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Comment by tptacek | Hacker News Reader

The broadening circle of people willing to exercise their free speech to condemn Pinker's recurrent and insidious appeals to race-informed genetic determinism is a bright spot, as are the numerous people dunking on Pinker for cosigning an open letter that decries "ostracism and public shaming" as injuries to our culture of free expression, rather than expressions of that culture.

Ken White had some smart things to say about this today, with respect to "the problem of the preferred first speaker". Worth tracking down.

That's not to say there aren't dark spots; David Shor's firing certainly appears to be one of them. But I don't think any of those dark spots put Pinker, the T-1000 version of Charles Murray, above criticism. Which is, of course, what an open letter against "public shaming" purports to do.

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It's disappointing to read this thread. Even tptacek, a prominent speaker on Hacker News, exhibits bizarre ignorance regarding this topic.

Generally speaking, it seems to me that much sloppy thinking in the current debate involves the mixture of the following basic errors:

1) Ignorance about biology. Evolutionary biology has been an exceptionally fertile section of science for the last decades, and provided deeper understandings on many biological phenomenon, including human behaviors. The accusers' understanding of biology (e.g. condemning it as "genetic determinism") is at least 50 years behind.

2) Poor understanding of the due process. Calling a random petition to condemn a person publicly is exactly a witch hunt. History proves that it's a very error-prone way to punish someone, and no civilized country accept it as a proper procedure anymore.

As to (2) I'd recommend everyone to read DJB's "The death of due process". It is very important, because it may be you (or your family) to be hung by lynch mobs next time.

https://blog.cr.yp.to/20160607-dueprocess.html

I guess I don't see the problem of the preferred first speaker in practice.

Let's take the examples in question: I've never seen either Murray or Pinker come out of the gates swinging with poorly framed appeals to genetic determinism (if they make reference to such things at all it's almost always in response to criticism, and it never seems to be more than very light handed considered speculation). I've also never seen them lob insults, outright support mob justice, or make a targeted cherry-picked attempt to discredit a particular individual (admittedly I'm only so plugged in so it's possible I'm missing something). Yet their critics seem frequently guilty of this.

In other words, I don't think I'm holding them to a lower standard for having spoken first. Am I misunderstanding the argument? Or am I actually doing this and I'm just not aware of it?

Edit: Perhaps it's also worth stating that I do hold these two people in high regard which definitely lowers my defenses when it comes to quickly evaluating their various claims. Mainly based on how they have engaged in good faith. That said, I disagree with both of them a lot. Recently I've put a lot of effort into identifying a group of folks that I disagree with but respect, since it seems like almost nobody does that and it seems like a big problem that people only respect those they agree with.

You are as free to stick up for Pinker (and Murray) as I am to condemn them, which is the beauty of the system. Nobody is, or should be, immune to "public shaming". But those are the plain words the letter uses! It's a bit rich, coming as it does from people like JK Rowling, who have threatened to sue strangers for their Twitter opinions.

(I strongly disagree with your take on Pinker and Murray! But that's neither here nor there as far as my argument goes.)

The claim is not that anyone should be immune to public shaming. The claim is that as a culture, we are reaching for public shaming far more often than we should.

Imagine there are two college campuses. On campus A, when students disagree, the students in the majority say they felt unsafe, demand that the students in the minority be expelled, and on occasion succeed. On campus B, when students disagree, they... talk about the issue at hand with each other.

There is free speech on both campuses - after all, the government isn't involved here. Yet I think it's safe to say that orthodox thought (whatever it happens to be at the time of lock-in) is more secure at campus A than campus B. And I think it's reasonable to talk about the difference between the cultures, and advocate for one over the other.

Of course people should be free to vehemently argue against Steven Pinker's ideas. The problem is that people are instead descending to personal attacks on him, including circulating a petition (with forged signatures, to boot) to get the Linguistic Society of America to strip him of his Fellow status.

People are free to circulate petitions, including those making demands about someone's Linguistic Society status. People are not required to express only opinions you approve of. Though, of course, you're free to circulate a counter-petition against them!

What's less free is threatening to use a billion dollar fortune to file a defamation lawsuit against someone for expressing an opinion on Twitter, which at least one of the signatories did.

>People are free to circulate petitions, including those making demands about someone's Linguistic Society status. [...] Though, of course, you're free to circulate a counter-petition against them!

People are free to insult others and you are free to counter-insult them. And you are also free to write an open letter asking people to try to discuss their issues, rather then insulting each other, circulating petitions against each other or getting each other fired.

>People are not required to express only opinions you approve of.

This is what you might call the "doctrine of the second speaker". Alice expresses a view Bob finds offensive. Bob calls for Alice to be fired. John says that people shouldn't be fired for expressing offensive views. Then Tom points out that "People are not required to express only opinions you approve of." After all, Bob's call for Alice to be fired is protected by the first amendment, therefore (?) it's wrong to critizise people for calling for others to be fired for offensive views.

That's true. People can insult each other. There are limits: you can't intentionally and convincingly relate false facts about people (that's defamation). But calling for people's termination? That's an opinion you're unquestionably free to share.

Yes, calling for a company to fire someone is generally protected under the First Amendment. (There might be some edge cases, like if a state has a criminal anti-discrimination law and someone is inciting the company (to unlawfully fire a specific person specifically on the basis on a legally protected characteristic).)

But the ideal of freedom of expression is broader than limitations on the powers of government. The ideal also encompasses social norms that encourage open and honest discussion. Bad arguments made in appropriate public forums should be met with counterarguments, and certainly not with being placed on industry blacklists or getting fired. Otherwise, there are very real chilling effects on the willingness of people to engage in honest discussion. (To clarify what I mean by "appropriate public forum" above, let me give an example: Protesting someone's funeral by marching on a public sidewalk and waving signs inscribed "God hates X" is legally protected (Snyder v. Phelps, 562 U.S. 443 (2011)), but is outside the bounds of what most people would consider appropriate. Protesting in that place and manner rightfully subjects the protester to public scorn.)

I can't say anything about this better than Ken White did today; I cosign this in its entirety:

https://twitter.com/Popehat/status/1280992193591689221

> /6 That's because of the fundamental deal behind First Amendment values: you can't use the government to punish speech because the marketplace of ideas, the private sector, society's "more speech" is the best way to address "bad speech," not government action.

This category of "more speech", including everything from criticism to calling for someone to get fired is dishonest. The letter doesn't oppose criticism.

Calling for people to be fired is "more speech".

The HN guidelines say:

> Be kind. Don't be snarky. Have curious conversation; don't cross-examine. Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive.

Are these good guidelines? Do you think they encourage better better discussions? Do you value having a community in which these guidelines are culturally accepted? If people started violating these guidelines en masse, do you think it would make sense to defend them?

Or would that be silly, because the answer to bad speech is more speech?

The way I see it, the answer to bad speech is more speech. But that doesn't mean there can't be cultural differences in the way we use speech - some worlds in which we more often misrepresent our oppenents, interpret their statements in the worst possible light, and use that to attempt to destroy their lives, and some worlds in which we choose not to. I view the letter as an attempt to move us towards the latter world - say, to push discourse away from Twitter-style and towards HN-style debate.

I'm not sure what point you're trying to make. You are free to speak. You are not free to speak in my house, as I have not invited you there. If I did invite you, I could attach conditions.

I'm saying there exist, in some communities, cultural norms that we treat ideas we disagree with with respect. We interpret them charitably. We don't make personal attacks on those who hold them. We assume good faith.

If you understand why someone might defend those cultural norms on Hacker News, then perhaps you can understand why someone would defend those same norms in, say, academia, or journalism, or publishing, or the arts.

No, the fact that you're not welcome to speak in my house does not enjoin you against speaking ill of me outside of my house. I can't even comprehend the argument you're trying to make. The norms of HN don't bind on the whole world.

Let me try to restate.

As I understand it, you're saying that people are advocating for the free expression of ideas - and yet, when people use that freedom to insult them call for their termination, they get mad. This seems contradictory and unfair to you. If I want the right to say whatever I want, then I have to accept that some people will choose to use that right to say things like "enoch_r is a despicable human being and his employer, family, and friends should all know about it immediately." Is that an accurate summary of your views?

In response, I am saying that norms like we have on HN (such as the principle of charity) contribute to the free expression of ideas. If we didn't have those norms, people wouldn't feel free to investigate controversial ideas, or have discussions like this one, and the intellectual climate would be impoverished.

Similar norms contribute to the free exchange of ideas in academia.

The letter advocates for such norms to be defended in academia.

It is reasonable to carve out spaces where particular norms apply, especially when those places have idiosyncratic goals, like HN's goal of "gratifying intellectual curiosity".

It is not reasonable to export those norms outside of those spaces to other spaces that don't share those idiosyncracies.

Some calls to terminate people are, in my judgement, bad. David Shor is a good example. I will use my freedom of expression to say that the people who called for his ouster made a grave and self-defeating error and should be ashamed of themselves.

Some calls to terminate people are not, in my judgement, bad.

HN might, along with the authors of this Letter, hope for a blanket norm against calling for anyone's ouster. They can ask for it; that's their right. But it's not a reasonable expectation, and they can't honestly pretend the norm already exists or that others are obligated to adhere to it because they want it.

I completely agree that some calls to terminate people are good, and others are bad.

I think you're interpreting my comments, and the letter, as saying "there should be a blanket norm against calling for anyone's ouster for their opinions, no matter how vile." I'm not, and I don't think the letter is either.

I'm saying, and I believe the letter is saying, that we have become overly quick to reach for the tools of suppression in response to opposing views. That the spectrum of views which we interpret charitably is shrinking, and the spectrum of views that we view as fireable offenses is growing. It's not simply that the overton window has shifted and previously acceptable views are no longer okay (though I think that's clearly part of it). It's that the overton window has shrunk dramatically, even as we've moved towards much more brutal enforcement of it.

Anyway: thanks for the interesting discussion - I'm glad we've carved out this space for it! ;)

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