Comment by frotak | Hacker News Reader

Comment by frotak | Hacker News Reader

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You're missing the thrust of the argument entirely.

The author does not advocate validating factually invalid statements - see his anecdote in the second article linked in GP regarding "whether or not the economic collapse was caused by poor black people":

"I gave a quick response about how most experts would disagree with that assumption, that it was actually an oversimplification, and pretty dishonest, and isn't it good that someone made the video we just watched to try to clear things up? And, hey, let's talk about whether that was effective, okay? If you don't think it was, how could it have been?"

In other words - in the case of "bunk" it can be summarily dismissed with a proper basis. Which is entirely different from vilifying and personally attacking a person for their beliefs or thoughts which are doing no actual harm to anyone else. People can have bogus ideas and those bogus ideas can be completely harmless no matter how much you might find them distasteful.

Viewpoint diversity is entirely about bringing different perspectives and experiences to bear on a subject.

It works in the hard sciences: https://www.quantamagazine.org/20151124-kadison-singer-math-...

Why shouldn't it similarly be applied in areas of morality, ethics, social science, etc?

I think the parent is on to something about the implications of the argument, although it is not how the post's author would look at it, of course.

To really understand an argument, one has to start with its subject. Are we talking about viewpoints or people? What the blog post author focuses on is people:

> Me: Now lets try it for politics. How many of you would say you are on the right politically, or that you are conservative or Republican?

This is a fundamental misunderstanding of how discourse is conducted and should be conducted. People are not on the right politically, conservative, or Republican. People are people, and each might hold or articulate viewpoints or opinions that are on the right politically or conservative. They might be a member of the Republican Party. All of these are elective and potentially temporary.

The whole point of discourse is that viewpoints, opinions, and memberships can change. So to start by framing those as elements of identity needing protection, feeds directly into a framework for discussion that is conflicted. If a discussion must validate and protect all viewpoints (conservative or liberal), then what is going to be discussed?

IMO the right way to approach this situation is to explore the potential consequences of voicing an unpopular opinion. Often, they are far less scary than teenagers might suppose. We should focus on how to give each individual student the mental tools to effectively evaluate arguments, and to manage their anxiety about going against perceived social norms.

Teaching kids to be brave in speaking up against prevailing opinion can help create positive outcomes throughout their lives. We want citizens who will speak up for what they know is right, even if they know they will face trouble.

> We want citizens who will speak up for what they know is right, even if they know they will face trouble.

I thought your comment was really good, but I don't think this conclusion is quite right. The problem is that lots of different people "know" that lots of different things are "right". In my life experience (read: I have no data on this), we don't seem to have the problem that not enough people will "speak up for what they know is right" because they fear trouble, we instead have the problem that not enough people are willing to challenge themselves on what they "know" is "right".

Sorry for all the scare quotes, but my point is that the entire idea that people can know that things are right, and then speak up for those things, is off-base. Certainly, it's a good thing to have a sense for what you think is right, and to be able to speak up for those things, but it's a much better and much harder thing to be open to being convinced that you are incorrect. That's what I don't see much of in our society, and what all schools, and universities in particular, should do a better of imparting to their students! Instead of teaching people to better manage their anxiety about speaking against perceived social norms, we would be better off improving peoples' skills of hearing things they disagree with, and of structuring their own arguments such that they don't drown out that disagreement (for instance, the all too familiar tactic of yelling and/or ranting continuously).

Replying to myself, because I've found that my comment ended up supporting the original article, at least in part, which I didn't particularly like or find myself nodding along to.

I guess where I find that I agree with the author is that we could all use to do a better job of really listening to different opinions. But where the author was targeting that advice at the "victims" who shouldn't shout down their "oppressors", in my experience it is more often the case that people with brash opinions that tend to offend people are the ones who "know they are right" and are unlikely to really hear the other side.

But I suppose there is plenty of closed-mindedness, lack of charity, and stubbornness to go around!

>Viewpoint diversity is entirely about bringing different perspectives and experiences to bear on a subject.

Yes this is what I understand, too. Let me say, for the record, I think diversity (race, creed, gender, color, tint or hue) is important. And bias on those things doesn't belong on campus. But campus isn't group therapy, either. It's a place like no other where we're supposed probe the universe and try to find the answers. Diversity in that context should be in the service of that mission, not in the service of balancing faction which is what the OP is all about. Balancing faction is a slippery slope, set it aside.

Look, are you trying to help the bad people spread their bad ideas? You must be on the side of the bad people!

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