No there is not. People are people and there have always been bigots and assholes. Just because now we have the technical means to shut everybody down who acts or talks that way does not mean that we should.
Can't you see how your well-intentioned ideal of 'talk nicely to each other' is actually an oppressing view by itself? Burying your head in the sand won't solve any problems.
Second, there are a really big bunch of clear rules about how to talk and the things it is okay to say and think that are being worked out right now. It doesn't equate with talking "nice". I'll give some examples:
- Use the name and pronoun and non-binary person requests you use, [1]
- Don't ask a transgender person what their "real name" is. [2]
- Stop Using Diminutives [3]
- Do not say racism is over because we have a black president. [4]
- Don't say #AllLiveMatter, nor that you can where whatever you want, nor that black culture is disrespecting women [5]
- Don't think reverse racism is a thing [6]
- Don't say things that suggest physical contact or simulated physical contact [7]
- Do not say, “Hey baby,” or “Hi cutie.” [8]
- Acknowledge your privilege [9]
- Do not center yourself, tone police or victim blame [10]
For twitter examples of people policing ways of talking and thinking ( but bearing that burden without legislative support ), see: and [11], and [12] for some examples, and see [13] for it beginning to happen with the help of law enforcement at the intersection with civilian-enabled speech policing.
This is not fascism because this was created by the American and UK left, these are the same people who railed against Trump, drive changes in the civil rights and social justice movements, and love freedom. This group clearly has the best chance of contributing significantly to the debate about rules and laws for right and wrong ways for people to think and talk. If you go against that, you're pretty much in the wrong. And they've already making progress on getting this accepted across society.
What I'm saying is that, the work is currently being done without legislative backing, and starting a formal, whole-society debate by beginning to introduce legislation is, I believe, the right way forward.
[1]: https://www.transequality.org/issues/resources/understanding... [2]: https://www.glaad.org/transgender/allies [3]: https://everydayfeminism.com/2014/07/5-ways-men-can-respect-... [4]: http://msmagazine.com/blog/2013/08/23/99-ways-to-respect-bla... [5]: https://www.theodysseyonline.com/things-white-people-stop-sa... [6]: https://www.huffingtonpost.com/melody-moezzi/ten-things-whit... [7]: https://geekfeminism.org/about/code-of-conduct/ [8]: http://www.stopstreetharassment.org/resources/male-allies/ho... [9]: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/christopher-lawrence/how-to-be... [10]: http://www.guidetoallyship.com/#the-work-of-allyship [11]: https://twitter.com/search?q=thanks%20for%20mansplaining&src... [12]: https://twitter.com/search?q=check%20your%20privilege&src=ty... [13]: https://twitter.com/search?q=racism%20report%20%40metpoliceu...
No it is not. Expecting everyone to know every way in which a person might get offended is just unrealistic. People, even the most well-intentioned ones, will make mistakes. So if someone does make a mistake just tell them what they did wrong and move on with your life.
Trust me I know people from "the left" and the amount people got into feminism in the last years is just crazy. Now, I'm all for women's rights and also agree with the points you listed, but for fuck's sake, give people a break. Dealing with racism and sexism is a process that takes patience and just forcing a thought-police on everyone will sure as hell not make anything better. Society can only move so fast as the slowest ones can keep up.
We're pretty off-topic by now, so this will be my last statement in this thread, but feel free to respond. Have a nice weekend!
It really is. How else can we move forward without discussing these things as a collective? It's no good if just one group decides the rules for everybody. Laws need to reflect society's norms.
> just unrealistic.
I'm sorry but I don't accept that we ought to abandon progress because it seems unrealistic. Self landing reusable rockets seemed unrealistic. International flight seemed unrealistic. Even progress on women's or PoC's issues seemed unrealistic.
If you're okay with letting people get hurt while things proceed at the natural, ambling pace of society, or whatever, because it's too hard to do otherwise, I get that, but I'm not okay with that. I think we have a duty to make things better for people. And there's no way to do that unilaterally, it has to be inclusive of the diversity of our societies, and build on the work that everyone before us has done, otherwise we're just reinforcing the existing power structures and narratives.
This kind of legislation, supporting the work people are already doing in their lives and online on places like Twitter, and Reddit, etc, would be ground breaking. And it's really not off topic, because it's the exact same type of legislation as deciding, as a society, which materials, or speech, or narrative are too harmful to be consumed or propagated. Material and speech that supports oppression and structural disadvantage is harmful, isn't it? As is material and speech that supports terrorism and violence. Maybe these things don't affect the majority, or happen all the time, but that's sort of the point.
I understand it's not easy, I understand the hassle, I understand the gut instinct to avoid anything that seems to impinge upon freedom, but some of our seeming "freedoms" are actually based on unsustainable practices, such as when our "freedom" to express a particular idea, only reinforces oppression, or normalizes violence, that ultimately hold everyone back. And policing some forms of speech, or narrative, or information as unacceptable helps make a free and just society. We shouldn't tolerate everything, especially not things that harm us. Take an example from biology, cells have walls for a reason, they are permeable, but they don't just let everything in.
I agree things move slowly. But that's why strong efforts are needed. And I also agree that so many people have become involved in this work, and I think that's why legislation needs to take some of the burden. I mean, the groundswell is an indication of a norm, no? And thank you for giving your consent for me to reply here, but as this is not just a conversation between you and me, I don't think that's appropriate nor required, because other people are reading and interested in what we say. It was good to talk! And I respect the way you made your points. I think they are a good way to live, but probably not a good way to progress society.
I personally think the risk is non-zero(Trump, Brexit, Black Swan events ect.) so you can understand why most people would disagree with that trade off, right?
I don't think the risk is zero, the risk of getting any of this wrong is catastrophic. But I do think the risk is manageable. The reason it's manageable is because we can keep revising our notions through keeping the conversation going, as is currently happening. And we can keep mitigating effects through checks and balances.
So I think all this is very good, but it's not enough. Why?
To become truly effective, we need to spread from minority-awareness to majority-awareness of these issues. We need to start debating and discussing these ideas en masse. We already have "people in power" ( social power ) deciding the best way to speak, and now that these notions have moved out of the fringe and academia and into the mainstream, and are being applied to ordinary discourse IRL, we need to have everybody getting in on the conversation and debate. Otherwise how can these concepts truly become effective? These norms have to apply to and reflect and get buy-in from everybody, not just people who are working to change society. And the law is how you apply a norm universally.
Second to this, I think it's good optics. It shows we ( in the West / in America ) have the courage of our convictions, and crucially, I think, it sets a good example for the rest of the world, showing that America still has moral authority, by crystallising some of the paramount achievements of its social justice and security movements in delineating forms of speech that cause harm. It could be helpful if these people are rewarded and supported by the institutions which have for so long disenfranchised them, by having their hard work encoded in legislation. Some progress is already being made in places like Canada and Sweden, and especially in the UK. So I think your view that we are still in the "social pressure only" period is a little naive. It's already happened. It just isn't complete yet. All I'm really advocating for, I think, is that we use the already shifting tide toward legislative remedy to increase debate converation and engagement on these issues across society.
So in a sense, the controversy and discussion we are having about these, even in this thread on HN, is exactly what's needed.
I agree there is a disconnect with many on HN, or in SV, or in USA on the specifics of these issues, even tho these demographics are predominantly liberal ( I think ). We still have campus sexual assault, workplace sexual misconduct, and then there's always the not so harmful stubborn libertarians in tech. But I think there is alignment on the heart of these issues. So I'm trying to address the resistance to that. I mean, maybe the majority still doesn't see the value in policing of wrongspeech even after years of social justice activism and engagement, but that's why more work needs to be done.
I think that it's still a hotbutton issue, and there is still social inertia to discuss it openly because of how uncomfortable it can be, so I think that people who support these issues are staying silent on this thread. Also this discussion is quite meta so people may not be sure how to come into it, even if they are normally active in social justice or social safety. And if HN really disagreed with these notions outright, I'd except dozens of downvotes and it to be flagged into invisibility. There have actually been upvotes and downvotes, and the down has won narrowly. Maybe that means majority HN disagrees, or maybe we're still just uncomfortable to talk, or it could just be a small sample?
But even if HN is against this in the majority, the trend outside HN is clear. Social pressure is widespread, legislation is already happening, now is the time for mass social engagement, discussion, and debate. People need to feel involved in the conversation in order to buy-in and for these notions to become effective and applied universally.
Look, at the end of the day, maybe I'm absolutely and totally wrong. And maybe Orwell foresaw our future with all its nuanced and intersectional issues and complications. And maybe everyone on this side who are already tirelessly policing wrongspeech online and IRL are wrong, too. Maybe we'll all look back and cringe, or laugh, or whatever, at this time. But that's why we need to expand the conversation. Wrong and right will be decided by the collective. Maybe we can't say how this will play out.
I get the innate resistance to policing wrongspeech, but there's also a lot of existing buy-in to these ideas we can work with already regarding this demographic ( geek feminist code of conduct for OS projects, for example ) and I think for this demographic there's actually more to like about it than it seems at first. I put a lot of the gut rejection of this trend to the easy association with 1984, and how that prematurely suffocates thinking and debate, "Oh my god, it's like 1984 Orwellian dystopian nightmare, run!" But if we don't create a more fair and safe society by policing the speech that supports violence, hatred and harm, don't we end up with our own kind of nightmare? Maybe no genius lit dude has written that dystopia famously, but it might be just as scary and as horrible a place to be. At least I think so.
I just want to apologise for the length. Sometimes I find it takes too much effort to condense and maintain meaning. I'm really sorry.