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Comment by wing-_-nuts | Hacker News Reader

>"Bad Therapy, Why the kid's aren't growing up", but the podcast with the author seemed reasonable.

I had this book in my read queue, until I saw a podcast where she basically outted herself as an anti-vax covid denier. She may well have a point but after that I could only see her as an unhinged contrarian.

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I’m not saying this to try to start a fight or anything. You strike me as a kind person, so I’m going to give this a shot.

I am a bit of a contrarian about lots of things. Some of the smartest people I’ve ever known were major contrarians.

Are Linus Torvalds or RMS contrarians? What about Richard Feynman or Tesla?

I don’t really know if any of those examples would be widely considered contrarians, but my point is that people are multi faceted. Dismissing a person in a broad manner for unpopular opinions in one arena, strikes me as a religious mindset.

Does everyone have to pass a purity test before their opinions are able to be considered? Is that healthy?

Thank you for any consideration you can give this. I truly do not mean to start a flame war. One more thought experiment: is it ok to learn woodworking from an Amish person who likely would have wildly diverging views from most people?

So, I divide things into two camps. I think one can hold an unpopular opinion about subjective things, and it's fine. I won't judge you for preferring tabs over spaces, even if I think you're wrong. I won't weigh that opinion against your other work either. It's like preferring sweet potato to apple pie. You're still wrong, but again it has no bearing on objective facts. :^)

When you're outspoken about an objective fact that has been proven out by a mountain of evidence like vaccines being safe, or the earth being round, that's when I become very skeptical of any of your other opinions.

The amish woodworker is an interesting question. I wouldn't judge him for being wrong about things outside of his domain as I'd assume ignorance instead of malice, but if he started popping off very wrong theories on the nature of oak vs pine I'd probably be leery.

Thanks for the thoughtful response. I’m similar to you in this regard, but I’ve been thinking about the frailty of human knowledge lately.

We get it wrong a lot. It will be interesting to see how the vax debate and perception plays out over the next few years.

Are you advocating for comprehensive moral purity tests -- if a person holds a particular view that you disapprove of, they ought to be canceled in general and everything they've ever said or done banned, no matter whether their other work is good on its own merits?

It seems there are very, very few people in the history of the world whose work would survive. Perhaps none.

I am a layman, not a psychologist with sufficient education to prove or disprove her claims. When I judge someone's credibility, I take into account whether they've spread misinformation in the past. In this case, she has. Or at least she holds those beliefs and believes them strongly enough to speak openly about it on a public podcast.

Yes. I judge people on that. We all have the freedom of speech. We do not have freedom from the judgement of others.

That doesn't address the argument at all. You claimed that although her views on one topic seem reasonable, you believe they should be canceled, no longer promoted in society, buried.... because you strongly disapprove of her views on an unrelated topic.

Are you prepared to extend this practice universally? Are you aware that practically nobody can survive this sort of puritanical Maoist cancel culture? Look at what happened in China or Cambodia for recent examples of how that goes.

I disapprove of her views because they were provably false, yet she still espouses them. Yes, I do extend this universally. I won't take advice on orbital mechanics from someone who thinks the earth is flat either.

If that's 'puritanical Maoist cancel culture' so be it. You told on yourself with that phrase. This isn't a good faith discussion, and I'm out.

He said:

She may well have a point but after that I could only see her as an unhinged contrarian.

You're the one talking about cancelling, not him. We all have the freedom to listen to who we want.

If someone shows they’re either stupid or dishonest I will deprioritize reading their books. I have infinite books to read before I die. I have to cull the list somehow.

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