The Neurodiversity Case for Free Speech | Hacker News Reader

The Neurodiversity Case for Free Speech

quillette.com

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The trend of outrage posses armed with pitchforks and torches in politics, gender debates and whatnot is particularly worrying for those of us that need some slack and don't deserve to be crucified by an angry mob because we used the wrong word or said the "wrong", e.g. politically incorrect thing; even as most of that crowd of the offended know very well no actual harm was intended, they still choose to dramatise the situation for their own political or psychological needs.

This is why I defend freedom of speech and freedom to offend, because I know that I am somewhat on that autistic spectrum and can say things that might offend some people, and that even though those people know deep down inside there was no the intention to hurt or say bad things, they still want to make a point out of it. Having a strong feeling about something doesn't make you right. Emotional drama can make you an asshole, too.

I can pretend this is merely about ideological matters, but in all honesty, my stance likely finds its true origin in my own neurological "layout" and life experiences – as probably counts for anyone who has a strong opinion about something.

People who are somewhat on the autistic spectrum tend to have an affinity for rationality and some difficulties with emotions and "group-feel", and it's sad that this irrational polarising climate isolates them more and makes them avoid others as much as possible.

We really need to get away from this mindset of: the other side is wrong and they are nazis and hence deserve bad things happening to them and we will get you fired and come and rape you and an angry soapbox SJW will piss in your shoe.

It's the 21st century, get your shit together, no matter what side you are on or what crazy thing you believe in.

I can't shake the suspicion that these things are manufactured in some way. A kind of "color revolution", or an advanced form of "think of the children".

You have overgeneralized the description so it's meaningless.

Those with coprolalia also say 'the wrong word or [say] the "wrong", e.g. politically incorrect thing; even as most of that crowd of the offended know very well no actual harm was intended', yet they do not receive the "pitchforks and torches" treatment, to repeat the phrase that you have to "dramatise the situation for [your] own political or psychological [need]."

You are, of course, talking about metaphorical torches. Those marching with real torches recently had very different views.

I defend the freedom of association, which is a necessary balance to the freedom of speech. Without both, there is no liberty.

Is the hypothesis that seems important for the article - that civilization was mostly advanced by lone neurodiverse geniuses - actually true? Sounds dubious, but who knows. At least modern science seems to be a very collaborative affair.

Was there ever a poll or study to find out if university faculty as a whole actually is scared to offend people or threatened by some hypothetical PC police? I would imagine that the debate is only relevant for the social sciences anyway, since you shouldn't have opportunities to offend people in more technical subjects anyway.

Civilization is advanced by a collaboration of many, many people.

Yet, often some novel ideas come from people who not only have them, but also - are not afraid to talk against mainstream assumptions. I go into this topic in http://crastina.se/theres-no-projects-like-side-projects/ (with examples of: Albert Einstein, John Bell, John Carmack).

Some of the drier subjects in my CS degree were considerably enhanced by quirky lecturers at least trying to make a joke here and there.

Did you read the bit in the article about teaching feedback?

To be clear I am not arguing for the right to make racist, sexist jokes etc in a place of work. I am pointing out that if I was in the neuro-diverse lecturer's shoes, fear of offending somebody I don't know for reasons I don't understand would probably dampen my teaching style.

No, but it mainly points out that some of the people which are globally seen as geniuses that advanced the world, with names that are written down in the history books - Newton, Einstein, Jobs - all had neurodivergent disorders.

It indicates that those people wouldn't have fit in in modern universities, but I don't know enough about those people, whether they were politically incorrect or whatever. I know Jobs was a dick (based on reading a biography), but again, not sure if that would've been different if he lived in the age of college speech rules or code of conducts - I think he wouldn't have given a fuck and would've done his things regardless.

The article mentions Newton too, who, or so I read recently, published some pretty blasphemous stuff - e.g. agreeing with the Copernican view of the universe - but managed to add some nuance and such at the end of his treatsie, making sure to point out that God works in mysterious ways and such.

"Newton, Einstein, Jobs - all had neurodivergent disorders"

There are many people who claim that.

Is it true?

Because every time I've looked into it, it comes across as wishful thinking. It's almost like "<famous person> paid attention to detail and didn't have a normal social life so must have been on the autistic spectrum." What are the diagnostic tests for evaluating neurodivergent disorders of historical figures, and how accurate are they?

Next, I don't know how you can say those people "wouldn't have fit in in modern universities".

First, there's the obvious problem the historic Newton of 1700 could not be employed by a modern university, so you mean something different than that. What do you mean?

Second, there are two issues: going to college as a student and doing research at a college. Jobs went to Reed College for two years, but unlike Einstein was never a professor.

Third, Einstein went to the Swiss Federal Polytechnic. Einstein was able to live under the strict policies they had in 1896. Why wouldn't the modern Einstein not be able to live under the modern Harvard restrictions?

("Strict policies"? I quote from http://www-history.mcs.st-and.ac.uk/HistTopics/ETH_history.h... :

> the Polytechnic's governing bodies maintained strict discipline and punished transgressions accordingly. Polytechnic students were not granted the same freedom as their University counterparts, both with regard to academic matters and expected code of conduct. As a result of these differences a rivalry between the two different cohorts developed, which even led to duels [5, p. 106-109]. In 1881, partly due to a petition by its alumni association GEP, the Polytechnic revised some of its regulations. Students were given more flexibility in their final year of study, ... More comprehensive reforms were only implemented in the early 20th century.

That is, even during Einstein's time, the Polytechnic required stricter discipline than Swiss universities at that time.)

"The article mentions Newton .. agreeing with the Copernican view of the universe ..."

You have confused Galileo and 'Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems' with Newton.

> Newton also wants to publish Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica, to explain the laws of motion governing the universe. But his literary agent explains that he can’t get a decent book deal until Newton builds his ‘author platform’ to include at least 20k Twitter followers

Is this really a thing? Can authors nowadays be required to have a strong social media presence?

If you're a Harvard professor, you'll find someone to print your book. No worries.

For others, it could obviously be something that makes it easier to find a publisher. Not because it somehow proves your PC-credentials, but simply because it's sort-of proof that you have an audience.

Harvard has its own press for this sort of thing. They produce all sorts of books with tiny print runs.

I think the main thing is "a decent book deal". Most authors do not have these. Most academic books are not read outside of academia. Even a book that gets published and does well within academia (gets on many courses reading lists) will not give the author an income.

A decent book deal is the very rare book that is both used in the academy and which goes mainstream - something like A Selfish Gene, or a Carl Sagan.

I'd say that nowadays, anyone can be an author - which is the problem. Without marketing or going viral, whatever shit one writes will go nowhere. It's not enough to write something good, it needs traction.

Which also means why bad writing also becomes popular - more marketing / traction.

There is one more hidden bias, which (IMHO) have much stronger impact for aspies - application forms and grant proposals.

Even though officially it's all about merits of accomplishments and ideas, almost always there is an expectation to deliver it in a form of "sales pitch". So, any honest and straightforward presentation is unlikely to stand a chance with one full of "soft bullshit" (e.g. promises to cure cancer, create universal quantum computer, etc).

Not only that, as you undoubtedly know, but the implicit social expectations and judgments are strongly present even in supposedly objective areas such as courts of law.

I don't remember all the specifics and I've lost most of the references since then, but I've read some research on this, and regardless if you are a victim or accused for a crime, if you have ASD you are at a massive disadvantage.

One example: Research appear to show that while people with ASD commit violent crimes at about the same rate as the general population, they are incarcerated at a much higher rate. I've seen numbers between 2 to 4 times the incarnation rate.

This article already fails with it little thought experiment. Because if there's one thing we can probably agree on it's that freedom of speech today is larger than it was in 17th century England.

Since he was able to publish back then, he would be able to publish today.

Other than that, this is just the slippery slope again, although I appreciate that they throw in Newton–considering he's arguably the inventor of the slippery slope.

The Newton example is not about free speech but rather his behaviour, actions, and perceptions of non academics. The example given implies that he would be able to publish, but he wouldn't be able to get a decent (i.e. well promoted, popular) book deal. The example of Newton at the beginning of the article is a little thought experiment where we consider how having odd or off coloured views, or behaving strangely is treated differently by the outside of the academy. Such a thought experiment leads me to think that in the 17th Century it was easier to be a genius, odd, socially awkward mad professor than it is now. I don't know what it was actually like back then, but I do know that today the academy is in the spotlight more than it was when I was in it.

But it's a really bad example. In real history, Newton was able to keep quiet about views that would have gotten him fired and possibly imprisoned. Most of the "weird" Newtonian stuff the author is referring to are things Newton kept private, not stuff he published; we only know about them because of work done by historians in the 20th Century.

In particular, we know from Newton's private writings that he had strong Unitarian tendencies (that is, he doubted the validity of the Trinity). Had he made those views public, he would certainly have been fired and possibly suffered worse. (By the late 17th Century, it was illegal for Oxford or Cambridge to hire or even teach people who weren't proper Anglicans; denying the Trinity would have put Newton into this category.)

It's also a bad example because "Greek alchemy, Biblical cryptography, fiat currency, Jewish mysticism, or how to predict the exact date of the Apocalypse" are not the sort of thing which are censored by even the most ardent proponents of political correctness today.

They might expose him to ridicule, but that's actually an integral part of free speech, as well as being far less onerous than the explicit bans on the religiously unorthodox having any involvement in academia in Newton's time

Thank goodness we are still able to make the case. The only alternative to free speech is violence. I want to be able to hear what the alt-right has to say, what Islamic extremists have to say, what misogynists have to say, etc.

Hoping that's not a sarcastic comment (it's hard to tell online).

I want to be able to hear what all those people have to say, so I can try to persuade them that they're wrong.

> so I can try to persuade them that they're wrong.

I think this is really difficult, but a worthwhile goal. In all honesty my goal would be to understand where they are coming from and help turn them or future generations from such course.

Not sarcastic.

Yes, persuade people they are wrong where they are wrong; learn from them where they are right (we are all fallible). Persuade other people that they are wrong; teach other people where they are right. Plus an unlimited number of other possible responses.

>I can try to persuade them that they're wrong

That assumes you know what their ideas are. If present trends against free speech continue, it's not a luxury you're necessarily going to have.

Yes, learn from people where they are right as well - +1 to that. It might be that they're none of the horrible things people claim and are just victims of unfortunate name calling or mud slinging.

The problem with the parties mentioned in the grandparent comment (nazis, alt-right, islamic extremism, and on the (claimed) other side of the spectrum, antifa, SJW's, environmental extremists, etc) is that their claims are often backed by emotions (we hate $demographic), but said claims also incite a strong emotional response (often from one's morals - e.g. you should not be racist).

Emotional responses is not logical discourse. Also, morals, norms and values are very hard to change. I mean most people - including you I believe? have a moral saying "Murder is wrong". I don't know how to convince you to change that moral.

But, when it comes to issues inciting a strong emotional response, that becomes easier. "It's wrong to punch people in the face" becomes a much more flexible norm when said person is a nazi. "Murder and the death penalty are wrong" is a norm that becomes looser when it concerns someone that raped your child.

TL;DR, persuading someone off their values and moral codes is not trivial. Those are things that take a long time, gradual and long-term campaigning, subtle cues of acceptance. They do work, mind you; 70 years ago, homosexuality was a crime and the punishment was castration (Turing), nowadays it's much more accepted and gradually becoming normal.

BTW, since you mentioned him in another comment, Einstein was an SJW.

Pure BS. Newton wouldn't be able to publish through a modern Harvard because nothing would be new. Recall too that the publication of Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica was completely funded by a private party, Halley.

"Sooner or later, he would say ‘offensive’ things that get reported to Harvard and that get picked up by mainstream media as moral-outrage clickbait."

Again, BS. Newton was an anti-trinitarian. He believed that worshiping Christ as God was idolatry. And he was a fellow at Trinity College. Had he mentioned this, he would have lost his job, at the very least. (It would have been a powerful weapon for the Leibniz side during the so-called calculus wars.) He even managed to get the job requirements for his position changed so he wouldn't have to lie about his beliefs.

Instead, he kept his heretical ideas secret that it wasn't until long after he died that others had an clue about them. In other words, "picked up by mainstream media as moral-outrage clickbait".

He was used to it then, and he would be used to it now.

> Pure BS. Newton wouldn't be able to publish through a modern Harvard because nothing would be new.

It's a thought experiment. Hypothetical modern-day Newton would have some hypothetical novel discovery.

> Instead, he kept his heretical ideas secret that it wasn't until long after he died that others had an clue about them.

It's true that Newton kept some of his religious views secret, but he made other controversial views known and was widely regarded as a misanthrope. Had modern university speech codes existed back then, Newton would have likely been fired over some controversy. As a result, science would have advanced more slowly.

That's the article's core argument: University speech codes filter out many eccentric geniuses, reducing the quality of ideas and slowing scientific progress. It's something I hadn't considered before, and I'm hard-pressed to find a good counterargument. It's definitely not dismissible as, "Pure BS."

Do you really belief a 17th century university didn't have "speech codes"? Just as a hint: to become a professor at the time, you had to be an ordained priest.

Edit: From Wikipedia: "In April 1667, he returned to Cambridge and in October was elected as a fellow of Trinity. Fellows were required to become ordained priests, although this was not enforced in the restoration years and an assertion of conformity to the Church of England was sufficient. However, by 1675 the issue could not be avoided and by then his unconventional views stood in the way.[20] Nevertheless, Newton managed to avoid it by means of a special permission from Charles II"

I don't know why this is downvoted when it's obviously correct about speech codes: Newton's own Cambridge banned Catholics until 1871.

I don't think the ordainment requirement is true, I think it's the other way round; the universities were founded in training people for ordainment.

It's a thought experiment using an ahistoric Newton as a straw man to fit the argument.

An argument by an author who likes to make lists of famous people who are conjectured to have Aspergers ... I write "conjectured" because most of those assignments seem more based in hope than any historical reality, as pointed out in the comments to the essay.

Thought experiment: university speech codes allow other types of geniuses. Modern science is highly collaborative, and misanthropic lone geniuses like Newton will do little to advance most fields, but much to retard them by creating an environment which rejects geniuses that don't wish to be in a misanthropic environment.

See, BS handwaving is easy!

To follow up, Newton can be characterized various ways, including "English academic around 1600", "possible Asbergers", and "possible asexual".

The argument is something like "Newton was neurologically atypical and the Newton of the 1600s couldn't manage the speech codes at modern Harvard therefore the speech codes at modern Harvard discriminate against the neurologically atypical."

However, replace "neurologically atypical" with "English academic around 1700s", which could include Hooke, Boyle, Halley, and many others. Would they be able to be at a modern Harvard? I suspect not all of them would.

On the other hand, the author lists many scientists "who seem, given biographical records, to have been on the autism/Asperger’s spectrum." Two are Barbara McClintock and Alan Turing. I selected them because I have read biographies about their lives.

Would they be able to be at a modern Harvard? Almost certainly.

So it's not obvious that rejecting Newton implies rejecting all those who are on the autism/Asperger’s spectrum.

I can't remember all the details, but didn't Newton out his predecessor as an anti-trinitarian, and thereby get his job via a witchhunt over something that he himself believed?

... No? I mean, I could be wrong, but who are you thinking of?

The previous (and first) Lucasian chair was Isaac Barrow. Quoting https://www.britannica.com/biography/Isaac-Barrow :

> Fully cognizant of the young man’s talents, Barrow resigned his professorship in 1669 in Newton’s favour and accepted a position as royal chaplain in London. In 1673 Barrow was appointed master of Trinity College by King Charles II.

> Although Barrow was regarded by his mathematical contemporaries in England as second only to Newton, he was more widely esteemed for his sermons and other writings on behalf of the Church of England, and these were often reprinted well into the 19th century.

I looked it up, it was his successor, not his predecessor, and Newton merely remained silent:

"It is a blot on Newton's record that he did not murmur a word when Whiston, his successor in the Lucasian Chair, was thrown out of his professorship and out of the University for publicly avowing opinions which Newton himself had secretly held for upwards of fifty years past."

John Maynard Keynes: Newton, the Man

http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/history/Extras/Keynes_New...

Thanks for looking that up. I did not know that. It also supports my argument that Newton was able to keep private matters which would have caused moral outrage in his era.

The article is unreadable on Chrome on Android; after load is complete, the related-articles div fights with a pop-in div for control, both of them rendering repeatedly on top of each other and continually yanking the scroll to the bottom of the page.

It's funny how you're arguing a case where an angry mob "crucifies" the poor sap who accidentally used a wrong word, when the actual event that kicked off this debate was an actual angry mob, with real torches, honest swastikas, and loaded semi-automatic weapons who not-so-metaphorically ran over a completely non-threatening young woman.

The people marching and screaming "Jews will not replace us" also don't strike me as the autistic type abhorring "group-think", considering their enjoyment of shouting hateful slogans in unisono.

And lets not get into your contention that these peoples' only fault is somehow being "too rational". Just take a look at any photos from that rally and decide for yourself if they seem to be the sort of people who got an extra helping of rationality. Hint: some of them have face tattoos.

This was posted on the 18th of July. The Charlottesville rally is not relevant.

Edit (previous, sarcastic comment below): I belief it is disingenuous to try to discuss such issues without addressing the elephant in the room. I also felt the imagery (angry mob/pitchforks/etc) more than subtly pointed in that direction.

In addition, I feel there are two mechanisms in play here that undermine an honest debate: First, there's a glut of people insisting they're only defending "free speech" and not supporting people such as those at that rally. It reminds me of the "movement for ethics in game journalism" that had nothing to do with misogyny, no sir.

Secondly, the debate is moved to some other subject where people will agree with the idea that it would be absurd to, for example, censor something like the Principia Mathematica. That agreement will then, in turn be used to defend things that are definitely not scientific masterpieces. The underlying idea is, once again, the slippery slope, or some sort of inability to differentiate things that are obviously different.

(Previous reply mocking the objection regarding the timeline: "At the moment I posted, my post did not yet exist, nor did your objection to it. Therefore, I will refuse to take it into consideration.")

Oh, sorry, I thought you believed the article was written about Charlottesville due to its chronology, but instead you think that the article literally implies support for Charlottesville through its content.

Can you explain to us how an article that makes a case against 'speech codes' that hurt neurodiverse people within Universities relates to free-speech at a far-right rally?

  * * *

Edit:

  > That agreement will then, in turn be used to defend
  > things that are definitely not scientific masterpieces.

Okay, I partially agree with you here. I've actually written a comment about this very recently [0].

This doesn't mean I'm against free speech. I believe that in many cases 'speech codes' have created environments which have lowered the level of discourse and radicalised people.

But 'absolute free-speech' creates terrible spaces. What I want is for people to look at the consequences of the environments they help to create, and make choices depending on the outcomes they wish to achieve rather than merely being ideological about principles like 'free speech'.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15037749

>First, there's a glut of people insisting they're only defending "free speech" and not supporting people such as those at that rally.

I'm sorry but I'm really having a hard time understanding your reasoning here. Are you really suggesting that the majority of people on HN who are defending the right to free speech of the neo-Nazis we saw in Charlottesville are doing so because they actually agree with the message those neo-Nazis and white supremacists are spewing? If this is what you believe, then please just come out and say that anyone defending this type of speech is in fact a neo-Nazi. You talk about mechanisms that undermine an honest debate but in the very next sentence you essentially argue that anyone in support(I'm adding an edit here to clarify: I mean support for the right to this kind of speech, not support for it's actual content) of this kind of objectionable speech is a Nazi in disguise. That certainly seems like undermining the debate to me. I don't like this kind of character assassination in disguise. Either be willing to call people out as Nazis and white supremacists, and back up your assertions, or give them the courtesy that they might be taking a stand in defense of a principle they actually believe in regarding speech, even in cases where they disagree with contents of said speech.

I personally don't believe a reasonable person can be a neo-Nazi and thus I have very little interest in arguing or engaging with these types of people. When it comes to free speech I tend to fall on the side of having fewer restrictions on speech, although even here my views aren't really set in stone and do change on occasion. With that being said, unlike my views on Nazism, I do think reasonable people can disagree on the issues of where to draw the line on speech. Again, while I personally fall into the less restrictions camp, I don't think its unreasonable for someone to want restrictions on certain types of speech and thus I don't automatically assume those arguing for these restrictions are authoritarians in disguise. If you think this makes me a neo-Nazi I would prefer you just come out and say it, this is of course in the interest of "honest debate".

Edited for spelling and grammar.

> defending the right to free speech of the neo-Nazis we saw in Charlottesville

I have become suspicious of which kinds of speech and which contexts people choose to become vocally defensive of.

In the context of "what can you say without being fired by your employer", there are people fired every week for trying to organise unions at work. Somehow there isn't the same outrage from HN at those people having their free speech impaired.

(Random example in case people claim this doesn't happen: https://patch.com/new-jersey/newarknj/newark-workers-alleged... )

It's not that people supporting the free speech of Nazis are transitively Nazis, but people doing so ought to take a good hard look at themselves and why they choose to spend their time and energy on this cause rather than others.

Not to mention that there really are a lot of dedicated Internet trolls constantly probing the velociraptor fences of exactly how close to Nazi ideology they can get on any given platform without being spotted.

Can you support the claim that there is no outrage from HN when people get fired for trying to organize unions at work?

It seems similar to the claim that there is no outrage of the thousands children dieing to car crashes each day, but a single adult person getting killed in a submarine is world news. Does that mean that people do not care when children are killed?

  > But people doing so ought to take a good hard look
  > at themselves and why they choose to spend their time
  > and energy on this cause rather than others.

I somewhat agree with this but I think it's generally due to people trying to protect their rights or political position in one area by fighting over another. There are situations where I think it's clear that people have ulterior motives but generally I think what we see are people sparring on political events ill-fit to their particular arguments.

For example, people that dislike the moral righteousness, views and political violence of antifa generally have a similar or greater level of hatred for nazis, but yet when there is a clash between them they are desperate to say "antifa are also terrible". If they don't say this, they feel that it is tacit support for antifa and for political violence. It's the worst time to say this in terms of messaging (serious context/subtext issues), but there is a large audience watching and they feel that they must get their message out.

We're in a strange situation where we have to continually distance ourselves from words and ideas. We can't say "there are two sides to this" because Trump said that and it is 'moral equivocation' [0]. We can't say we're 'centrists' because people call this tacit support of nazis and will point and laugh that we consider ourselves 'radical centrists' (a desperate attempt to seem cool while standing for nothing or whatever biases they are least conscious of).

Pacifism has always been hated. And moderation was never cool. I think we should reclaim these words and perhaps try to convince people to pick their moments better when trying to persuade other people that these things are good. As the saying goes "Is this the hill you want to die on?"

[0] I personally believe that the frame of good/evil is a childish "two-valued orientation" that closes the mind to deeper thinking and to finding a mutual understanding of the world.

Interesting, so now we've gone from labelling people Nazis if they vocally defend specific free speech rights, to being suspicious that they might be Nazis if they don't vocally defend other specific speech rights, speech that may concern topics that might never get to the front page of HN resulting in widespread discussion?

Again, personally I tend to fall on the side of the government having less ability to restrict speech but it doesn't really bother me if companies want to restrict the kind of speech their employees can engage in at work, or what kind of speech they'll allow on their platforms. This gets trickier in cases where the companies might have businesses that approach what I would consider a utility, but that's a different topic, and really that has more to do with regulating companies as utilities.

I'm not positive in this, but I do suspect that if stories like the one you linked found themselves on the front page for hours at a time, perhaps if some Googlers tried to unionize and they were all fired, we would probably see quite a few people be defensive of their right to speech. I doubt we would see a complete overlap, but it wouldn't surprise me at all if we would see some overlap in the posters defending their speech rights with those defending the speech rights of neo-Nazis. I suspect we might also see some posters who think all Nazi speech should be outlawed but think this kind of unionization related speech should be protected.

You're of course correct that these topics do tend to bring out the trolls, but on a site like HN I tend to find it relatively easy to identify trolls, even if not through a specific post they make, a quick glance through their posting history often reveals whether they are engaging with the community in good faith.

A quick check reveals a discussion of Amazon unionization, which has no mention of speech at all. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14566059

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7559869 somewhat old, one comment saying "It will be interesting to see whether the people rallying to Eich's free speech rights despite his homophobia will be similarly impassioned about rallying to yours despite your rejection of serfdom."

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14905937 Nissan: not very highly voted, probably never made it to front page. No mention of speech.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14973506 fired for speaking at DEFCON: astonishingly, nobody bothers with the "free speech" argument.

> suspicious that they might be Nazis if they don't vocally defend other specific speech rights

If someone only bothers to make the "free speech" argument in that context? I'm going to infer some things from that.

Those are all good points, and I don't have much to rebut.

I guess the only thing I still take issue with is the notion that so much can be inferred not just from which topics people comment on but which ones they don't. Especially if that inference comes with the tacit accusation of Nazism.

Again, going by my own experience, I tend to be pretty limited in the topics I comment on. There are a couple of reasons for this. First, I don't have a ton of time to browse HN so the most likely topics for me are those that are on the front page long enough for me to see. Second, I'm no where near knowledgeable enough to comment substantively on the more technical topics, which leaves me with the more social/political ones. At the same time I don't want to get into the habit of commenting extensively and only on those topics since I don't think that's good for the community. Thirdly, if I'm being honest here, my lack of education and poor writing ability is a constant source of embarrassment, I try very hard to formulate my ideas into coherent comments and I suspect it takes me much longer to do this than it does for the average HN user. I try not to make quick low effort comments, but the alternative requires a pretty serious time commitment on my part.

The main point I'm attempting to illustrate here, possibly quite poorly, is that I already feel I have to be very careful in my commenting. This isn't a bad thing, it's arguably what makes HN's comment section so much better than anywhere else I've found, but after your comments I now also feel like in addition to making sure my comments aren't too political, or that I'm not only commenting on political topics, and that my arguments are actually coherent, again all good things to think about when engaging with a community, I now also have to think whether someone might mistake me for a Nazi because I commented on one topic and not on another.

This of course is by any measure a pretty meaningless hardship, there are much bigger worries in life, and while I don't think I add much to the HN community, I think we should be extra careful when accusing others of being Nazis. It carries a fairly heavy social penalty, in most places at least, and rightfully so, and can make people more hesitant to speak. I'm not saying this is something you've done, in fact I usually recognize your username and you definitely aren't guilty of this, but I've seen quite a few comments over the last few weeks implying that anyone standing up for certain free speech rights, and in this case I'm specifically referring to government action regarding speech not corporate action, is siding with Nazis.

Sorry if this comment is somewhat rambling.

> I have become suspicious of which kinds of speech and which contexts people choose to become vocally defensive of.

It's because that is where other people want to throw away things like 'equality under the law' and other such important things, you don't have that for people fired for trying to make things better for other people. Imagine if someone said "just arrest them" for people trying to organise a union, it would be absurd. Yet this is what happened with the Charlottesville thing. People were just reacting to the comments that were destroying legal concepts like "innocent until proven guilty" and "guilt by association". I.E it is a reaction to insane attacks on free speech that originally provoked the defensiveness in the first place.

Also, any comment that was for free speech got dishonestly attacked. There were misrepresentations of what people said, commentators pointing out petty things as if they were really important when they were not, and arguing that random historical thing that isn't relevant anymore is the basis to throw away someones legal rights.

I don't think you're a neo-nazi. The problem is that with the arguments being made, everyone has plausible deniability because they're only defending X because of his right to free speech, or because he's trying to fix the ethics in game journalism.

But I believe that taking the comments, and stories getting votes, in the last weeks in aggregate, there's a statistical signal that requires mention.

To add to the excellent example of pcj50: I think we've seen something very similar with the treatment the "Google diversity memo" story got. If you check the stories that were upvoted on HN (https://hn.algolia.com/?query=manifesto&sort=byPopularity&pr...) you'll see that they're >90% in favour of what's written.

Now there's obviously the possibility that this memo was simply right, and it was just the reasonable thing to support the author. But I'd like to point out that:

- We saw the same, repeated, deference to "free speech", i.e. an attempt to frame support for him as some sort of higher principle (similar to the previously-mentioned "ethics in game journalism", or even Saturday's right-wing rallies in Boston etc. also invoking "free speech").

- There was a tendency to invoke "science" in support of him, just as the comment that started this thread invoked some sort of autistic super-rationality as the root cause of some unspecified "non-PC" comments. This ignored both scientists criticising the memo's content, as well as the first argument brought up by every single opponent: confusing what is with what ought to be, or (in other words) the nurture-vs-nature debate.

- The author's subsequent choice of associating mainly with a very specific segment of the media, namely men's rights and alt-right outlets. If I were asked to explain my views on react.js' licence by, say, Breitbart, I would refuse.

There are other such incidents. I think this community gave much harsher treatment to Marissa Mayers, Ellen Pao, and Elizabeth Holmes than similar cases involving men, although there are obvious difficulties because each failed company failed in it's very specific way. Jason Kalanick arguably has more defenders than they had (but Uber is arguably the greater achievement), and Mt. Gox's CEO somehow never got the sort of personal focus that Holmes got. I wish I could come up with a way to measure these things.

I appreciate you taking the time to respond and agree with your point about the whole plausible deniability angle, and how problematic it can be.

With regards to the algolia link about the "Google diversity memo" that was actually really interesting to me for two reasons. First, I too am somewhat surprised at the number of upvotes some of those articles received, to be honest some of them seem really poorly reasoned irrespective of how one might feel about the whole issue, and secondly, because despite visiting HN daily, and usually checking in a couple of times a day, I can't remember seeing many of those articles. Is there any way to tell how long they remained on the front page?

I don't want to imply that programmers sit in front of their computers all day and slack off browsing HN, but it wouldn't surprise me if many people who are in front of a computer do check in quite often. In my case, I usually only check in during the morning while I eat breakfast, and at night before I go to bed. I don't have access to the internet at work, occasionally I'll browse on my phone during lunch. And I usually only go through the first 50 or so submissions. From my experience, the type of articles that stay on the from page long enough for me to see them, read the article, read the comments, and formulate a coherent response, are either articles that are super interesting to the community or somewhat controversial, since these get the most votes. This obviously biases the kind of articles I usually comment on. I only bring this up to express that their may be a pattern in my commenting that would suggest I'm trying to push a very specific agenda, I hope this isn't the case, but that this might actually be greatly influenced by the kind of content I'm exposed to based on it's position on the front page.

You make a very good point with regards to the difference in treatment between some of the people you list. I've noticed myself falling into that trap personally, and I think it was partially due to none of those people being particularly sympathetic in my eyes. This made it much more difficult to spot any bias that may be occurring in the comments.

>I belief it is disingenuous to try to discuss such issues without addressing the elephant in the room.

Anyone would agree.

>I also felt the imagery (angry mob/pitchforks/etc) more than subtly pointed in that direction.

This is HN - reply to what's written. I'm not saying people don't have agendas, it's just doesn't justify ridiculous derails. There's enough places outside HN (e.g. Twitter) where it's accepted that everyone is a shitflinger striking blows for team red and team blue, their actual messages being worthless.

I used the torch-and-pitchfork expression because it is an idiomatic expression in my native language; and because PC overreaction to e.g. a bad word tends to come in the form of an angry higher-ground posse, as I have noticed since childhood. You seem upset about recent events in the US, but as a non-American it really isn't the first thing on my mind. Not only is the room different; my elephant is really quite different from your elephant altogether.

Somewhat ironically, this is a clear example of an emotional outrage post. I'm not sure how you go from my post to a specific event in the US, and assign a political colour to that post, and put me on a specific side. I have nothing to do with politics, let alone US politics. I'm from northern Europe.

The article is about neurological differences and the difficulty of navigating the modern outrage world.

I understand you might have strong feelings about certain events in the US, but in my opinion, they are not terribly relevant to this specific article.

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15070499 and marked it off-topic.

It's fascinating to see an article about neurodiversity and freedom of speech with the comments section closed.

Just because of all that doesn't mean it's not controversial - that's kind of what the article is trying to point out.

I wanted to share it with e.g. colleagues as a thoughtpiece, but decided not to because of what it might say about me.

Still, I'd imagine someone who publishes an article defending the extremes of freedom of speech would not have the comments section closed.

They lost me when they used the word "Inquisition".

We have a need of unbiased discussion. This is not it.

> They lost me when they used the word "Inquisition".

The article has a single author. His name is Geoffrey Miller.

The article was written, edited, reviewed and approved for publication by, hopefully, different people. Even if it has a single author, it's the result of a cooperative effort.

That isn't quite how English works.

What is actually your point? Does it significantly detract from my conclusion this is not an unbiased discussion?

I didn't quite get your point. It was an article, not a discussion.

Seeing bias (which is also called 'point of view') is fine. It does not invalid the article. You get to add to it - you get to discuss. Why didn't you?

A quick Google suggests the author was subject to a bit of adverse publicity for tweeting "Dear obese PhD applicants: if you didn't have the willpower to stop eating carbs, you won't have the willpower to do a dissertation #truth" and continues to publish and teach at the same institution after making his excuses and apologies and getting a formal warning.

It's a sad irony indeed if it's people frowning on that comment that's lead him to lecture everyone else on [censorious academic culture] arbitrarily deterring marginalised people from study.

The Author is Autistic. It's likely he didn't realise what we was saying was offensive until after the fact.

And is it a bad thing to let him know it is offensive? If he can't comprehend it naturally, maybe he can at least learn.

I guess you could make a case that people who are diagnosed to lie on the autistic spectrum should get a bit more leeway from the administration with regard to disciplinary action (because it's not really their fault), but what else are you gonna do? Give them a free pass? I don't think that even has much to do with the feared political correctness anymore.

No, but do we let him know by educating him, or should his "lesson" be getting fired from the University or facing disciplinary action that is likely to worsen his condition? Hopefully he will take legal action against the universities policies if it's the latter on the grounds of unfair disability discrimination.

Seems hard to judge which of his statements are caused by his condition and which by him just being a vocal and opinionated person in general - but I guess that's a point in his favor because if that distinction is hard to make, it's probably better to err on the side of free speech instead of trying to figure out what's typical and what's atypical behavior which gets a free pass.

Obese people are marginalized? Aren't they a majority? Also he is in part right - obesity is just a matter of willpower, but that willpower is divided among different tasks.

I speak this as a former obese person. I had BMI of 37 and I need to eat around 1400 calories per day to not gain anything, meaning I didn't win the genetic lottery when it comes to calories.

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