Comment by insickness | Hacker News Reader

Comment by insickness | Hacker News Reader

> 5) Silicon Valley also has an insidious infection that is spreading -- a peculiar form of McCarthyism (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McCarthyism) masquerading as liberal open-mindedness. I'm as socially liberal as you get, and I find it nauseating how many topics or dissenting opinions are simply out-of-bounds in Silicon Valley.

I experienced this first-hand last weekend. My friend throws dinner parties where we discuss a different philosophical topic each time. The topic of last dinner party was sexual harassment and sexual agency. One person stormed off at the beginning because she got offended at the topic and ostensibly some mild language my friend used in a hypothetical situation. He was later crucified on social media.

When I was growing up, it was the right that constrained discussion while the left pushed boundaries. Now more often the left constrains speech. Rather than air positions in the marketplace of ideas, they would rather bully, shame and act offended at things they disagree with.

I think that's cool that you're able to go to what seems like a version of an intellectual salon and have those talks. It seems that the person that stormed out wasn't as open-minded as some of the other participants.

Sometimes we're so focused on being right, or what we believe is right, that we can't open ourselves up to other thoughts or arguments. Across the political spectrum, we're missing empathy and the ability to have discussions beyond yelling at one another.

> Sometimes we're so focused on being right, or what we believe is right, that we can't open ourselves up to other thoughts or arguments.

You just, in the preceding sentence even, assumed that the version of the story fitting your own narrative was correct. So I have a slightly hard time believing your message.

That's ok. We can disagree without one of us storming out of a room.

If you care about your audience, present your ideas sensitively. If you don't care about your audience, then don't bother presenting any ideas because you aren't going to convince anyone. The point of discussion isn't to score points.

Perhaps the woman in your example was offended because she has been harrased or assualted personally. The fact that you felt the need to minimize it by saying the language was "mild" says a lot, who cares if it was mild? Go as hard as you want, free speech is absolute, contextless, consequence free. Anyone hurt by what you say is just trying to score political points by pretending to be offended. My advice would be to listen to the women on this topic before indulging them in your pure axiomatic philosophical opinions of what they have experienced.

The whole idea of someone being "crucified" or "bullied" on social media is cowardly coming from a supposed free speech proponent. Man up, own your opinions.

A marketplace of ideas is fine, but no one is going to give you a fair shake if you are intentionally tactless, and that is your failing not your audiences.

Perhaps we should just ask for clarification on what the person said at the dinner table before engaging in this sort of speculation.

Yes because we the internet mob need to judge the lives of others.

That is so healthy.

I don't believe you can both have an intellectually honest debate and judge at the same time.

I hope they don't share the actual quotes because that wasn't the argument. The argument was open debate is not possible anymore, because we get actively judged and harassed for opinions because the flesh mob (you, me, everyone) only allows for socially accepted top 40 opinions.

Freedom also means freedom from each other. Not just the state.

If you said something bad about a person you don't personally know in the last month, then my judgement on you (yeah hypocrisy) is that you are a horrible person and the world is better with you not consuming oxygen.

A bit ironic then that it was squares who were made fun of and derided for being offended by fuck, shit, and all derivations. Now it's the new squares who get offended by words they don't believe belong in polite conversation.

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