But his writing indicates that he's only thought from the perspective of some innovator he's perceived to have been unfairly branded a heretic.
But the consequences of "higher tolerance" for harassing and alienating speech is a chilling effect on another section of the population (people who get harassed and alienated). More "freedom" for one group comes at the cost of depriving another.
And, pray tell, who gets to decide which opinions are "valid"? How do we find out in advance which opinions we are permitted to discuss?
This obviously leads to a productive and long lasting society.
Society decides what's valid by responding to what you say. If what you say is bad, you'll get mostly negative responses. If what you say is good, you'll get mostly positive. If you disagree with most of society, you can hang with your niche. If you give a shit about what society mostly agrees on, you get with the program.
Seems like right now we mostly agree "be considerate of one another." It's not much to argue against.
> How do we find out in advance which opinions we are permitted to discuss?
This isn't rocket science. Some ideas for you:
1. Ask a friend. "Am I an asshole for saying this?"
2. Think critically. "Am I an asshole for saying this?"
3. Own mistakes. "Shit sorry I was an asshole, please forgive me."
4. General education. You learn from history, interacting with other members of society 1:1, stories of perspectives beyond your own, etc.
Is that really the heuristic you want to advocate?
- If, a millennium ago, an individual had questioned the divine right of kings to rule, s/he would have been called an asshole.
- If, 750 years ago, an individual had called into question the primacy of the dominant religion for his/her region, s/he would have been called an asshole.
- If, 500 years ago, an individual had suggested women's suffrage, s/he would have been called an asshole.
...etc...
In short, all your heuristic says is that the opinions that are "valid" are whatever the current status quo for your local societal norms happens to be. Forgive me for saying this, but that seems more like a conservative viewpoint than a liberal one.
I'm not advocating for a heuristic, I'm saying how functionally it works. Liberal / educated society has a different opinion than conservative society, for example. In your examples, societies of different time periods had different measuring sticks. Clearly we don't agree with the opinions of those societies but that's not surprising.
If modern liberal/educated society agrees that flat earthing and anti-vaxxing beliefs are unfounded and dumb, then people who believe those things will find themselves better accepted in niche groups who share their views. Similarly political correctness arises out of a subset of society saying "wow we find some things to be hurtful" and contrary to how it's being painted in Sam's writing it's not some minefield of things that hinder free thought; it's just that there are ways we interact that can hurt and silence others. Being mindful of these things is, in some opinions including mine, a low bar and not much harder to achieve than observing what's going on and concluding "gee the world is round and we should be kind to one another."
> In short, all your heuristic says is that the opinions that are "valid" are whatever the current status quo for your local societal norms happens to be.
Again no espousing of any heuristic here, only a description of functionally how society works. The great thing is the the subject here is specifically _modern liberal silicon valley educated society_ and what it finds acceptable. The thread is mostly to discuss whether this specific society's net opinions today are chilling on innovation or beneficial for innovation. Sam thinks it's chilling; Anil and many others think it's beneficial / necessary.
The "for no reason" part here is actually throwing me off. Not sure what you're implying.
I've made the statement that discussion on the topic is preferable to branding, even in the case where people feel alienated.
It implies that Harvey Weinstein should be branded and ostracized. That abusers are rightfully alienated.
> I've made the statement that discussion on the topic is preferable to branding, even in the case where people feel alienated.
Right. You made that statement in response to 'What if your "controversial opinion" harasses and alienates other people?' -- so it follows that you're OK with giving airtime to hateful views even at the expense of chilling others' free speech and/or you don't recognize that this chilling effect is real.
My previous statement stands.
So then, as the victim, are you cleared to harass and smear whoever you please?
> he's only thought from the perspective of some innovator he's perceived to have been unfairly branded a heretic
Ah, so his identity as a wealthy man invalidates his opinion, and his writing should be disregarded?
No, and that was not any part of what I wrote.
However as a victim you ARE entitled to share your story. You are entitled to tell people "hey this person did something bad and it hurt me." And people can choose to respond to that. That's OK.
> Ah, so his identity as a wealthy man invalidates his opinion, and his writing should be disregarded?
Nowhere did I mention wealth or that it would invalidate his opinion. The quoted sentence merely indicates that the argument he made failed to consider other sides and nuances.
> as a victim you ARE entitled to share your story. You are entitled to tell people "hey this person did something bad and it hurt me."
An employee at a SV company writes on a forum that he's not a fan of diversity quotas and equity. Then, someone reads it, and claims that they feel harassed and alienated by that quote. They tweet an angry message accompanied by a screenshot of the forum post. Then, a twitter mob forms, calling the employee a Nazi. He's conflated with real racism now, though he originally was talking about diversity quotas and equity. Because his language was "harmful", the victims have their justification; by any means necessary they must remove this hateful Nazi.
The employee gets fired for PR reasons. Other employees stay away from those topics, self-silencing for fear of retaliation like the 1st employee received. Ideas are stifled; democracy is weakened.
Can you see how your chain of logic leads to this?
It’s like there’s this bro-Catholicism where everyone has original sin of racism or whatnot and must be punished through ex-communication. And the whole moral system is understood and agreed to.
I only hope that some sort of racism/redeemer emerges who can wash away the sins of bigotry and allow the excommunicated to no longer cause racism and be allowed to work again within society.
So you're referring to the James Damore situation, and I take it that you felt his firing was unjust. Your characterization makes it clear that you don't think his writing was actively disparaging and harassing of huge swaths of people, or objectively discrimination. We're probably done discussing then if you don't see that, a lot of good treatment has been given to this subject if you look at it's not my responsibility to educate you.
His firing and silencing of sexists makes the workplace a lot safer for people who are guilty of nothing but being born women. It makes it a lot less safe for people who espouse views that hurt others. I'm 100% OK with that -- that should be how the world works.
>Ideas are stifled; democracy is weakened.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance
^ Actually it's the opposite of what you think.