or women in a program and they use their larger numbers to amplify their freedom of expression in a way that affects the others. That then risks reducing the number of the minority demographic as they slowly get pushed out, leading to largely heterogeneous programs.
I’m sure, or at least hopeful, that they cover it because it would be a ridiculous omission. However balance is tricky.
It’s why I typically don’t like using “free” as a descriptor often for freedom to do stuff. Society has tons and tons of limitations and absolute freedom of speech has never really been a thing, nor do I think it can/should be, because speech can have so many extreme consequences.
1. Physical harm is a crime and separate issue altogether - there is popular contention with labeling free expression as violence against certain groups, but I certainly agree there are ways that one can escalate into another (ripe for debate)
2. 75% of teachers are women, 97% of coal miners are men - certain professional aspirations attract certain people. When people talk about equality of outcome, does it have to be 50-50 male-female, equally split amongst all demographics and income levels, and if so, what possible realistic path is there to achieve it? On the other hand, I am sure most people in the modern world (especially the young ones) support equal opportunity, so it seems like this is becoming less of an issue.
I see what you're saying though - for example, is Kanye responsible for people committing anti-Semitic hate crimes while yelling "Kanye 2024"? There are also obviously many current event and historical examples of speech escalating to violence, but in a place of learning there should be freedom to consider all ideas and freedom to distinguish good from bad ones.
2. Yeah, but that's in Central North America that barely moves any dirt at all - kiddy mining.
When you look at, say, Canada or Western Australia things are different; here (W.Aus) we move in excess of 800 million tonnes per annum (that's iron ore alone) with a bit over 18% of women in the mining work force [1] - driving trucks, operating diggers and loaders, manageing, as geologists, etc.
No idea why you would make this comment as the GP's point still stands.
Nursery teachers are another good example. It doesn't matter that in one country the profession is 97% women and in another it's only 92%.
The point is that there are fields that naturally attract a specific gender and what (if anything) should be done about it.
* " fields that naturally attract a specific gender " or, more accurately, fields that until recently only hired a specific gender regardless of who was attracted to the field.
Mining in Australia originally didn't hire outside of specific racial groups either, save for extremely manual jobs of an expecially back bracking nature, this changed in the 1970s to a degree and we slowly see advancement into more technical roles.
I recognize physical harm is separate but that’s why I used the word escalation. I also didn’t imply a direction for the physical harm.
Escalation from speech to physical harm can come in many forms. Like you said, Kanye 2024+antisemitism is a form of stochastic terror, using one persons speech to convince others to cause physical harm. But it can also be emotional abuse that is often not seen by many people that can lead to self harm. Or most simply, it can just be escalation of emotions that leads to mutual physical aggression.
With regards to equality, I don’t think it means that demographics should be evenly split. For one, that’s impossible given the large number of demographics and population variances. But I also think it’s more than equal opportunity.
Equal opportunity only tracks the opportunity to get a job at a superficial level. There’s also the pushing out of non-majority demographics through compounded aggressions. This is quite trackable in many companies and colleges as you can see big differences in percentage shares between career milestones (each year in university, or promotions in companies), but very few companies post it. Netflix and Apple have fairly good reports here
So to that end I’d posit: even if we’ve become better about equality, and agree we should have equal opportunity, are we actually setting up our systems to measure whether we’re being honest about it?
Also to your percentages. I think that is heavily at risk of inverting cause and consequence
> even if we’ve become better about equality, and agree we should have equal opportunity, are we actually setting up our systems to measure whether we’re being honest about it?
We do have the tools: anonymize the application process. The way to find out if you're orchestra auditions are biased is to put a veil between the musician and the judging panel. In tech, the way to find out if your interviews are biased is to mask the gender of the applicants. Some companies are already doing this: https://interviewing.io/blog/voice-modulation-gender-technic...
No, you missed the other part of it that I explicitly mentioned. It’s not just about the hiring of the job but the space between any two milestones in the job.
It’s all well if we’re hiring tons of diverse juniors. But if we push them out unknowingly before they grow their careers ,we’re not really helping that much
If someone doesn't like playing the flute, and thus doesn't practice playing the flute, are they going to have the same chances at a blind flute audition as someone who's practiced their whole life? Is that evidence that the audition is biased? If someone grows up in poverty and has to work and thus has no time to play to flute we can recognize the disadvantage of poverty, but that doesn't make the blind audition biased either. The disadvantage stems from the lack of time to play the flute, not the audition process.
If we're talking about the tech specifically, there's compelling evidence that poverty and lack of education attainment is a barrier for BIPOC people entering tech. But it's exceededingly hard to make that argument for women's underrepresented. Women are actually overrepresented in university. There's a strong argument to be made that women actually have more opportunity to enter tech than men. Rates of harassment in tech are actually lower than on plenty of female-dominated industries like education and administration [1]. Most of the common arguments to support the claim that women are being "pushed out" lacks substance.
Again, you’re missing the point of demographic attrition or inequity of promotion over a career and are focusing on entrance alone. Your link also only talks about sexual harassment, not harassment in general.
Instead of focusing on just women, extend it to any demographic.
The issue of attrition/inequity in minorities (whatever they may be) within a workplace is easily trackable within companies by looking at the makeup at various seniority milestones.
Again, the few companies that publish this data (Apple and Netflix come first to mind) show there’s inequity in the approaches that exist , but most importantly it also shows that you can’t just view total makeup as the metric but need to break it down into career milestones , and across corporate divisions to really understand the problem space.
You continue to assume that anything other than identical outcomes is evidence of some sort of bias or discrimination. Men are more likely to be convicted of murder than women. Is this a bias that needs to be corrected? Or maybe men are more likely to commit murder?
At my previous workplace we instituted minimum representation quotas for underrepresented demographics (we used euphemism for them, of course, "equity standards" and "inclusion targets"). The hiring rates increased, but then so did attrition rates. Similar things happened, but in reverse, when California banned racial discrimination in state universities. Admission rates for underrepresented minorities went down, but then the graduation rates rose. Perhaps increase attrition isn't solved by pursuing identical outcomes, it's solved by instituting blind hiring akin to blind orchestra auditions.
Sigh, I have never said equal outcome. I have gone out of my way to explicitly talk about consistent outcomes however , and where a discrepancy is found, to understand why.
That men are found more guilty of murder is irrelevant to this discussion . The only relevant discussion is whether men are more likely to be found guilty of murder for a similar crime. The former is not bias, the latter is. However the former may be caused by systemic biases that put men in more likely scenarios to commit violent crimes. This is all high level of nuances that need to be understood, versus just saying “this is the way because it’s the way”
You keep fixating on very broad strokes, especially gender. You keep also missing the point of the not just focusing on intake. I’ve spelled that out multiple times, but you keep returning to intake.
There isn’t a point to continuing this discussion because you aren’t willing to even address the actual point of the discussion.
Gender is just one example of disparities that exist for non-biased reasons. You have indeed used unequal outcomes as evidence of disparities, in fact your repeat it in this very comment:
> I have gone out of my way to explicitly talk about consistent outcomes however, and where a discrepancy is found, to understand why.
My point is that the burden of proof is on the person alleging discrimination to prove that an inconsistent outcome stems from bias. You've concluded that this disparities means underrepresented groups are bing "pushed out" on account of this unequal outcome.
This is a big leap in logic, and instead of actually trying to substantiate your claims you're saying I'm not addressing your point. I fully acknowledge your point: some other discrimination outside the scope of the hiring process, or whatever else we're talking about, is having an effect. And my point is that you're merely postulating this as fact and doing nothing to substantiate this statement.
What am I missing? You say I'm missing your point, so please explain what I'm missing.
> 75% of teachers are women, 97% of coal miners are men - certain professional aspirations attract certain people
Curious why you're implying your statistic implicitly and naturally leads to the truth of the statement "certain professional aspirations attract certain people (of specific gender)"
Correct my addition of "specific gender" if that wasn't your intention, but it seems what you're implying - that the reason 97% of coal miners are men because men prefer to be coal miners and women don't.
I disagree completely. I think there's probably far, far more reasons behind the statistic "97% of coal miners are men." Luckily for you, I think our society has trained us to nod our heads and think that your statistic makes "common sense," that's a distinct advantage, despite the fact that your proposition is really lacking in logical, deductive, contextual, or evidential rigor. Watch what happens when I make a similarly non-rigorous statement: Actually, 97% of coal miners are men because the people that hire for the job hold the mistaken, antiquated especially with modern technology, belief that men are more capable of the job because "men are stronger than women."
If I had made my argument as such like you have, I bet I'd get a whole stream of comments demanding I demonstrate the hiring bias with evidence, sources, that would challenge my idea, even try to show that men on average are stronger than women (without of course then completing the other half of the argument, demonstrating that greater raw strength leads to greater outcomes in coal mining).
You were replying to:
> Similarly how do they stop majority dominance
So, given that your answer is "common sense," and my argument is "yup, that's majority dominance, men hiring men," I repeat our OP's question: "How do you stop majority dominance when the conservative argument (yours) is so integrated into our social fabric that it goes unchallenged?"
My follow-up is why is the reaction to people protesting the people that make these types of speeches (such as arguing that men are better at a given job than women) so much stronger than the reaction by the mainstream media and the university heads to the person actually making the speech? Especially when those protesting have the much stronger argument that the defense of the bigot is actively contributing to the continuance of unequal opportunity for people (solidifying the "common sense" idea that women don't make good coal miners).
> is unambiguously contradicted by the facts, aka "wrong".
Can you demonstrate this deductively, logically, or with evidence?
I googled your proposition and came up with no obvious study you must be thinking about. Can you link it, please?
My point is also to reject the restrictive assignment of people based on primary sexed attributes. Sorry, you've got a vagina, you can't drive a racecar good. Seems insane to me. Typically when people talk about "certain professional aspirations attract certain people," it's not out of a desire to help people find roles in society that align with their gender identities, it's to enforce cultural stereotypes and maintain, in the case of our society, usually patriarchal hierarchies. Not always, sometimes it's matriarchal ones (such as regarding custody of children). This is to me distasteful and I strongly push for people to justify their positions when they could lead to this enforcement, even if it isn't their intention.
There is a much higher degree of correlation between personality types and occupation/pay - so for example, one actionable change might be to challenge young girls to develop assertiveness and other useful personality traits. It seems like teaching kids that "if you don't achieve your dreams it's because the cultural majority and/or patriarchy held you down" is not going to translate to any useful skill in approaching the world, and only serves as an easy excuse for them to throw out rather than actually address personal shortcomings.
> everyone understands why care givers _tend_ to be women and race car drivers _tend_ to be men.
I’d actually like you to explain this beyond a loose and implicit “everyone understands why”.
The old saying goes, to assume makes an ass out of U and Me (grammatically incorrect but you get the gist), and I’d hate to assume the “why” of the matter is shared between everyone.
For 2, the big thing is that things associated with women get devalued. When you're looking for equality, it's to value things women want to do equally to things men want to do.
Without teachers, we cannot uphold our civilization, and clearly from the pandemic, teachers are absolutely considered essential workers to parents. However, society is still unwilling to pay for that because it's women doing the work
Women recently became the majority of medical doctors. Are they devalued? Same deal for lawyers. This line of thinking doesn't hold up to scrutiny.
A more plausible explanation is that men prioritize earnings more than women. The reality is that most women still expect to marry a man that outearns them. Men are keenly aware of this understand that their marriage prospects are reduced if they don't get a well paying job. Hence why men tend to take riskier jobs, and jobs with longer hours.
That a particular field has a high majority, may intuitively seem like it’s a better field for that majority if you’re just casually observing, but deeper studies often show that there are tons of systemic factors that go into it.
Are most farm hands Mexican because they’re drawn to it culturally? That may be the repeated observation of the person looking at it without much to gain from being part of it.
However once you start looking into it, you’d see the systemic issues that led to it like ethnic discrimination at higher level jobs and the network effect of hiring.
Similarly for women trying to enter tech. There may be systemic issues keeping them out, but going by “90% of software engineers are men, so it must be because they’re more drawn to it” really doesn’t allow for women trying to enter the field to make changes to policies etc that disadvantage them unfairly.
This is the danger of majority rule. It’s why it took so long for many rights to be won by disenfranchised minorities.
It amazes me that so many people think trying to refute an example refutes the point. It doesn't, replace social with pack in my comment and move on if you must.
The rest of your post is just trashy thinking. If you believe the ratio of men to women is not due to personal choice, that's a claim YOU need to back up. I don't have to back up the assumption that it's personal choice, especially against someone who is, when you boil it all down, saying that it _IS_ personal choice, but that they were manipulated into that personal choice.
Where is all the angst over the lack of female loggers?
There is angst over the lack of female loggers. I don’t know why you think there isn’t?
This exists for all trades. Logging just isn’t that visible to most people so it’s not one that’s brought up as often.
You’re conflating many many points in your arguments. You also have yet to say why you think people are drawn to certain trades but keep expecting others to put up more and more evidence.
1. There are already pretty good definitions out there for speech that rises to the level of "harassment" if it is severe, pervasive, and/or repeated. There are also ways to restrict speech in a content-neutral way (i.e. no bullhorns at 11 PM for anyone). Those can definitely still be used. And, of course, physical harm is not the same as words and should never be confused with that.
2. You balance it by allowing free speech and encouraging robust debate rather than demanding loyalty tests or speech codes. Restricting speech or telling people that they "can't say that" is an excellent way to result in groupthink; encouraging free speech and especially a culture of free speech that respects differences is the best way to prevent one-sided groupthink. Such one-sidedness has many negative consequences, including (but not limited to) ineffective actions, alienating wider groups of people, supporting bad science, and limiting the scope of discovery and study.
I don’t think either of your responses actually answer my questions.
The first doesn’t really have good frameworks outside of hate speech or discrimination against protected classes. Everything else is generally company or code of conduct based, which at least to my reading, don’t fit within their definition of freedom of expression.
The second doesn’t actually address the balance at all. Different courses have significant demographic biases, most noticeably gender and ethnicity. that means that the majority group has a naturally amplified freedom of expression when it comes to any topic of debate. Do the minority demographics get equal time to voice their views if there are fewer of them? How do you avoid being drowned out? This isn’t exclusive to gender but also just general opinions like abortion. Freedom of expression has to come with stricter requirements for courtesy imho and more rigour for factual analysis. But those would then impede on freedom of expression.
I still feel that freedom of speech and expression are paradoxes as long as unbalanced power dynamics can exist.
Many codes of conduct and various other speech codes do, in fact, violate freedom of speech and have often been struck down as violations of freedom of expression. Appeals to "courtesy" and "civility" tend to be used selectively. I agree that it would be ideal if people debated courteously, but "civility" is far too often only desired in one direction (and employed as such in practice).
There are plenty of ways for an outnumbered group to still have its voice heard, from speaking at public meetings to writing opinion columns to being active on social media. Or in academia, they can start their own journals, organize their own conferences, etc. Dissenting opinions in court rulings are excellent examples of including the minority opinion as well.
If anything, supporting freedom of speech and expression protects those who are in the minority more than adding more restrictions on speech (since, as other comments have pointed out, who gets to decide what speech to censor? it's those with the power on campus).
Robust rebate isn't an option for people who are not in control of their emotions. They physically can't discuss certain things because emotions overwhelm them, blind them and even hurt them. Our mistake is to assume that everyone who looks like an adult is an adult mentally. Once you think about students as adult-children, the draconian speech control starts making sense.
>> . Similarly how do they stop majority dominance and snowballing into group think? E.g if there are way more men or women in a program and they use their larger numbers to amplify their freedom of expression in a way that affects the others.
Is that not the very definition of democracy? Majority rule easily and frequently overrides and marginalizes minorities. Its kinda the point.
Of course specific minorities have gained mind-share over the years with the majority, and thus become "in the majority". Usually this takes the form of a growing acceptance that others, although different, are still people.
Women have had the vote for barely 100 years. Civil rights. Gay rights. Marriage rights, and so on.
It seems like every era brings a new fight, a new minority to hate, fear, ignore, accept and embrace. The old-guard has a moral panic, wails about their "way of life", but alas they are the minority, so eventually get shouted down.
Pure democracy works better when you’re talking about very large groups or if everyone is subject matter experts.
In smaller groups, you may only have one or two people vs tens of others on each end of the topic.
All those victories you mentioned were the results of decades of slowly convincing people to a more accepting way of thought.
But when you have classes with very few members of any given demographic , there’s a higher chance of a specific point of view being shut out completely without merit .
>> Pure democracy works better when you’re talking about very large groups
I'd argue it gets worse the larger the group. Its very hard to change the direction of a large group because of inertia. Libertarianism has been around a while, but struggles to get traction when pitted against the established norms. Even if individuals are convinced, it's hard to convert enough individuals to matter.
>> or if everyone is subject matter experts
Again, a small group of experts doesn't necessarily create concensus. We saw that during the pandemic where each country, guided by experts, had such a variety of responses. Lock-out (new Zealand), lock down (China), carry on (Sweden), and innumerable random configurations (USA) all lead to different outcomes. Or did they? Sociologists will be dining out on this for decades.
Most functional democracies (I'm thinking company boards, member based clubs etc) understand nuance, and letting everyone win a bit, while finding compromises between majorities and minorities.
The explosion of insanity though (think QAnon) makes a mockery of the democratic process, and exposes the root flaw of group-think. What if the majority think Tom Hanks drinks the blood of sacrificed babies - what price democracy then?
That’s fair, and yeah very good points. Certainly, even in my lifetime, democracy has led to subjugation of minorities.
I guess that goes back to my initial premise that “free speech” and “free expression” are poor descriptors, though I’m not sure what better ones would be.
People end up colloquially conflating them with absolute freedom , when outside of libertarians, most societies have rules around it.
I generally feel like codes of conduct are better than using terms like “free”. They denote nuance while allowing flexibility of the guidelines.
This is a good comment that is being suppressed :-)
>> Is that not the very definition of democracy? Majority rule easily and frequently overrides and marginalizes minorities. Its kinda the point.
Yes, so much this. And it's not even a bad thing. We need norms to be able to coexist, even if those norms are somewhat arbitrary and have space for improvement. Finding those norms through consensus and a majority is not the worst way to go.
>> Just cos majority shares an opinion it doesn’t mean that opinion is somehow “good”.
Exactly. For a couple hundred years _after_ US independence, the majority considered women to be second-class people. (quite a few still do.)
>> Basically the rule of majority will generally breed mediocrity in my opinion.
Mediocrity is the _goal_ - its not a bug its a feature. Spare us the rule of a person who considers them self to be exceptional.
Alas these days, democracy would do well to get mediocrity. Judging by some of the candidates in the last election, mediocre would have been a step up. (fortunately the voting public seemed to agree with me.)
1. You sort of joined two separate things here, so i'll split them:
> Repercussions for harmful or bigoted speech, as well as escalation of responses. For example what if a person or group is being bullied but it’s claimed under free expression?
People are mostly capable of distinguishing bullying from legitimate expression. There are a few edge cases (e.g. misgendering), but they are not imo sufficiently important to throw out the basic principle of free expression.
> What happens when things escalate between parties beyond just words but physical harm?
I don't really understand why this is even a question? Physical assault is not only contrary to MIT's rules, it is a crime. This statement and principle is totally orthogonal to the principle of free expression.
EDIT: I suppose you could mean something more like incitement/inducement to physical harm. But, of course, that is also a crime.
> 2. Similarly how do they stop majority dominance and snowballing into group think? E.g if there are way more men or women in a program and they use their larger numbers to amplify their freedom of expression in a way that affects the others. That then risks reducing the number of the minority demographic as they slowly get pushed out, leading to largely heterogeneous programs.
This is a strange view to me. Is the underlying premise here that there are things that the majority believes, but that would be harmful to say? If so, how did we come to this conclusion and what strange things could be believed by the majority of students/faculty but are too dangerous to speak? Certainly we could point to historical examples of things people in say, the 1950s, believed that we might consider dangerous or harmful to say today. But people from the 1950s would never have chosen to ban those ideas.
In other words, nearly by definition, it is never the preferred expressions of the majority that are getting regulated. If it were a majority view, it wouldn't be considered harmful by the regulators. The viewpoints having their speech regulated are always going to be in the minority and unpopular. If it's not a majority that believes these things, then there should be no reason to be concerned about majority dominance.
The power to regulate expression is just that - power. If you are truly concerned about concentration of power and the protection of minority interests, there is no greater threat to that than the regulation of expression. Tautologically, it will always be those in power that write the speech codes.
> For example what if a person or group is being bullied but it’s claimed under free expression? What recourse is allowed within the realms of their free expression? What happens when things escalate between parties beyond just words but physical harm?
Easy. Deal with it in exactly the same way the government does.
All of these edge cases, and situations, and "where is the line?" Are all questions that have been discussed for centuries, in well published court cases that have gone to the supreme court.
I think the supreme court has done a good job, over the decades, of deciding what the line is for acceptable speech or not.
As such, other groups/platforms/large organizations should aspire to limit themselves to the same limits and actions that the government does, even though they are not the government.
> absolute freedom of speech has never really been a thing
It's not, but the best guideline we have, are what the courts have decided, IMO.
If the speech is legal, then allow it.
If it's not, then disallow it.
Or if some currently legal speech is so horrible that you think it should be disallowed, then go through the normal legal process, of making a law, and subject it to the appeals process, constitutional review, and all the checks and balances that go along with making speech illegal.
There is almost no one who's actually for completely unchecked freedom of speech, so it's all a matter of deciding where along your sliding scale you draw the line.
Would you suggest that things like murder threats or libel should be legal? Otherwise you're advocating for conditional or contingent free expression too.
Have you encountered situations where ethicists and absolutist free speech advocates have encountered any legal problems for exploring concepts such as this?
You can make slippery slope arguments if you like, but they're somewhat analogous to the very idea you're defending. You're allowed to make meta arguments about curtailing absolute free speech being dangerous, why would someone else not be able to make a meta argument about allowing death threats? They're both equally removed from reality.
That doesn't make it illegal? If they don't want to talk to you because you entertain those ideas, that's just them using the right to freedom of association. It doesn't make entertaining the ideas illegal.
I asked, “Are you advocating a system where giving airtime to certain ideas, but not including incitement, would be punishable?”
They answered in the affirmative.
The justification being that entertaining certain ideas itself constitutes harm (because entertaining ideas may be proximate to harm or “increases the likelihood of harm”).
We also got into definitions of “harm”, which, in my view, were expansive. (In the sense that nearly anything could be rationalized as resulting in harm.)
Libel is legal until a court declares that it isn't and I wouldn't want it to be legal for people to be charged with libel without a court proceeding.
Death threats are considered to be an intent to act so there is probable harm and the person is usually charged criminally to prevent them from doing what they said they would.
However, saying you hope someone dies is not a crime and as much as I think it incites some bad emotions is considered free speech. Hopefully we can live in a society where people just act like normal adults and the ones saying outlandish things are not given a lot of attention.
Charging is what happens BEFORE a court proceeding, it's done by a prosecutor, not a judge
Also I'm pretty sure that when a court finds that something is libellous it's deemed to have always been libellous from the moment it was done (may depend on what country you're in)
While I generally agree, charge can have multiple meanings in a legal context. It just isn't limited to criminal charges.
Usually when someone is found guilty of libel they are ordered to stop doing the action as well which means they can be held in contempt if they don't.
threats of violence, up to and including death threats, are completely legal.
What's not legal is threats of violence with both the intent and the means to follow through.
If an 80 year old man walks up to and tells me they're going to kick the shit out of me, it's perfectly legal. Not only is it legal, no one is going to do anything about it until that man actually attacks me.
If The Rock walks up to me and tells me he's going to kick the shit out of me, it's very clearly illegal (assuming we know intent, of course) and he will go to jail for it.
This is why things like repeating can also be illegal. If you never have the intent or the means to follow through with a threat, but do it repeatedly to affect mental state, that too is illegal for a different reason.
But the presumption that this speech is de facto not legal is absolutely incorrect, in the US at least.
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Libel is not criminal in any way, shape, or form, and is a bad example as a result.
Could you provide an example of free expression, not committed to either "enlarging understanding" or "uncovering truth", that would be part of a useful conversation?
(that's a general question; in the particular context of MIT I'd assume the bar would be a useful academic conversation)
Having some free time, I'll take a rough draft cut at these:
> What topics are academic? Which are not?
Topics which discuss general ideas which are logically (or at least rhetorically) decidable are academic. Topics which discuss particular individuals and are matters of taste are not.
> Which questions are fair game for academic inquiry?
cf supra
> Which are not?
cf supra
> How do we know ahead of time what will be useful and what won't be?
If a topic falls under an existing academic discipline, it will likely be useful. As stated above, matters of taste are unlikely to be useful. (possibly, if one has reason to believe one can capture a global distribution of tastes? or provide a theory of changes in distributions of tastes, etc.)
> Is the question above this line academically useful?
Useful for a "philosophy of academics" discipline, probably not so useful for any non-meta discipline. Note, however, that discipline's core questions will change over time, as one subfield gets overworked and new subfields are discovered.
Can you suggest bases and/or constraints? If you can make a coherent theory of it, then sure, that'd* be worthy of inquiry. (cf gp)
* similar to how stat mech. and quantum have very little to say about any individual transition, but can discriminate over the macro-states available to a whole collection of micro-states?
To provide one general example, you do not need any answers to the questions above (which furthermore, only relate to a specific case, so the answers may not even be relevant to the general).
(I would like to provide an example, but I attempted and can't think of any)
> Could you provide an example of free expression, not committed to either "enlarging understanding" or "uncovering truth", that would be part of a useful conversation?
"wanna fuck?"
Now I get to watch you and others try to backpedal "enlarging understanding" to simply mean communicate so that the above expression can fall into it, otherwise you're clearly wrong.
But no human is going to use the phrase "enlarging understanding" to simply mean communication, so I'm not going to buy it.
When I think of persuasive speech, I think of A intending to convince B that C is proper policy — but this benefits both A and B, insofar as it should involve enlarging B's understanding of C, and is an attempt by A to uncover the truth of whether or not C is desirable. That is clearly protectable.
If benefits A but does not necessarily benefit B means "A is trolling"[0], then that speech, while possibly entertaining[1], does not sound at all useful. Protection of trolls would have to rest under some other heading than "enlarging understanding" and "uncovering truth", as neither are true of them.
Does that distinction make sense? Is it at all related to what you had in mind?
[0] indeed, at this point the notion of "persuasive" becomes arguable, if A is the only person who might possibly defend their argument as plausible.
[1] depending upon how it uncovers the truth that A is a jerk?
> We cannot prohibit speech that some experience as offensive or injurious.
They are giving credence to the idea that words can injure. I would have rather seen this phrased as "that some believe to be offensive or injurious". But I imagine this sentence was heavily negotiated.
It's important to realize that debating the definition of "injure" is almost entirely unsubstantive.
I prefer the generally-accepted definition of "harm physically", as I assume you do, but clearly some people try to generalize the idea in order to emphasize other types of harm.
It's a debatable topic, there might be a little bit to learn from hashing it out, but it's mostly fluff. It's better to explore if this illuminates any actual disagreement on some concrete issue.
This sort of taking umbrage about word definitions is a factor in pretty much all major political spats, and I don't think it's going away by arguing about each term. You just have to define the terms in some way for the purposes of mutual understanding for an individual discussion. If the debate ends up just being bikeshedding the definition, walk away and find a better conversation.
> Think of what an assault victim thinks when she hears that words are violence.
Think of what a Jewish person thinks when they hear insert Kanye West tweet here. The reason speech such as that is restricted is because it inevitably precedes physical violence. Historical victims of violence have learned to identify that through trial and error, while others can safely pretend that words never hurt anybody.
Ben Shapiro talking about it, I'll transcribe part of it here.
> I feel bad for Ye. There are people who are bipolar in my family, like when people are in manic episodes, which he _clearly_ is in a manic episode, they say things that are insane and they think that nobody can tell them what to do and the more insane it is and the more people disapprove the more they do it. And they do crazy stuff and when he comes out of the manic episode it's ... it's going to be really really bad for him.
Someone then asked Shapiro, "would you debate with him [Ye]" and his response was "I won't debate with people who are mentally ill".
---
That seems like a pretty rational, reasoned response, and I'm not sure why you think he was harmed in some way.
Furthermore, what you're trying to argue here is that victims of rape should be protected from the word rape. No, the need to be protected from the _ACT_ of rape, how does one do that without talking about rape?
If a victim of rape feels harm from the very utterance of the word rape, that's a mental problem that should be dealt with through therapy, not by making it more difficult to protect from the _ACT_ of rape by making it more difficult to speak about it.
We have 100's of years of common law to better vet out what types of speech have a tendency to result in violence, and there's a reason why the things you're claiming result in violence are not found on that list.
> Furthermore, what you're trying to argue here is that victims of rape should be protected from the word rape.
No, that seems to be either an incredibly biased reading of my comment or an attempt at a bad faith argument. I am claiming: rallies that announce "all trans people are child molesters" are inevitably followed by physical violence against some trans person for "molesting children". More often than not, people who hold such rallies are aware of such implications, and are intentionally holding such rallies to cause harm. Thus, words, for all intents and purposes, can be a direct cause of physical violence and thus should be regarded as such in very extreme cases.
> there's a reason why the things you're claiming result in violence are not found on that list.
Sometimes the laws simply have not caught up with the times. Quick example: how long have gay marriage been federally legal in the United States? Law follows common sense and consensus, not the other way around, which is why I do not agree with your suggestion that we should forsake common sense and consensus to blindly follow the letters of the law.
In case you are genuinely concerned, let me try to change your mind.
Did you know that among transgender community, rate of attempted suicide is 40%? [0,1] If being inclusive of people regardless of their identity can help us mitigate that number, I believe we should do so, even if it lets three "perverts" mask their intentions. Citing three cases happening in the prison system and asking all trans women to be banned from all women's restrooms everywhere is... quite a strong ask.
Moreover, the three cases you mentioned all happened in prison, where you are already locked up and under tight supervision (supposedly). How many cases are there where such a thing happened in a general gender neutral bathroom? To argue that "we should not be respectful of people's gender identity because there is harm in to negate the overwhelming positive impacts of it", you have to show the proofs.
I admit I am quite sceptical that providing carte blanche access to women's spaces to males who identify as transgender will have a significant impact on reducing suicide rates amongst this population, such that it outweighs the negative impacts on women. I've not yet seen anything that convinces me this is an appropriate policy direction, but I appreciate the opportunity to consider arguments that may change my mind.
My view is that with something as complex and multifactorial as suicide, we have to be cautious in ascribing a particular cause or mitigation, and the available data must be examined with caution.
The first abstract you linked describes a 41% attempted suicide rate, but I'm not clear how this was determined or exactly which population it applies to. It seems to be for a poster at a psychiatry conference, the full copy of which isn't available online, as far as I can see. Do you know how this figure was arrived at? I would be interested to see the original source.
In the second paper you linked, which concerns transgender people in India, it sounds like there are many other correlative factors that involve poverty and lack of access to education and employment, with many living in slums, begging and working as prostitutes. Access to the bathroom of their choice or other opposite sex spaces seems to be the least of their issues, and it's not mentioned in this paper. The section discussing resiliency sounds promising though, with correlations to higher income, better support structures, and being employed in a mainstream job. Perhaps these are the factors best addressed by policy, in India at least?
Now think of what a gay man thinks when he's minding his own business and a group of people start slinging slurs at him. Have you ever been in that position? Do you know what it's like, wondering if you make the wrong move that they might change from jeering to violence?
I don't know how you got that at all from my statement, but I don't think you've been in a position like that to understand that the jeering comes with the implicit threat of violence, and how trying to navigate/defuse situations like that place a huge burden on the person defending themselves.
Good point. There is a degree of injury and I would have, prior to several years ago, assumed the general public at large to understand the difference. Given that social engineering has steered empathy into being weaponized politically, I now unfortunately think this is either explicitly codified or roundly dismissed. Gradations of judgement left entirely to those offended whether present or not is an untenable society. Which, may actually be the intention. My perspective comes from having listen to a talk from Alan Watts on false virtue.
Gatekeeping abuse is something I did not expect to see here today. Suffering is suffering, and we should aim to end it, not categorize in greater and lesser pains and categorically claim people with "lesser pains" are "pushing agendas" and should "stay the f*k out" or whatnot.
As someone who has experienced both, I can provide my anecdata to say that words hurt. Maybe they're not the same type of pain, but they do.
If you are a victim of verbal and mental abuse, do not let the above comment convince you that your suffering is somewhat lesser and thus not worthy of empathy.
The YouTube channel [0] for the Stanford Academic Freedom Conference is a relevant watch. While this conference has been incredibly and unjustly demonized by the media, I'd still urge people to watch it. Despite my disagreement with the political views of some of the panelists, they do bring up sensible points pertaining to free speech in academia, and the threat it's presently facing.
Academic freedom is basically a fundamental tenet of the university system. But the usual crowd thinks their agenda trumps fundamental principles of free society and only wants certain views to get any airtime, which places limits on academic enquiry. It's the modern equivalent of disallowing any research that conflicts with the bible, for example.
People like the sister commentor (now flagged/dead) that think anyone with a view different than their own is a Nazi want to insert themselves into what should be free inquiry, and have devised all sorts of mental gymnastics to explain why constraining thought is actually a good thing. University administrators who only care about preserving their power and want to take the most risk adverse path get onboard, and faculty get held hostage by an entitled minority that thinks their agenda is more important than anything else. (When the agenda is really just power anyway, not the causes they use as wedge issues)
And so the faculty has symbolically signed a statement that shouldn't need to exist, saying their business is their business and they should be left unmolested to free enquiry. And a few culture warriors call it culture war bullshit to try and give it the usual smug dismissal treatment that's the only form of rhetoric they know because they don't actually have a point
>It's the modern equivalent of disallowing any research that conflicts with the bible, for example.
It's ideology being put above all else. It can be religious or non-religious. You don't need to look much further than Stalin's Russia.
Lysenkoism (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysenkoism?wprov=sfla1 ) was the nonsense hoops that academics had to jump in order to align with the Ideology of the Russian state.
Those who aligned their work efforts to the ideology were rewarded, promoted and those who didn't ended up much worse.
We don't have this extreme level here in Western countries, but we are starting to see the seeds of it. It's nice to see MIT standing up against this. Stanford seems to be all for ideology.
Of the people who authored or voted for this statement, whom would you consider abject racists or Nazis (or something else that, in your opinion, justifies them getting canceled)?
Ah yes, Nazis like the Chrstiakises[1]. Or maybe Nazis like Klaus Fiedler[2]?
[1] Professor Nicholas Christakis lives at Yale, where he presides over one of its undergraduate colleges. His wife Erika, a lecturer in early childhood education, shares that duty. They reside among students and are responsible for shaping residential life. And before Halloween, some students complained to them that Yale administrators were offering heavy-handed advice on what Halloween costumes to avoid.
Erika Christakis reflected on the frustrations of the students, drew on her scholarship and career experience, and composed an email inviting the community to think about the controversy through an intellectual lens that few if any had considered. Her message was a model of relevant, thoughtful, civil engagement.
For her trouble, a faction of students are now trying to get the couple removed from their residential positions, which is to say, censured and ousted from their home on campus. Hundreds of Yale students are attacking them, some with hateful insults, shouted epithets, and a campaign of public shaming. In doing so, they have shown an illiberal streak that flows from flaws in their well-intentioned ideology.
[2] The editor in chief of one of the world's most prestigious psychology journals, Perspectives on Psychological Science, resigned on Tuesday after the board of directors of the journal's publisher demanded he step aside—or be fired—for soliciting academic criticism of a black psychologist.
The editor, the prominent German psychologist Klaus Fiedler, stirred up controversy by agreeing to publish trenchant critiques of a 2020 article by Steven Roberts, a black psychologist at Stanford University, who had argued, among other things, that "color-blind leadership" promotes "structural inequality."
> For her trouble, a faction of students are now trying to get the couple removed from their residential positions
The “Halloween costume” controversy happened in 2015, and the Christakises resigned from their undergraduate college role in 2016. You are talking about events which happened 6-7 years ago as if they are current.
Sound like virtue signaling to me. I wish this works out.
I was watching Funky Town mix and thinking how much freedom and joy we lost from those times to now. Things are seriously messed up.
We have fantastic computers, but we have app stores to "protect us" from software. People stopped building software for fun (mostly), now you can't even buy software, you have to subscribe...
Was reading the policy document when this “innocuous” paragraph struck me. Am I misunderstanding something?
> Regarding freedom of teaching, faculty do not have total discretion over their course content. For example, a class titled “Beginning Chinese” cannot be taught as an advanced calculus class. And department heads would be within their rights to consider faculty members’ expertise in the process of making or adjusting teaching assignments. Working within our standard administrative structures such as curriculum planning committees, faculty generally should be able to teach the scholarly content they wish. Academic freedom does not give faculty members the unfettered right to advocate political beliefs in their classrooms that are irrelevant to the course content. Such political expression should be grounded in the faculty member’s expertise, relevant to the subject matter, and consistent with both sound pedagogical principles and the achievement of learning objectives.
The exercise of academic freedom with respect to research, publication, and teaching takes place in a context of scholarly rigor. Evaluating the strength of arguments and the quality of ideas is intrinsic to research and education processes. Aside from cases where evidence of invidious discrimination exists, faculty members cannot claim that the denial of tenure based on a professional assessment of the faculty member’s scholarship constitutes censorship. Nor can a student receiving a less than desired grade in a class claim that wrong answers are a form of protected speech. Though faculty and researchers have a good deal of freedom, that freedom is exercised in an academic context in which disciplinary competence and professional judgment are crucial to knowledge production and education.19
Freedom of intramural expression means that faculty members should be able to speak their minds about their own institution and its policies. MIT strongly values this freedom
Isn’t this saying “stay in your lane and only express political views if it’s relevant to your academic discipline”. An engineering professor might have a thing or two to say about copyright but since their academic profession isn’t law, they’re not allowed to opine on it? A biology professor might not agree with climate policy of the current administration and that means they can’t speak their opinion because they’re not a climatologist nor a political scientist? Isn’t academic freedom supposed to be the opportunity to mix in thoughts from outside the field so that blind spots can be examined? Stratifying and isolating freedom of speech in this manner would seem to encourage intellectual isolation. Not something I’d want to see from an institution that’s supposed to be educating the next generation of great thinkers who aren’t bound by conventional thinking. Of course, I probably just misunderstood what this is saying. I didn’t go to MIT and I never did do well in English class.
Free speech is about time and place. They are saying that speech can be free, but going into a political rant in the middle of a class on calculus is not appropriate.
Free speech is about saying what you like, but in a context where others are free to leave. I can't leave my class without prejudicing my grade, but I didn't sign up for your diatribes on human diet.
> Free speech is about saying what you like, but in a context where others are free to leave
An excellent example of the comment I was trying to wrangle in my head, inspired by our shared OP: this whole idea of "free speech" or "not free speech," and this university's attempt to codify it, seems remarkably oversimplified still.
First, where did you get this extra context that our OP and I both seem to be missing, that "free speech is about time and place," or that political rants are only ok when people are "free to leave?" I'm not finding anything like that clicking through the links. Is this just your personal value about what you believe "Free speech" to be? Does MIT agree? Has MIT codified something like this? I'd like to read it, if so, because I'm very interested in this conversation and idea.
I'm very interested, because I disagree with you that there is a context (in this university scenario) where "others are free to leave." Easy: extracurricular activities, common ways to get bonus points or saddle up with the professor. Your philosophy teacher likes to go to the local libertarian debate club, a place where a common topic is whether gay people should be "allowed" to get married. The professor encourages students to come, either to "challenge" themselves, or, write a paper on what they observe, or straight up as a bonus points opportunity, whatever. If you think the explicit bonus points is unrealistic or a practice that should end, instead consider the "soft bonus" by attending based on the professor's recommendation alone. In any case, gay students really aren't interested in hearing their very existence being debated, and prejudice their grade by not going. Nobody else faces this difficulty. Better: a gay student comes, and argues whether white people should be allowed to marry if gay people can't, because there's functionally no difference ethically there, and prejudice their white teacher against them. Can you pick up what I'm puttin down here?
My argument is essentially that your point ignores both explicit and implicit power dynamics that underlie this debate. The same dynamics that make "cracker" a far less harmful word than the n-word, or, make a romantic relationship between two adults problematic if one adult happens to be the other's active professor.
I feel like this context is often simply ignored, and I believe that that's because the people that get to decide what these statements coming out of these working groups look like, are people that are mouthpieces for the existent hierarchies that are protecting themselves from change and criticism, the blowback that many are calling "cancel culture" and others are simply calling "consequences for actions."
>> First, where did you get this extra context that our OP and I both seem to be missing, that "free speech is about time and place," or that political rants are only ok when people are "free to leave?" I'm not finding anything like that clicking through the links. Is this just your personal value about what you believe "Free speech" to be? Does MIT agree? Has MIT codified something like this? I'd like to read it, if so, because I'm very interested in this conversation and idea.
Free speech, as in the first amendment, has to do with the govt making laws _prohibiting_ speech. It is silent on other bodies (companies etc) which are pretty much free to make their own rules.
Free speech gives you the right to say whatever you like (publish whatever you like etc). It doesn't give you the right to force that speech on me. If I don't want to hear you I'm free to leave. If collectively we don't want to hear you, we might ask (or require) you to leave.
In other words free speech doesn't exist in a vacuum, it exists in the context of a wider society.
Universities are in a strange meeting point of freedoms. MIT is trying to codify this (with inevitable shortcomings) because people seem to have forgotten why they exist.
Perhaps they could just come out and say "University is not a safe space, you might hear, or see, anything, at any place or time, and most of it will offend someone."
That doesn't sound like much fun though, because university is also supposed to be a place to learn. It's hard to properly pay attention while covered in the blood of an animal slaughtered in the quad by a vegan to highlight animal abuse.
I'm agreeing with you that in a university context is is impossible to opt out of some activities and situations. Thus there needs to be room for both "safe space" and free speech. I should be able to go to class, I should be able to stand outside the class handing out flyers, I should be allowed to invite any guest speaker I like. Because, it appears that people are people, who need rules, MIT has to try and codify each possible scenario and say what isok, where, and when.
The power dynamic between faculty and students is prone to abuse. Sleeping with a professor to get good grades has pretty much existed since we invented professors and students.
Most universities have codified the ethics around this, and it's well understood.
Equally professors have had radical political views since forever. In itself that's OK, but clearly the politics of the student shouldn't affect the grade (but sure, if does.)
But free speech is not Free behaviour.
If a professor denigrates a woman in class, (say a political studies, of gender studies class) as part of exploring an idea, then OK, that's part of the course. If a misogonist professor grades all women automatically lower, then that's not OK.
Grading is not speech (IMO, I'm not a constitutional lawyer.)
It seems like professors, and students have forgotten basic norms, and need to thus have all the rules written down. And yes, I agree, to MIT I say "good luck with that."
I had a very religious teacher who went on a rant one day about the book 'The Clan of the Cave Bear'. Having read, and loved, the book I was at first very interested in his opinion on it.
He completely misrepresented both the book and the things that happened in the book. I was actually astounded, he very clearly had not read the book himself and got his opinion from somewhere else (this was mid 90's).
I'm completely onboard with ensuring teachers limit how much of their political and religious beliefs make it into the classroom.
OTOH, there was a controversy in the late 90's where a teacher asked a little girl not to wear a "I love jesus" t-shirt to school. Apparently there was a Mexican boy named Jesus in class and it got everyone giggling and was disruptive.
You can understand both sides there, but at the end of the day it's a place for learning and if it's being disruptive due to the students age then it's being disruptive.
So I don't think it's all that simple, but I do think we can do better.
It seems to be talking specifically about course content.
So if you're a biology professor, and you dislike the government (or universities) climiate policies, you can't use your lessons as your soap-box.
Unless you can tie it to "faculty member’s expertise, relevant to the subject matter, and consistent with both sound pedagogical principles and the achievement of learning objectives."
This seems entirely reasonable - heck, it goes as far as allowing proffesors to expouse their own political views in classroom as long as they can establish it's relevant.
I feel like you’re inserting an interpretation vs what’s actually written. komali2 raises all the problematic scenarios that I was thinking of (and more). Let’s take a hypothetical where I’m an MIT professor. Can I express my own personal view chatting with students after class where I say off hand “I think congress is making a huge mistake with copyright and IP as regards to computer science”? Or how about “I think the government’s role in Aaron Swartz’s suicide needs to have a formal inquiry” or “Aaron Swartz is a brave person and more need to follow his example about standing up to bad IP law”. A professor’s rule isn’t just to teach course material but to show students that everyone should think critically and try to form an opinion instead of deferring to experts all the time. Additionally, the best ones try to engage and connect with their students socially. That’s more difficult if they are aloof because of concerns of repercussions / being unable to voice your opinion.
The problem is the desire to somehow separate and anesthetize political speech as this separate thing. The problem is that all of life is political. You can’t just anesthetize a part of your humanity. You can try to regulate the conduct around it but then you get back into the problems that causes as is well documented by the position paper (which is why no campuses try to enforce that). This whole effort feels like a slippery slope and the position paper is trying to make a valiant effort at playing referee to try to prevent the slope from tilting too much in any direction. Still, I don’t feel like they’ve quite got it. At least not in terms of expressing it objectively vs trying to rule by selective enforcement. Btw I happen to think a good administrator can actually accomplish this and I think that objective rules don’t really help that much here vs general principles you try to uphold but also allow you to apply discretion to each case and a strong well-calibrated moral compass and good advisors from all facets of life and professions to keep you grounded. But bureaucracy abhors discretion.
Given he is an Institute Professor Emeritus at MIT I have a sneaking suspicion that they're fully aware of that, and his work in history, media studies, etc.
I also suspect that when he taught he taught linguistics and grammar in classes to do with such things and left media analysis to other classes or the commons.
As per the outline above; stick to the course outline in course classes.
I would expect he would have an interesting idea on the link between language acquisition and the brain. It is rather easy to understand how the way we interact would be linked to the structure of our brain.
MIT already seemed to have much more narrow-experience libertarians than other schools I've been around.
If the bulk of the prestigious schools are perceived as "woke", are the angriest opposition to that going to disproportionately go to the prestigious schools perceived as "non-woke"?
Even if a school is more re-embracing a traditional university marketplace of ideas and collegial dialogue, while also learning to be much better than in the past wrt treating people fairly and being open to everyone... will there ironically be disproportionate applications (and admission) of students who're especially resistant to those aspirations?
Analogues that might be familiar from recent years: anonymous forums attracting the worst behavior, and "free speech" claimed as a battle cry by those who don't seem to have the lofty ideals behind that.
(To be clear, I think some of what I called "the angriest opposition" should be in a university marketplace of ideas. And that, ideally, their thinking evolves during a college journey, at the same time that their input helps evolve everyone else's thinking. The risk I'm concerned about is whether there will be so much "the angriest opposition" that it breaks the marketplace.)
I don’t think so. Unlike online forums, people attend MIT for considerations far more important to them than politics. MIT students are also typically less politically minded than other top schools
Both your points seem true to me. But the hypothetical effect I'm wondering about isn't as much due t the typical students, as to the disproportionate number of "angriest opposition" individuals who did select because "non-woke" was a big factor in their decision.
So, imagine typical students being non-political, but still a lot of students who are political, and specifically on the side of really stamping-out anything they perceive as woke (or not according to market principles, or oppressing generational-wealth white males, or whatever). And maybe not enough people around who are able and willing to engage them with counterpoints. To the extent that political action does happen, that sounds to me like it could push MIT culture in a bad direction.
It’s content moderation all the way down. The statement acknowledges there is no freedom in speech but the status quo. The bounds of content moderation are set by enforcement not statement. The driver of enforcement is power. For so long as any org protects its prestige it will serve whatever interests threaten prestige and thus wield power.
The value of a degree from MIT has just gone up considerably, IMHO.
The value of a degree from Stanford, on the other hand, has recently trended towards 'participation trophy'.
Here's some "Academic Freedom" from MIT: All staff and faculty who work in the United States must either be vaccinated against Covid-19 (including all doses in a primary series plus one booster when eligible) or have received an exemption by MIT.
I have never understood this type of statement. If you view some speech as a problem then you're just not for free speech.
If you're all for free speech, the "nazi at the bar" problem isn't a problem because free speech would allow you to battle it out in a propaganda (the neutral definition) war.
I don't think a whole lot of people are actually pro free speech, but I think a lot of people are afraid to admit that.
>If you view some speech as a problem then you're just not for free speech.
I strongly disagree. Support for freedom of speech means being anti-censorship. It's perfectly coherent to believe that particular speech does harm, and also should not be censored.
Suppose you and I are top medical researchers, and we disagree about the best way to treat a disease. It's perfectly coherent for me to believe that your speech is killing people by promoting a treatment which is suboptimal/counterproductive, and also believe that your speech should not be censored.
If person A's lies have clearly and demonstrably hurt person B's reputation, relationships, livelihood, and personal safety, should they have any recourse?
Semmelweis's lies demonstrably (according to contemporary experts) hurt the reputation of the entire medical establishment of his day. Fortunately, back then, they had the recourse to put him in an insane asylum.
I just did a bit of reading on wikipedia about Semmelweis, and I think there is an interesting wrinkle which is normally left out of the Semmelweis tale. The effect size from handwashing was huge, but even Semmelweis couldn't explain why it worked. Handwashing only ended up catching on later once we had the germ theory of disease.
I wonder if a good modern analogy for Semmelweis would be if we did a study on crystal healing or Reiki, and the crystal healing/Reiki was found to vastly outperform placebo pills. (Actually something like this sort of did happen with parapsychology. The effect sizes were pretty small I believe, though.)
Obviously in hindsight, other docs still should've listened to Semmelweis. What I'm trying to get at here is that sussing out the truth can actually be a pretty tricky thing. Even if the docs had somewhat good reason to accuse Semmelweis of spreading medical misinfo, it was still a catastrophic mistake in retrospect.
That's exactly my point though. Figuring out the truth is very hard, and often our best experts are wrong about extremely important things. If our best experts can't get such critical things right, who can we possibly put in charge of censoring misinformation?
I don't necessarily mean to indict the scientists of Semmelweis's day too much. I mean, they fucked up, to be sure. However it's understandable (somewhat) why they didn't listen to him.
But a society that allows those presently in power to censor information they consider to be false is a society that helps cement its present ways of doing things for eternity. I don't think that's a good thing.
A modern example of this might be the plaque theory of Alzheimer's disease. I don't know enough to know whether this is a fair description of the state of the science, but there is certainly a growing view that, a "cabal" of believers in this theory suppressed alternative views for a long time. It may end up being that the cabal is right! But it seems to me like there's enough uncertainty that a diversity of viewpoints should probably be heard.
I was talking about speech in the context of exchanging ideas, but you bring up a very good point. In an ideal world, lying would only damage the reputation of the lier.
One indicator of the quality (or lack thereof) of a society is how easy is to damage one's reputation without evidence. That's why the whole "Believe women" movement is complete and utter bullshit.
This problem has always existed, and the social standing of person A and the social standing of person B typically determined the outcome. Platforms such as Twitter where an unfounded claim can be spread so rapidly and to such a vast number of people are also a modern thing. There's no easy answer, but having the state as arbiter of truth is never the solution.
And in other contexts, you can imagine supporting the right of Communists to speak and organize even if you find Communism abhorrent and misguided.
Note too the benefits of allowing/supporting the right of [insert disliked political group] to speak:
1) You find out who is in that group when they speak (as opposed to them remaining anonymous/hidden online) and potentially address them directly
2) You might be able to question them to find out what led them to that position to prevent more people from going in that direction
3) You can be aware of the message that they are trying to send and counter it with more speech
In contrast, doing something like banning support for the Communist party is likely to lead to 1) more sympathy for Communism as an oppressed outgroup; 2) a lack of understanding of how extensive support for Communism is and what might be causing it; 3) the use of "Communism" as something that people can use to denounce each other as part of petty/unrelated feuds.
This is the second time I've seen this specific example in this context. Where are people getting this from? And why is it being used to counter "we shouldn't tolerate Nazis?"
I don't understand in real life how it would arise that two medical experts could be looking at data that contradicts each other so strongly that one could believe the other's treatment is suboptimal to fatal lengths without the recommended treatment being resolvable in a single conversation (research so inconclusive on either as to make both treatments suspect imo). Why would either professional be presenting a treatment as "recommended" without the strong caveat of "but others of my caliber think this recommended treatment will kill you." If said caveat isn't included, surely we don't want doctors going around giving such blatantly misinformative advice?
And again why is the "free speech " blanket always cast so wide as to include this? We aren't allowed to not have Nazis around without risking restricting medical debate? Smacks of slippery slope.
I wasn't using that example to counter "we shouldn't tolerate Nazis". I was using it to counter the sentence I quoted: "If you view some speech as a problem then you're just not for free speech." There's an important distinction to be made between speech I think causes harm, and speech I think should be censored. That's all I wanted to say with my thought experiment.
I actually do not believe all speech should be always be protected. I agree with the MIT statement that harassment shouldn't be protected. And it seems to me that e.g. expressing support for Hitler could credibly be regarded as harassment. (Same for e.g. labeling someone as a "Nazi" because they say the US should have stronger border security.) More details on my position here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34135283
> how it would arise that two medical experts could be looking at data that contradicts each other so strongly that one could believe the other's treatment is suboptimal to fatal lengths
It's happening right now (has been for 2 years) with COVID vaccines. Also permanent gender surgery performed on minors -- doctors performing them say they are saving lives, opponents say they are mutilating children below the age of consent.
I don't believe that your example is what the first amendment exists to protect, in fact if your hypothetical researcher is causing physical harm to people with their treatment, that's probably a criminal offense that has nothing to do with political speech.
Scientists and doctors regularly disagree with each other about which treatments are best for patient, how much heavily to regulate pharmaceuticals, etc. And who is right in those debates have far reaching consequences for human life. Thousands of people live or die every year based on those disagreements.
Ignaz Semmelweiss's life is the perfect example of this phenomenon in action, with extreme consequences:
He realized doctors were killing their patients by not washing their hands and cleaning their instruments. He devised simple solutions to this problem. The doctors of his day laughed him out of the room and had him committed to an insane asylum where he was effectively tortured to death.
The consensus of medical practitioners at the time was that he was a crank. But he was right. Should he have been imprisoned? Certainly the doctors of his day would have had him banned from social media for "misinformation" if they could have, and they did far worse.
We abide by the principle of free expression not because it causes the least harm in every instance, but because it causes the least harm in expectation. The value of minority viewpoints that are right about important things that the majority is wrong about will always outweigh the harm of harmful speech, in aggregate. And one thing is clear from all of human history: We are not responsible enough to tell the difference ex ante.
Supporting free speech doesn't mean that you support absolute free speech without any limitation. We all have a lot of rights, and exercising those rights can impinge on the rights of others. Why would freedom of speech be somehow special and trump every single other right?
I don't know in English, but in French we have a saying: the freedom of some begins where the freedom of others ends.
I assume it would be obvious, but perhaps I'm mistaken.
Free speech in the USA is (supposed) to mean the freedom to do political speech without state ramifications (I'm not sure how well this constitutionally works for private companies). This obviously doesn't count credible threats, telling people to riot or be violent, etc.
Basically you have a right to offend people short of targeted harassment.
*This is obviously an oversimplification but I'm giving the HN the benefit of the doubt here, however misguided that may be.
> Free speech in the USA is (supposed) to mean the freedom to do political speech without state ramifications
I hear this a lot, and it's not actually true. That's what the first amendment means. The first amendment protects freedom of speech, but it does not define the concept of free speech as a whole, it just protects a form of it.
It annoys me when people assert that being silenced by a private entity doesn't actually limit freedom of speech, because they argue that the freedom isn't being restricted unless a government is doing it. I'm not necessarily for unrestricted free speech (because it often ends up being loud and obnoxious, and often silences other speech when it becomes a shouting contest, especially on the internet), but this very specific interpretation that the US Constitution's first amendment actually defines free speech has always bugged me as something logically unsound.
It seems to me that far too few "have the courage to use [their] own understanding," and that many would willingly abdicate intellectually to external authorities, provided the opportunity to do so without incurring social costs. A culture of open, potentially adversarial, discourse is incompatible with systems of thought which devalue the individual's capacity to reason, and so that culture itself is routinely undermined.
Almost no notion of free speech considers an absolute freedom to say whatever. Almost all conceptions of free speech deny the freedom to promote manifestly false and/or terroristic ideas (promoting killing a specific person, for example, almost no one considers protected speech). Always the problem is not whether there is a line, but where to draw it.
The war of ideas is a game where the goal is to get the most amount of people to adopt that idea. No part of this is removing someone's ability to speak, but they may not be listened to by the masses that don't like their ideas.
Ironically the US explicitly noted this problem when the German constitution (in the part occupied by the allies) was drawn up. So they basically introduced free*
*no nazis or similar.
Seems entirely reasonable and this whole "it isn't free if there isn't anarchy" sounds very naive.
Me and my friends are not interested in finding a new bar just because of some stranger’s abstract belief that we’re the ones who should leave when a loudmouth Nazi shows up.
Responses to this argue that when obnoxious nazis show up, we should just act like the nazi, using violent speech if necessary (tell him to "fuck off").
I don't know about you all, but personally I'm interested in participating in civil society most of the time. I don't want to have to get into a violent debate with swearing with fucking nazis, the same I don't want to breath toxic fumes or drive a car to work. I vote for bus stops, I vote for carbon taxes, and I similarly want to leverage our societal mechanisms to not have to act as an individual agent in the ideological war against fascism every single day.
I've learned that obnoxious nazis have an advantage by violating the peace treaty terms of civil society and tolerance, because by definition they don't hold themselves by such rules. Meanwhile those of us that are just trying to live our lives still have these rules and values and are hesitant to abandon them to deal with the nazi for many reasons, not the least of which being we don't want to sink to their level. Not to mention, it's exhausting. For whatever reason the nazis get their rocks off to it, and thus it's less exhausting and more exhilarating. Fine. But the whole point of society is to rubber-band away things like that to create a community of people who at some basic level maintain a level of civility.
When nazis show up, they violate the civility, they violate the peace treaty, and the solution shouldn't be "let them keep walking in and doing it and re-doing the fuck-off debate every time," but rather, close and lock the doors to them, because they've already told us who they are and what they're about.
An oversimplified example: your carpet shop has a rule: no shoes on in the shop. You come in with shoes, you get thrown out. A guy shows up with a shirt on that says "My value is to track as much mud on as many carpets as I can in my life." Do you let him in the door?
>>An oversimplified example: your carpet shop has a rule: no shoes on in the shop. You come in with shoes, you get thrown out. A guy shows up with a shirt on that says "My value is to track as much mud on as many carpets as I can in my life." Do you let him in the door?
The problem isn't that there's a line at which it becomes ok to remove yourself from, or them, forcibly.
The problem is that line has to be very very extreme, which is why you're using the Nazi example, but it's being applied to very non-extreme things, which is why so many people disagree with you.
People say "paradox of tolerance" when I bring this up but I don't understand the purpose. Yes, And?
> The problem is that line has to be very very extreme, which is why you're using the Nazi example, but it's being applied to very non-extreme things,
It's being applied to the intolerant, as intended. There are intolerable philosophies being openly discussed on mass media (tucker Carlson restating great replacement theory, matt walsh calling for police to kick down the doors of drag performers). Openly white nationalist and fascist people are showing up in towns to harass and intimidate people. In this environment, when the system is failing to not tolerate these intolerant beliefs, or in the case of white nationalism especially, actively enforcing the intolerant "right" to promote their viewpoint, the peace treaty of tolerance has been broken, and those of us you'd describe of "tolerant" stop applying the rules of civil society to the people breaking them in front of all of our faces.
And at WORST the outcomes for these intolerants is they have to change venues for a university talk, or, get a Twitter ban, for which capitalist society handsomely rewards them with talk show appearances and podcast shows.
> People say "paradox of tolerance" when I bring this up but I don't understand the purpose. Yes, And?
It has a name and using that name allows for more succinct communication. It's also a way for those who are unfamiliar with the paradox of tolerance to realize it's a thing so they can look further into it if they so choose.
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For the rest, it's just a lot of rationalization for why you think you should be able to prevent people from saying things. And you try to hang it on the paradox of tolerance as a justification.
But it's not really, the lesson from the paradox of tolerance isn't that the tolerant must become absolutely intolerant to protect themselves, it's that they cannot be absolutely tolerant.
The line where intolerance needs to kick in for protection shouldn't be "someone said a thing", but should instead be "someone did a thing". Those like yourself who try to use the paradox of tolerance to rationalize your views are treating tolerance/intolerance as a binary rather than a spectrum.
And finally,
I'm a minority myself and have been called racial epithets. I remember the KKK coming into a nearby town and holding a rally back in the 90's. People were pissed off, but even then I defended their right to have the rally. My recommendation to everyone was just don't go. Imagine if they held a KKK rally and no one showed up, how hilarious would that be?
I would be no more ok with minorities attacking KKK members than I would be with KKK members attacking minorities. There's an equilibrium and fairness there that doesn't exist with words. If it's not ok for KKK members to tell a black person they're inferior, is it not ok for a black person to tell a KKK member they're inferior?
This obviously won't convince you as you're not thinking rationally, but that doesn't make the above any less true.
There’s a difference between being able to speak and being offered common platforms even when they’re available, versus someone loudly disturbing everyone around them repeatedly who did not choose to attend an event, and which is not in a public or semi-public space.
The proprietor of the bar isn't required to let them use it as a platform for their ideas, and given that Nazi is not a protected class, they're not required to even let them inside. They can turf this hypothetical Nazi out on the street and let them rant out there.
What? Of course there is, in the United States and many other countries. Protected classes are explicitly defined by the Civil Rights Act, Americans with Disabilities Act, and others. The bar owner can't refuse entry to a person because they are of a certain ethnicity, for example. But they absolutely can refuse entry to them for being a Nazi, or for any other attribute not protected in law.
Sure. What's your point? Your original comment seemed like you were trying to rebut my point that the Nazi (for literally any definition of Nazi you care to use) can just be removed from the bar. But it seems like you are not trying to rebut that, so I'm confused what this subthread is actually about.
> One could set up a dress code or any other arbitrary policy as a proxy to refuse entry to any group, without explicitly doing so.
Not in the US you can't. If a policy, even when applied equally, unduly affects a protected class, it's unconsitutional.
For example, if a restaurant enacts a "no headwear" policy it's still unconstitutional because by and large this is primarily going to affect the muslim population (and a segment of the jewish population), but will have very little effect on anyone else.
If the policy was instead "no headwear with words on it" the policy would NOT be unconstitutional because it does NOT unduly affect a specific group of people.
There are other exceptions, of course, generally around security. You can imagine a bank not allowing the full covering of ones face for security reasons even if that does appear to target people who wear burka's day to day.
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so long story short is that it's not super simple, but in the US you absolutely cannot try and get around it by proxy and there is established law on how to identify this.
But Free Speech does end with speech - vandalism and terrorism are already illegal, do we really need to prohibit everything that could potentially be a step on the path to illegal acts?
That’s getting darned close to precognitive law enforcement…
Free speech can be used as the crowbar to motivate enough people to commit acts of vandalism and terrorism. Yes, those are illegal. Do you need something that can prohibit that? If you don't want to have a '6th of January' groundhog day every couple of years then that might make some sense. Let's see what the final outcome of that is. My prediction: if it isn't dealt with forcefully the only thing that will happen is that it will continue until they get it done.
~200 years of American history disagrees with your premise that Jan 6th is inevitable ‘every few years’.
The problem with deciding that ‘nazis’ don’t deserve free speech is that you won’t always get to decide who is a ‘nazi’ or what ‘nazi’ speech looks like.
In case you failed to notice: the last 8 years have been a very serious departure from the last 200 years as a baseline.
Note that the parties that are arguing hardest for free speech are exactly the ones that are the subject of discussion. You might wonder if they have a stake in the outcome of that debate. Personally, I'm not at all concerned that 'the state' will meaningfully abridge my speech (in part because there is no history of them doing that without a very good reason and in part because NL never had absolute free speech to begin with though we do have the concept of 'freedom of opinion'). But I am concerned with the speed with which wannabe Nazi groups and actual Nazi groups are able to convert people en masse to their cause, including voting them into public office where they are already doing damage. If you haven't noticed that then you're forgiven but realize that in many countries this is not just a theoretical debate but harsh reality.
Also, a person with crazy ideas with no one to talk to but other similar people due to restrictions on speech and debate is not likely to become MORE sane or LESS resentful.
It rarely ends with anything else. Most people are all talk and will back down if confronted in a nonphysical way. If they are going to resort to fisticuffs they are going to wind up in jail for it.
Not when they are in groups. And that's the first thing these people do: get organized so they're not longer just by themselves when aiming for confrontation.
That’s where the whole metaphor breaks down. Those are actions that law enforcement is supposed to deal with. Any aforementioned bar patron who just let “the Nazis” at the bar exist is in no way culpable for not having stopped them somehow.
Preventing literal fascists from seizing power is a collective responsibility that cannot be offloaded - both morally and practically - to any single institution. Especially law enforcement.
> 1,600 of these German scientists (along with their families) were brought to the United States to work on America’s behalf ... Von Braun later became director of NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center and the chief architect of the Saturn V launch vehicle, which eventually propelled two dozen American astronauts to the Moon.
The statement says "MIT does not protect direct threats, harassment, plagiarism, or other speech that falls outside the boundaries of the First Amendment." So if the nazi at the bar starts threatening or harassing people, they're out.
If I were writing the statement, I probably would've added "intimidation" in that sentence. Then I'd kick the nazi out if they're using slurs, or if they self-identify as a nazi (e.g. wearing a swastika).
It gets tricky though, because if you add "intimidation" then someone can say "people who disagree with me are intimidating me". (I suppose they can also say "people who disagree with me are harassing me" with the current policy.)
My basic approach for dealing with this problem would be to utilize the fact/value distinction. Free expression of fact statements is much more important than free expression of value statements, because knowing the truth is important.
The threshold for censoring a value statement, like "The lives of <X people> don't matter" or "<X people> should be enslaved", should generally be lower. If someone claims that such a statement intimidates or harasses them, their claim will often be credible.
But for a fact statement, if someone's notion of "harassment" is so broad as to make it impossible to express a particular factual claim without engaging in "harassment", I'd say they're not complaining in good faith.
It's OK to argue that a particular delivery of a factual claim constitutes harassment (e.g. if the delivery is peppered with slurs). But the complainer should always be able to re-express the factual claim in a way that makes it no longer "harassment" to them.
But the definition of Nazi is fleeting, since there is no more National Socialist party in Germany and american problems are different.
In France we do limit free speech legally, especially around anti semitism and walk a fine line. For instance a man said "Islam is the stupidest religion on Earth" and was found innocent in court: he can insult a religion or a God, as long as he didnt call for people to be hung. But another said "Heil Israel" in a comedy piece to mock, in his view, how Israel was behaving like its former oppressor. He was censored and it started a long list of sentences in court as he persevered on that line of thought. He's considered by his supporters as a victim of political correctness.
It's hard to decide what to do: on one hand, it's interesting to express views that challenge common acceptance, on the other, it's not a big cost to shut up and move on when society decides the cost of letting you speak is too great a threat considering our history.
To avoid that Nazi at the bar "problem", first decide what the problem is: that people speak or that people listen. If you cant accept they speak, you must define limits to speech (that s the French model and we are clear some things simply cant be said, period, so shut up and move on). If you can, then you must educate your population so that merely listening to hate speech doesnt trigger hate. That's been the american model, and we never believed it can actually work: after all, you elected a man who was against elections, for instance.
Free speech at a university is important. Sure it opens the door to regressive ideas, but it also opens the door to progressive ideas, which may be equally counter-establishment. A university is a place where these all ideas can, and should, be discussed and debated.
Free speech in a bar, or any other business environment, though is out of place. Because the primary goal of a business is to make money, and creating disharmony and antagonism seldome leads to better business.
In other words free speech is useful, but there's a time and a place.
Bars for example like to attack a hermogenous crowd. Happy people drink more, break less. If 10% of the patrons start spouting off racism, or mysogeny, or whatever, then the rest won't fight it, they'll just leave. If it happens a couple more times they'll stop coming back.
So bars are typically quick to remove people, or ban people, with a history of strife. You don't have to go as far as Nazis, all you need is a few guys being obnoxious about, say, eating meat.
Free speech is not "saying whatever I want, wherever I want, to whomever I want." there's a time and a place. A university campus is a great place, and also (for typical college age people) a good time.
Devil's advocate; MIT and many other universities are technically businesses. And they have become more and more like businesses with each passing year.
So in this case, would complete free speech be out of place by your metrics?
In the case of MIT, which is a 501(c)(3), but also sits on a multi-billion 'endowment'.
Clearly universities have "personality" (as do all business's) and that factors a lot in which university I choose to attend. I expect a different world-view in say Alabama compared to say California.
I might steer clear of Berkley as being too hippy, and choose Alabama or Mississippi instead.
But I also expect that a business in the business of sharing ideas is open to new ideas. If I want to discuss a gun-free society at Alabama State, then i might be in the minority. As a professor my students won't appreciate it in my physics lecture, but I might form a student group against guns etc.
So yes a university is a business, but the business of ideas, and censoring some ideas seems like that makes it a bad business.
There are very few universities that hit this mark. That being said, MIT might actually be one of them.
My understanding of the situation is that most universities accept federal funds, which have a bunch of strings attached. One of these strings is allowing freedom of speech. This is why communists couldn't be banned from campuses back in the 50s and 60s, or the speech codes of the 80s and 90s failed.
This doesn't apply to universities like Harvard or Brigham Young that take zero federal funds, but the vast majority of them aren't going to pass up the money.
Generally, you let them get drunk and then throw them out.
This “Nazis are everywhere” thing is a manifestation of busybody administrators and isn’t a real problem. Even if it were, it doesn’t require Byzantine declarations about approved speech.
People need to grow up and not get offended so easily.
At my university there was a "Free Speech Club" that put on a panel of eugenicists and alt-right people who advocate for fascist actions. While the amount of noise Nazis make is disproportionate to their population, it doesn't take that many people to create a social change, for better or worse.
> it doesn't take that many people to create a social change, for better or worse.
It doesn't, but this brings up an interesting question. Is it legitimate to limit speech to prevent social change? I'm sure there were a lot of pro-segregationists that would have loved to prevent the social changes of the 60s and 70s. Would you legitimize their attempts, in exchange for having more tools to fight nazis?
Generally you'll want to head them off at Normandy before they make it down to the pub.
To put it another way, the problem of Nazis is not a problem of free speech. It's a problem of people who are actively violating other people's boundaries.
Nazis love it when you make it about speech because then everyone starts arguing tautologies instead of investigating and prosecuting criminal behavior.
I think there are two fundamental approaches to the highly objectionable views questions. Either: ensure the space is free of nazis by removing the Nazis from the space, or: ensure the space is free of Nazis by convincing people not to be Nazis. The first requires no engagement, the second requires engagement. The first has guaranteed results, the second is uncertain.
> The first requires no engagement, the second requires engagement
(1) people are innocent until proven guilty
(2) if one group is judge, jury, and executioner that's a problem
(3) authoritarians seek to quell dissent by censoring
(4) removal/ejection/ostracism from group is censorship
(5) contrary to your assertion removal/ejection/ostracism is a form of engagement
(6) in fact within the realm of free speech r/e/o is the most extreme form of engagement
(7) this is because it is the quashing of that ejected person's ability to freely express themselves
> The first has guaranteed results, the second is uncertain.
(8) hard disagree, the first is guaranteed to generate all sorts of backlash (perhaps not the results wished for)
(9) the second is guaranteed to generate debate, exactly what authoritarians and the censorious dislike
(10) ps: (quibble) the “Nazis” were terminated with extreme prejudice in 1945, any variants thereof nowadays are neo-Nazis
===
All the above is transparently obvious to me. It concerns me that in a so-called liberal society many clearly are either unwilling or are unable to see that everything I have outline is true in all cases. The fruits of this ignorance are all around us.
show me the point in my chain of reasoning where i defended "free speech at all costs"
to my mind i made a very reasonable defense of "free speech even for speech i find objectionable and disagree with but ultimately must tolerate in the interests of the inviolable principle of freedom of expression for all not just for my bubble" – that's the position i'm arguing for and nothing more.
"at all costs" != "free speech even for speech i find objectionable […]"
"at all costs" goes far further and is not something i am arguing for
> is unlikely to work.
i'll go one stronger – “free speech at all costs” cannot work. but that's fine because that's not what i'm arguing for. what i'm arguing for ("free speech even for speech i find objectionable […]") must work because that's the foundation a free society is built on. otherwise, all bets are off and the spoils go to those most willing to use covert and/or draconian measures to achieve their ends
If there are enough of them the Nazis may end up removing you. The idea is to reduce the spread of Nazism not only by convincing those that have already been corrupted but also to limit their ability to do the same to others. Without that second component it's a losing battle, new converts will be made faster than you can convince existing ones to drop their mental garbage.
There's no law that says Nazism will spread until it is stopped any more than there is a law that says Anti-nazism will spread until it is stopped. There is probably a maximum mass that can sustain such a dumb ideology.
> There is probably a maximum mass that can sustain such a dumb ideology.
I've read my grandmothers' diary, she had quite a bit to say about the previous time people underestimated the size of that maximum mass. There are very large numbers of people that will be happy to sustain such a dumb ideology if it is presented to them in such a way that it presses the right buttons. Fear is a very powerful motivator, as are frustration and jealousy and clever people will be more than happy to take advantage of these facts to push their revolting ideologies.
There’s no evidence anything can stop Nazism. Trying to stop it through enforced speech could very well accelerate it.
More effective than fear of government punishment is shame. Few care about pissing off the government in this country so that seems like a non-starter.
It certainly didn't work in Europe, where most countries have anti-extremist speech laws, and many specifically persecute open manifestations of Nazi ideology and symbolism.
But, well, there's still a neo-Nazi march in Berlin pretty much every year. And it's larger than Charlottesville one was.
Oh, we have plenty of evidence that some things can stop Nazism. The question is if you want to dedicate another couple of 10's of thousands of acres to war graves.
Yes, probably a continental landmass the size of Russia, or the USA represents its physical limit. Philip Dick presented a couple of dystopia visions of it, not all of which have been filmed yet. Yevgeny Zamyatin another. Although more correctly a totalitarian police state, than Lindbergh's or Henry Ford's vision of judenrein.
I wonder, why is the focus always on Nazis and not on say, Communists who also have a history of creating violence, death, and destruction? Why do we not equally focus on shutting down voices calling for enforcing absolute economic equality, or dividing people up into classes? Why is free speech less important in only one of these cases?
Because there are no modern Nazis, so they're a perfect straw man / boogeyman.
But most Western countries still have actual, real communist parties so you can't paint completely crazy pictures of them, because their members will simply raise their hand and say "no we're not like that at all".
Usually because the participants in these debates are not from countries where communism is right now a major issue. Though if that were the case I'm pretty sure they'd be worried about that too. And the two are not necessarily mutually exclusive either.
There seem to be more people calling themselves communists and supporting communist ideas in the USA, than there are who promote violence toward minorities. And I do mean actual or very-near communists, not people who want a social safety net and health care.
Although of course, attempts are made to associate broader and broader statements with extremism, such that even having an immigration policy at all is interpreted as racism, so the number of supposed racists is dramatically inflated.
If the right similarly broadened it’s interpretation of statements, 80-90% of the country could be claimed to be communists, for supporting the most minimal state assistance of the poor, which almost everyone does support at some level.
> There seem to be more people calling themselves communists and supporting communist ideas in the USA, than there are who promote violence toward minorities.
Scary that this even needs to be stated.
Universities are supposed to be places of dialogue and disagreement, but too many students these days are “offended” by speech they don’t agree with and administrations cave in
While I've been happy to see the MIT Free Speech Alliance come alive I'm disappointed that their web site doesn't list a specific set of current or past free speech issues and the advocacy they would have adopted for each.
Key people involved in some issues might include e.g.
* The MIT Chinese Student and Scholar Association, its funding sources, and its key advocacy areas
> "A much-anticipated report on MIT’s actions in relation to the case of Aaron Swartz, a young computer programmer and Internet activist who committed suicide in January, finds no wrongdoing on MIT’s part."
Lindzen doesn't raise any. He's retired, and speaks only for himself. He's an embarrassment, but there are no issues there.
Ito? No attempt has been made to silence him.
Stallman isn't a speech matter either. His behavior was off putting enough that women were choosing to change their careers to avoid having to deal with him, so now he and his FSF have to do their thing off campus.
No, he made some far fetched statements that people (rightly) objected to. But since the consequences were not satisfying to some, he was falsely accused of sexual harassment on account of his views. Yes, saying that minors should be able to consent to sex with adults is something that a lot of people, including myself, are disturbed to hear. That said, calling this sexual harassment is unambiguously a false accusation.
If you want to freak out the MIT administration and see just how much 'freedom of expression' is allowed, then start a movement to open-source / free-license all of MIT's patents and other intellectual property (all of which were funded at least in part with taxpayer dollars).
That's a lot more significant - and at the heart of what's gone wrong with American academics, i.e. the corporatization and privatization of public resources that's erased long-standing traditions of open sharing of research results - than any of this social justice warrior hysteria stuff that the media likes to talk about.
Really, try to get Lex Fridman, noted MIT-based podcaster/Twitterer, to invite on a guest to discuss the corporatization of the university system - and the related exclusive licensing of MIT patents - in the United States, in which institutions like MIT and the University of California have played a leading role.
Looks promising, but let's see how this is interpreted in practice: we unfortunately live in a world where the statement "I like Harry Potter" can be weaponized into the "direct threats, harassment" excluded from freedom of expression. (Why? Because JK Rowling doesn't think transwomen are real women, so if you support her writing, you are clearly denying that that trans people have the right to exist.)
Fortunately, Rowling is uncancellable in practice, so she can keep on fighting to maintain the rights of women to have single-sex spaces without worrying about what a bunch of anti-women activists think.
As eloquent as she is, JKR isn't just talk - she recently founded an Edinburgh-based centre to help women who have been sexually assaulted, giving them a safe, female-only space for support in a crisis. It's heroic work, and alongside her many other charitable contributions, I'm glad she's doing such good in the world.
That claim is a strawman of your invention, but here's the backstory on Rowling, complete with a long list of Hollywood celebrities including Harry Potter stars dissociating themselves from her:
What I got from your reply is that even you don't believe your previous statement we unfortunately live in a world where the statement "I like Harry Potter" can be weaponized.
I wasn't too fond of the books when they were first published (showing my age here), and I don't feel a need to reread them. But here's the fun thing about stories: you can find whatever you'd like in them. As a reader, you are allowed to put part of yourself into the story; it is no longer just the author.
If you want Harry Potter to be a story about queerness, it is yours to make it so. If you want it to be a story about the problems of British education, it is just as much.
A billboard she offered to fund, but in the end did not. Not that it matters, a selfie of herself smiling in front of it was sufficient evidence of thoughtcrime.
Without linking, there’s no value to that statement as the reader can’t evaluate whether those statements are true, leaving out significant details, or representative of some trend.
Pedantry would be trying to make some kind of unnecessarily fine distinction like arguing that the situation was totally different because the person claimed to be a Harry Potter super-fan.
This is basic media literacy of the type taught to school children. Without a source, we don’t know whether anyone is even talking about the same thing or evaluate how trustworthy it is. People write lots of things on the internet and since search engines customize results there’s no guarantee that anyone will get the same result.
This matters because someone who is confident that they’re honestly representing the facts rarely needs to be evasive. When you see so many people commenting about something which they assert is true but won’t even name, it’s usually an in-group shibboleth which they are not confident will stand up to scrutiny.
"can be weaponized" - not "has been" - is a pretty big disclaimer. Threats & harassment are (sadly) quite common on-line. And "speaker getting cancelled"is your criteria, not rippercushions'.
In any case, a "Looks promising, ... in practice." sounds like a pretty reasonable reaction, these days.
As a non-American these SJW movements terrify me. Because like spreading democracy these movements will be used to justify invading other countries. Hollywood and the woke media apparatus will prime the American suburban class how the regime needs to be changed to protect your favorite oppressed minority class. Or at the very least Americans will be provided opporunities to feel good about themselves. Your country, America, is killing innocent people in other countries; but don't worry, feel good about yourself by using proper pronouns for the new they/them celebrities.
Doesn't reject the fact that attempts were made to do so. The threat of cancellation is very real regardless [0], and not everyone is able to make it out unscathed like JK Rowling.
Boycott used to be a necessary and lauded aspect of American democracy and free markets.
Now it’s been relabeled “cancel culture” and the public are fascists for denying a person here and there oodles of figurative prestige.
A minority of elites sure have the masses convinced “canceling” a rich person is the true threat to democracy.
The end of a society is nigh when the elites are fighting to preserve their power to exploit the masses carte blanche. We grow their potatoes; not the other way around, and don’t you forget it!
JK Rowling was not cancelled in any way. Gawker Media however, was, by a deranged billionaire who abused the legal system to exact revenge on a gossip-oriented news site and its entire media conglomerate. "Cancel culture" to the degree that it exists as any kind of actual threat to free speech is squarely a right-wing endeavor.
> Gawker Media however, was, by a deranged billionaire who abused the legal system to exact revenge on a gossip-oriented news site and its entire media conglomerate.
Gawker Media wasn't cancelled; they intentionally violated a direct court order.
Maybe you should be arguing that the court should not have ruled against Gawker in the first place, or arguing that the court should not have directed Gawker to cease the publication of nonconsensual nudes, or that the court should not have brought the hammer down when Gawker continued its publication of nonconsensual nudes.
> I'm curious why you think it is okay to publish nudes of someone against their will.
I in no way stated or implied that that is OK in any way. such practices are vile and disgusting as was the outing of Thiel.
However, a "first amendment violation" , neither incident was.
"free speech" means, as we are reminded constantly by right wingers when they are denouncing "cancel culture", "speech that we despise is also free". Gawker in no way violated the first amendment. Right wing billionaires who claim to be things like "free speech absolutists" are full of it and will use any tools at their disposal to silence and "cancel" speech they don't like, including using their billions to abuse the justice system, launching torrents of frivolous lawsuits against media companies that published a story they didn't like (but had no legal basis to challenge).
Again, "a free speech violation occurred" is not my point.
my point is, billionaires saying "At last! free speech!" like PG did when he retweeted this MIT annoucement are completely full of it. They would like right-wing speech, ideas like "Black people are less intellectually capable" to be "free", which means "welcomed into the discourse without constraint", whereas any media company they don't personally like should be sued into oblivion. Gawker's fate only began when Peter Theil decided to target tens of millions of dollars at suing them into oblivion, waiting for something to stick. It quite plainly set a precedent that such actions can be taken by any billionaire whenever they want. Billionaires like Theil, PG and quite plainly Musk do not give a flying f** about "free speech". it is their speech they care about. And they should be widely challenged on this.
Gawker was not fined $140 million for violating a court order. They were sued for damages by Hulk Hogan and Hogan could have sued for the same things even if they had complied with that order, and I am not familiar with what basis there is to claim this lawsuit would not have been brought or successful if they had complied; even if unsuccessful, Theil's goal was to continue flooding Gawker with lawsuits until they went out of business, and this is most certainly an abuse of the legal system.
I did not say she was cancelled (in a successful sense), I said there were attempts to get her cancelled. Again, while her attempted cancellation wasn't successful, the fact that such an attempt even happened in the first place is mortifying. We live in the 21st century, witch hunts should not be a thing anymore.
Furthermore, I get the sense that your dismissal of JK Rowling's attempted cancellation is a thinly veiled attempt to dismiss or minimise the notion that "cancellation" is an actual phenomenon. People have their lives physically harmed and their livelihoods threatened because of this. People have committed suicide because of this (if you did actually bother to read the comment you were responding to). If that were your intent, you should take a good look as to whether you're consumed by the culture wars or not.
The notion that cancellation is exclusively a right-wing phenomenon is bollocks as well. Countless leftist academics have been successfully cancelled for their views. Oftentimes, their views were (mis)interpreted and misrepresented by their attackers in a fashion that requires the complete obliteration of reasoning. In fact, if you actually check the statistics from FIRE, 60% of the cancellation in academia came from the left, although 40% from the right is non-trivial as well. As such, the threat to free speech is indeed real, regardless of your political affiliation.
Lastly, I'm not based in the US or any part of the anglosphere. From my outsider's point of view however, the imminent threat to free speech in the "1984" sense is coming from the left. I spent two years of my time watching how Donald Trump and the republicans made a complete joke out of the US. I watched in utter shock at the atrocities and lunacy that they were capable of. In the next two years however, I observed an equivalent form of lunacy that was emerging from the left. This is no thanks to the influence of big tech, academia, and the left-wing media, whose global reach is far more prevalent than that of Fox News. From then on, I watched as more institutions in the west were ideologically captured, sacrificing their function for "social justice". While they are not the government, they are the cumulation of every power aside from the government. We've seen how big tech can rival the power held by congress. That, plus the media, academia, public and private institutions combined, is capable, and is exercising that power in a manner that is starting to look 1984-esque. What seems to be successfully driving this trend is the left's inability to discern social justice from "critical social justice". In other words, my calculus assignment easily runs circles around Robin DiAngelo's entire academic career and intellect. However, her books are selling like hotcakes. Make what you want out of what I've written.
I think the main strength of this activist movement in academia is that it operates through fear. In an environment where much depends on word of mouth and personal reputation, people could lose their entire careers for violating new, rapidly transforming cultural mores. So, they self-censor, and some voice support for the activists to avoid becoming a target themselves. (Cue the 60-year-old professors who have never used Twitter putting pronouns in their email signatures and adding '#BLM' messages on their personal websites.[1]) The overall effect is that a minority can extract the obedience of a majority.
Public statements like this will have little effect unless they are actively enforced. This means that violators must be officially sanctioned by administrators, who are often their peers. It's clear to me that most academics (including myself, I'm ashamed to admit) are cowards who will bend their public positions, even on academic matters, in favor of whoever wields the greatest power. Not until activists are met with stern opposition and loss of prestige will people stop currying favor with them.
If, though, I am wrong in my assessment and most academics and students, rather than a dominant minority, wholly believe that offensive utterances must be punished and unsavory research banned, I think there isn't much left to do. Any official action, let alone the posted public statement, will only galvanize people to seek out more aggressive policies and oust those that oppose them.
There are real stakes in this conflict, and right now, activists in academia (hard sciences) are pushing in my view really significant policy proposals.
From MIT geophysical sciences department:
1. Penalize (during peer review) research that doesn't cite black authors.
2. Implement diversity boards that have final say in hiring and tenure decisions. (They need not have field expertise.)
From several Broad Institute faculty and post-docs:
1. Restrict publication of genetic research in white populations until genetic sampling of other populations around the world reach parity.
2. Ban white researchers from conducting genetic research in populations in non-white countries.
3. Ban genetic research that can be stigmatizing to designated vulnerable populations (e.g. genetic component of educational attainment, the genetic architecture of autism, etc.).
[1] For clarity, these two relate to first-hand examples of professors making statements solely out of fear of not being able to attract students their labs/departments.
>This means that violators must be officially sanctioned by administrators, who are often their peers.
There is a bit of a paradox here, because you could argue that cancelling a professor for having an unfashionable opinion is itself an exercise of student free speech.
The statement says "MIT does not protect direct threats, harassment, plagiarism, or other speech that falls outside the boundaries of the First Amendment." It seems to me that certain forms of cancellation could be argued to constitute "harassment" and therefore violate the policy.
Those are indeed some extreme policy proposals. Perhaps you could argue against them anonymously on the MIT subreddit or something like that? (Posting through Tor/VPN on a burner account)
>If, though, I am wrong in my assessment and most academics and students, rather than a dominant minority, wholly believe that offensive utterances must be punished and unsavory research banned, I think there isn't much left to do. Any official action, let alone the posted public statement, will only galvanize people to seek out more aggressive policies and oust those that oppose them.
This suggests an alternative measure: Instead of focusing on freedom of expression, focus on providing a means by which students/faculty/etc. can be polled on these proposals in a way that is robustly anonymous. Sounds like you believe that if the poll favors the extreme measures, there's nothing to be done anyways.
>[1] For clarity, these two relate to first-hand examples of professors making statements solely out of fear of not being able to attract students their labs/departments.
I'm surprised that professors at MIT of all places need to grovel this way to attract students?
> There is a bit of a paradox here, because you could argue that cancelling a professor for having an unfashionable opinion is itself an exercise of student free speech.
No, it's curbing the professors speech. If students allowed the professor to speak, but held their own counter speech or protest march then that would be an exercise of free speech. Preventing another person from speaking is disruption, not counter protest.
Counterspeech was what I meant by "cancellation", e.g. dragging them on Twitter with millions of views, making it so no one wants to hire them for their next gig.
These don't seem like particularly new restrictions, vs past ones around communists.
The proper left wing still doesn't exist in american academia or society
... Citing black authors would be much easier if historically black academics were allowed to become academics, write papers, etc. These are forcing functions against prior suck.
>... Citing black authors would be much easier if historically black academics were allowed to become academics, write papers, etc. These are forcing functions against prior suck.
Historically blacks weren't allowed to play sports either. When the color barrier fell, they flooded into sports like basketball and baseball. No affirmative action was needed to achieve representation.
When the US supreme court upheld affirmative action decades ago, they stated it was a temporary measure which would probably be rendered unnecessary as time passed. That hasn't happened -- in fact, just the opposite. Affirmative action students tend to major in "culture studies" type disciplines, then get diversity/equity/inclusion type jobs. At those jobs they are basically paid to advocate for further affirmative action in one form or another.
It's not a forcing function against "prior suck" -- the past can't be changed. It's a forcing function to further grow the ideological snowball.
> The overall effect is that a minority can extract the obedience of a majority.
Seems like a distraction: a minority of Americans want to ban abortion, yet, abortion remains illegal for a huge portions of Americans. A majority of Americans want weed legalized, yet, many thousands are in prison for using weed.
Maybe some people changed their twitter bios, to me that doesn't mean "a minority has extracted obedience from a majority" at all.
I'm deeply suspicious of your tone here. I try to take HN claims at good faith, but frankly your 5 points of evidence come across to me as ludicrous. The best good faith I can muster here is that this isn't completely made up fear-mongering but rather some ungenerous interpretation of events you've witnessed in academia. The writing style red flagged me:
> Penalize (during peer review) research that doesn't cite black authors.
This makes it sound like there's some kind of policy requirement for citing black authors that people are being penalized for not meeting, a sort of citation affirmative action. What we're missing is, is that true? Is there a policy? What does it say? What does "penalize" mean? What was the research? Was it geophysical research into fracking outcomes? Was the reviewer wondering why a specific piece of research by a black author that indicated that negative effects from fracking were being experienced by poorer neighborhoods wasn't included? What kind of context are we not getting here?
> Implement diversity boards that have final say in hiring and tenure decisions. (They need not have field expertise.)
Is this true? final say? If a diversity board rejected a candidate for being "white," there'd be no consequences? Really? Your parenthetical inclusion is pointing to the blatant fear. So, your geophysics department hires a prominent Vietnamese architect that knows nothing about geophysical sciences, and that's a realistic thing that could happen, is what you're implying. Huh.
> Ban white researchers from conducting genetic research in populations in non-white countries.
I have an extremely hard time believing that MIT has a rule somewhere that defines what a white researcher is, empowers some kind of authority to determine that when reviewing research grants, and then also goes to define what a "white" or "non-white" country is.
I'm so suspicious of your affected-detachment writing style that I had to delve into the comment history.
> This is an oversimplification. It started out as: all things being equal, pick the black one. It applied to cases where one was torn between two equal candidates, and the idea was that a nudge toward hiring more blacks would help fix the disparities that arose from years of segregation and racial prejudice. The issue was that the standard for success of this program was racial proportions being equal to that of the general (or local) population.
> As years passed and the standard for success was not reached, affirmative action policies became more and more aggressive. This coincided with civil rights legislation that put pressure on companies and institutions to hire more blacks (expanded to include other racial minorities and women). The consequence is the system we have now, where people, if not explicitly using racial quotas, are creating racially oriented jobs (e.g. diversity staff in large companies / universities) or searching for racially loaded standards (e.g. personality scores for Asians in Harvard admissions) in order to engineer an overall impression of meeting racial proportioning criteria.
Can I ask about your casual way of talking about the race of people? Very rarely do I find someone that says "black ones," "more blacks," etc, that doesn't have distasteful beliefs about race. You're careful to capitalize "Asian," and you have a lot of comments dancing around genetic basis for race. I only delve so deep and analyze so carefully because it seems to me you are wicked smart, and somewhat careful, and my conclusion is that you have deeply unpopular ideas about races and that you are smart enough to know not to share explicitly but also want to warn about so as to avoid negative racial consequences, whatever those are (I'm guessing something smarter than vague "great replacement.") Basically, I think you have racist beliefs, and are carefully trying to discuss them here, or fear monger about them. Do you? Or perhaps, beliefs you think society "unfairly characterizes as racist?"
pre-post edit: (i forgot to hit reply and found this on my computer later)
> Some kids are more capable and more driven than others for reasons part cultural and part genetic, and the perceived quality of a school will reflect that of its students. ... Though this notion is distasteful to some, it must be addressed because otherwise, schools and teachers are going to be put on the hook for conditions that are simply outside their control.
> When I was in high school, one student's parents (one doctor and one lawyer --- very financially well-off) took off work for one year just so they could claim having no income on the FAFSA documentation. She got accepted everywhere, winning across the places she applied over $300,000 in scholarships. The upper-middle class and wealthy can easily game this.
> Edit: I should also add that the student and both parents were black. This probably played a large role in the offers.
We've banned this account because it has been using HN primarily for ideological battle. That's not allowed here, regardless of which ideology you like/dislike. It's not what this site is for, and destroys what it is for. Past explanations here: https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme....
Two things can be true at once: you can abhor the beliefs of others and support their right to express those beliefs. This is because limiting the expression of beliefs will inevitably cause broader global harm to a society as a whole down the road.
While I could link to hundreds of example, this one example (out of hundreds) that occurred at a university is example of offense culture taken to extreme and weaponized:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lynching_of_Mashal_Khan
Just the implication of possible offense caused this incident. Sure, the main culprits had other ideas, but the mob was there purely due to supposed offense. If you dare, you are welcome to look [1] the videos of the incident, it's horrifying.
And as a proxy, you can also guess just how guarded and buffered speech here is, and yet such events happen.
This is a slippery slope, and just because this happened for a few decades in the West doesn't mean it can't happen at all. And it's not the just the left, January 6 has shown that the American right are threat vector also..
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[1]:https://twitter.com/search?q=Mashal+Khan+until%3A2017-04-14+...
Needless to remind you, it contains some NSFL material, I only linked because I think some education of reality is in order. This is the extreme end for the tolerance to offense.