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> It's just as disqualifying as the x-isms from the left, if you care about staying in the good graces of convention on the right

The question isn't "staying in good graces". While people should have friends with whom they disagree, the topic here is heresy. Heresy leads to punishment that goes beyond social consequences.

At this point, it's hard for me to know how to respond to people who remain skeptical of the thesis here. The NYT editorial board has acknowledged the problem. If you're still a holdout, you're probably part of it.

> The question isn't "staying in good graces". While people should have friends with whom they disagree, the topic here is heresy. Heresy leads to punishment that goes beyond social consequences.

Potayto potahto. I was talking about the same thing that the article called "heresy".

My claim isn't that shunning and social pressure doesn't exist or isn't a problem. I'm just a bit skeptical that it's a lot worse now than in the past, and I'm a lot skeptical that it's only a problem on one side of the political aisle. I don't even think it's really a thing with a political valence, I think it's just a human thing.

The essay specifically says it's not worse than in the past. No one's being burned at stake for example. And by the way, that's one reason I continue to believe in moral progress.

The essay does claim things are worse than 10 years ago. But 70 years ago? Things are better now than during McCarthyism.

> I don't even think it's really a thing with a political valence, I think it's just a human thing.

It's definitely a human thing. However, like I said, if you deny the political valence that currently exists, you're either not a clear-eyed observer of the present or you're part of it. And of course no one is saying "in 2022, the right never cancels anyone" just that present day punishments for heresy in the US are clearly politically-valenced.

My biological grandfather got expelled from his private university and disinherited by his parents during the Vietnam war in 69, because he was a communist hippy basically, and went in Europe to help boat people. Lost all he had, and the only jobs he could get were basically undeclared construction/farming jobs in the Appalachians.

So anecdotal evidence to your point. If any of the deplatformed people has had a worst experience, I'd love to hear it.

Since you claim "gender is a social construct" or "immigrants are good" are examples of heresy - can you provide examples of people fired over stating these opinions? I'm not aware of such instances but maybe they're just not as visibly reported.

Is this the definition of "heresy" being used by the article? That at least one person has lost a job because of the belief? That would at least make me happier, to have a somewhat testable definition. But the article seems to be using it more broadly than that.

I haven't seen any examples of those specific ones in the news and I don't have examples I'm personally familiar with. But the "Parental Rights in Education" bill is a handy example of the same phenomenon coming from the right; teachers will certainly lose their jobs or be forced to resign due to having the wrong beliefs in the wrong profession in the wrong state (and other states will almost certainly pass similar laws soon). Maybe that is an isolated incident, but I'm skeptical.

Frankly, I would really like to see someone try to gather and present data on this. It's really hard because the definition of what you're even looking for is wishy washy and most of the information is private; there isn't a public database of reasons why people didn't get, were forced to resign, or were fired from jobs.

"Gather data so we can analyze this phenomenon" is a dodge. Some people, when confronted with a contrary opinion, transform into David Hume and demand that we all become empiricists. Would you demand evidence that the "Parental Rights in Education" bill does what you said? If we're going to be empiricists, let's wait on that and gather data before rendering a judgement.

Anyway, after 30 seconds of googling: https://www.canceledpeople.com/about

Yes. I'm very much interested in data on what happens as a result of that bill and others like it that end up passing. It will be hard to gather and take awhile, but I hope someone will try to do a good job of it rather than only reporting on inflammatory anecdotes, which I'm sure will also happen.

I'm not demanding empiricism, what I'm saying is that I find this whole debate to be overly influenced by high profile anecdotes, which people cherry pick to tell their preferred narrative.

That project is a definite step in the right direction, and if people start citing analyses of it when writing articles like and OP, instead of just throwing out definitive statements as unsupported premises, then I'll be much happier with those articles than I was with the OP.

One interesting thing to note is that that project has an explicit list of heresies that are beyond the pale (section 3 under "what is not included"). I think that's intriguing!

definition of "heresy" is quite clear in the article:

- the fact that it's heresy takes priority over the question of truth or falsity

- it outweighs everything else the speaker has done (I would add that the implication of that is "disproportionate punishment").

By this definition, yes, getting excluded from your family for stating some opinion is proof that said subject is taboo/ said opinion is "heresy" in your family. But, all kinds of families are broken in all kinds of different ways; surely you can find fascist families in USA - that doesn't make the USA society fascist. You can find atheist families too! (and nobody would claim the US is atheist). The question is: is the concept of "heresy" making a come-back at the level of the entire society?

> the "Parental Rights in Education" bill

Didn't know about it (I'm not a US citizen), and yes it's a dumb and wrong law by the sound of it. Even so I think it falls a bit short of fitting the definition of "legal enforcement of heresy" unless it extends outside the classroom (to opinions stated - privately or publicly - by teachers in their spare time).

(btw, I am not claiming heresy is only enforced by the US left. However, this fact only makes things worse, not better - it's sad that this practice is excused by "the others are worse" mantra. Even if/when it's true, and "the others" really are worse.).

To your aside at the end, I've said here that I'm a bit skeptical about how new this problem is (I think it is more the case that it has become a trend to complain about it), but what I'm really pushing back on is the OP's casual statement of the premise that it is uniquely a problem of the political left, which I think is poorly supported.

To the rest: I agree that the definition used in the article was broader than just people getting fired. You asked me for examples of that specifically, which made me think you thought the definition being used was that more narrow one.

Don't know about getting fired, but it's not hard to recall stories about people getting shunned by their relatives or expelled from their family for expressing such views.

Yeah that's the other thing: when did losing a job become the only thing that counts as bad?

Seems a false equivalency. The majority of the personalized destruction, cancelling, firing, etc, comes from one side.

This is a common claim that seems to be based more on vibes than on evidence.

Yeah there are laws being passed to prohibit certain concepts from being discussed in private corporate trainings. Those laws are being passed by those same partisans who loudly claim to oppose cancel culture. I don't think we can have an honest discussion on the topic without acknowledging one side is using voluntary dissociation as a means of punishment while the other is using the power of the state to prohibit the expression of certain ideas.

Because that side simply has economic power.

How about bills restricting voting access to people of color, or the ability to say the word “gay”? Those don’t qualify as material consequences for violating conventions/ideology? You have a one sided view.

Which bills restrict voting access for people of color?

Read the news some time.

I consume a wide range of media every day and I've never seen a bill that "restricts voting access for people of color". It's an extraordinary claim so you would to need provide strong evidence, rather than being dismissive.

Here: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-ezra-klein-show/id...

https://youtu.be/EN9OdruH_qM

By strong evidence I was hoping you'd link to the bill, or to factual reporting from a credible mainstream newspaper.

If you're getting news from strongly opinionated talking-heads, then that might explain the disconnect.

Forming conclusions about racism requires interpretation. Every time I trust one of you to be genuinely curious about the issue I’m disappointed, and here I am again, disappointed. Not particularly surprising though.

Ezra Klein and John Oliver aren't news, they're entertainment personalities like Joe Rogan or Tucker Carlson. Though if they're a big part of your information diet as it is, I don't really see this being a fruitful conversation. /r/politics tends to accommodate to that kind of viewpoint a little more, I'd suggest moving the soapbox over there :)

John Oliver is more prone to histrionics, but Ezra Klein is genuinely insightful and thoughtful. He’s really a much better/more truthful journalist than joe Rogan or tucker.

> I consume a wide range of media every day and I've never seen a bill that "restricts voting access for people of color".

Bills that restrict voting rights in America along racial lines are all over the news, even outside of America. That leaves only two possibilities. Either your range of media isn't as wide as you think, or you are in denial. You've already dismissed another commenter’s response, so I'm leaning towards the latter.

If said bills are so well-known and all over the news, why not just link to one? This is HackerNews, if someone says "____ exists and it's a problem" and someone else politely asks "which ____ are you referring to?", the appropriate thing to do is to just reference the thing in question - we don't need to get pedantic about the range of one's media consumption.

The reason I (and I assume other commenters, but I don't presume to speak on their behalf) don't care to dig up sources for you is because it's a waste of time. There are only two possibilities: either you're in denial, in which case there's nothing I can present to you that you won't also be in denial about; or you're not, in which case you can just search for it yourself (e.g. “bills that restrict voter rights in America”). Things that are all over the news are also generally easy to find.

It's because the bills in question don't actually explicitly restrict people of color from voting, they just make voting a little less convenient (i.e. a bill that you have to show a photo id to vote, for example, and a person of color might be statistically less likely to have a photo id than a non-person of color)

> bills restricting voting access to people of color

I'm not aware of any such bill. What's its name? And why is it not dead on arrival due to the Equal Protection Clause?

I’m not playing plausible deniability games with you. Everyone knows what the point of these bills are.

How is anything I said "plausible deniability games"? You claimed that bills exist that would restrict voting access to people of color. I asked you exactly which bills these are, and you can't/won't tell me.

The reason they won't tell you is because you've already presented yourself as someone who would deny the racist goals of a bill merely because it doesn't explicitly mention race.

Differently put: everyone knows what these bills are except people who are in denial of institutionalized racism. You've used an argument structure that is reminiscent of that used by people who are in denial of institutionalized racism. Therefore, it is assumed that you are in denial of institutionalized racism, and thus, there's no point telling you about the bills because you're just going to be in denial about them anyway.

Meanwhile, anyone who is not in denial can just use any random search engine and find articles like this one:

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2021/03/25/vote-m25.html

This is a Kafka trap. You're setting up a world in which nobody can disagree with you without being in denial.

After 4 years of trying to engage thoughtfully and being given the run around, I'm done putting myself out there for people who don't demonstrate an ounce of genuine interest in understanding the issue.

Maybe you don't fully understand the issue then. If you did, then you should be able to argue both sides thoughtfully.

Or maybe you have too much faith in my opponents.

Will a lifelong religious devotee be dissuaded of his faith by one argument with me on hacker news?

I think the lot of you are naive, and unaware of what really motivates your views (its not logic).

https://archive.ph/zUVTp is one of many, they work by making it more difficult to vote if you are working class, and usually urban in a state with a high percentage of minority residents. These laws, in practice, disenfranchise mostly minority voters.

It's not dead due to work by the Roberts Court to gut the voting rights act, which was the law that prevented this kind of shenanigans.

Isn't the part of the bill you linked to just saying "buses and other readily movable facilities shall only be used in emergencies"? What does that have to do with being working class or a minority?

The entire article, I didn't mean to link to a particular subheading.

And now the "plausible deniability games" begin in earnest. It is entirely possible to write a law that is ostensibly race neutral while making it apply discriminatorily. For a non-racial example, consider preferring tall candidates or military veterans as a proxy for men.

Similarly, things like requiring a drivers license or travel to an in-person voting location prevent working class people who don't own a vehicle and who work 9-5 from being able to vote without sacrificing wages (or perhaps at all!)

> It is entirely possible to write a law that is ostensibly race neutral while making it apply discriminatorily.

I agree it's possible, just not that this bill does so.

> requiring a drivers license or travel to an in-person voting location

But the bill you linked to doesn't require either of those things. There are explicit provisions for people without driver's licenses in it, and it didn't ban absentee voting.

> it didn't ban absentee voting

Right, it just makes it significantly more difficult, which means more people are required to vote in person.

> There are explicit provisions for people without driver's licenses in it,

Right, which you need to be familiar with and be able to assert your rights about.

Here's three questions:

1. All else equal, will this law decrease turnout by predominantly black working class voters?

2. Did the bills drafters intend this?

Three answers to both of those are "yes". Which brings up the third question: why isn't that discriminatory?

> Right, which you need to be familiar with and be able to assert your rights about.

Being allowed to vote without an ID isn't good enough, because some people might not know it's allowed? And why would you need to "assert" your rights? If this bill were to pass, wouldn't pollworkers be aware of the new set of rules?

> 1. All else equal, will this law decrease turnout by predominantly black working class voters?

> 2. Did the bills drafters intend this?

> Three answers to both of those are "yes". Which brings up the third question: why isn't that discriminatory?

If the answer to both of those questions were actually yes, then I'd agree that the bill were discriminatory. But you've just asserted the answer is yes without providing evidence, and I don't agree with your assertion.

> If this bill were to pass, wouldn't pollworkers be aware of the new set of rules?

That depends on your race. The fun thing about arbitrary and unnecessary restrictions like this is that they can be enforced only against some people, something that the VRA explicitly prevented at the policy level until it was gutted.

The answer to the first is yes, policies like these result in voter suppression that has to be countered by additional gotv efforts for equivalent turnout (among predominantly black, working class, democrat voters).

The answer to the second is also yes. The Republican legislators aren't dumb. The theory that the election was "stolen" by the Dems, which led to this law is functionally that too many Democrats voted. And the point of this law is to prevent that, under the guise of blocking "illegitimate" (working class black democratic) voters.

...which one?

ignoring your point to nitpic but, none of these (immigrants are good", "the 2020 US presidential election ran smoothly and had a clear victor who was duly inaugurated", "gender is a social construct", "people who are attracted to others of the same sex are normal and should have the same rights as anyone else", ) are position of the right. They are the left's worst spin on the right's positions.

Another take on this particular question (that I found much more interesting) https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/04/22/right-is-the-new-left/

Yeah his take is very interesting, but I think it's also very personal, very much coming from his own personal milieu (which contains a lot of very reactionary right wing folks...). I think it's an example of what I meant by saying this conventional wisdom seems to be more informed by "vibes" more so than data. It's definitely true that the SSC and pg crowds have are deeply convinced that this is a problem unique to the left, I'm just skeptical that their belief is as factually based as they might think. The SSC article does a good job of incorporating this uncertainty, but the OP does not, in my view.