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Comment by JumpCrisscross | Hacker News Reader

> How does he know that the scale of the problem is what he thinks it is and not what “woke” people think it is?

Broadly speaking, there is no limit to racism that has ever been proposed by the far left. One can reasonably, trivially dismiss most infinities.

> The essay can be summed up in one sentence: There should be no meaningful consequences for men who engage is lewd behavior

There is something deeper here you’re missing. Women can generally define lewd behaviour however they want; there is no similar official mechanism in the balance. A one-way institution like that will predictably build righteous backlash against itself. That backlash is partly performative and partly justified.

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I have absolutely no need to get anywhere near the line of what anyone would think of being lewd.

> have absolutely no need to get anywhere near the line of what anyone would think of being lewd

How is that relevant?

The point is if one party can inconsequentially, to them, subjectively define lewdness and cause consequence to others through it, you will wind up with abuse and backlash. Whether it’s lewdness or moral uprightness or loyalty to a flag is besides the point.

Are you really not capable of knowing what could be considered “lewd” and not go into that territory in polite company?

> Are you really not capable of knowing what could be considered “lewd” and not go into that territory in polite company?

I’m pretty sure I both am and am aware enough of the line and its ambiguity to weaponise it against someone else if I wanted to. Add to that cultural variance in where the line lies and you effectively wind up censoring cross-gender discussion of gender-relevant topics.

I don’t think Graham is advocating for lewd jokes in the workplace, or suggesting the womens’ rights movements of the 60s were misplaced. He’s arguing against universally institutionalising rules of politeness, and being particularly wary of doing it one way.

> in polite company

Graham is arguing against the expansion of polite company to virtually the entire discussion space. In that, I kind of agree.

> I’m pretty sure I both am and am aware enough of the line and its ambiguity to weaponise it against someone else if I wanted to.

I have been in customer facing roles since mid 2020 as a consultant. There really is no ambiguity. I don’t talk about anything that can hint at going in a sexual direction, or politics or religion. I just don’t get involved with those types of conversation at work.

Occasionally, I do have to talk about politics as it affects business especially since I spent a lot of time working in the Education/State and Local Government space.

> He’s arguing against universally institutionalising rules of politeness, and being particularly wary of doing it one way.

There has always been institutionalization of what one should and shouldn’t talk about in “polite company”. Those norms have changed through the years and rightfully so. Did your parents grow up in the Jim crow south?

> Graham is arguing against the expansion of polite company to virtually the entire discussion space. In that, I kind of agree.

How is that any different than it has always been? I talk differently when I’m with my friends and family in private than I do when I’m in public spaces.

Society would look at me like I was crazy if I did the same amount of “cussing, drinking and telling lies” loudly like I do when I’m at home with my friends playing cards if I did it in public.

We all “code switch” to an extent.

> There really is no ambiguity. I don’t talk about anything that can hint at going in a sexual direction, or politics or religion

One can absolutely impute all kinds of nonsense from inaction as much as action.

I’d also challenge the fact that I don’t need to make lewd jokes as extending to the premise that they need never be made. (Or that our refraining from making them doesn’t cover up something darker.)

> norms have changed through the years and rightfully so. Did your parents grow up in the Jim crow south?

And most of those shifts are reasonable. Some, however, are purely performative. Latinx is a frequent example, though I’ve never met anyone who seriously used it. As a gay non-white man, there is plenty of performative nonsense online that comes from people who I can’t imagine actually have any friends who are in the category they claim to be looking out for. (There are also jokes that, while off colour, speak to something true, even if they’re made at the expense of some of my immutable characteristics.)

> I’d also challenge the fact that I don’t need to make lewd jokes as extending to the premise that they need never be made. (Or that our refraining from making them doesn’t cover up something darker.)

They don’t ever need to be made in polite company. I don’t consider “polite company” to be comedy, what you do or say in the privacy of your own home, etc.

I’m a Black guy and the amount of times you will here the “n word” and “fuck” fly out of my mouth in private and with family of my generation rises to the level of Samuel Jackson.

And I know no Black person that says “African American” outside of some professional circumstances.

And yet, here you are, making the lewdest of remarks. You're making me uncomfortable and need to stop making hurtful accusations that could be damaging to people. We're trying to have a polite discussion here.

Please don't take HN threads further into flamewar hell. You can disagree without this. There was nothing lewd in what scarface_74 posted.

Correct, but if the point is "what is lewd can change out from under you without any consent on your part" ad contra scarface and in support of the OP, then this is a reasonable response (though I agree it would have been better to put it in quotes and then point out the issue in several follow-on paragraphs to better fit with the site. This isn't Reddit).

So give an example of what is now considered lewd that changed out from under you?

If anything, they provided an example of how the counter-argument is disingenuous: one person's opinion of what is and is not lewd did not dictate the community opinion on the topic in this context.

Many of these complaints about arbitrary rules changing, to my observation, come from people who were simply unaware of a decades-long conversation happening in spaces they don't care to be invested in: sociological studies, gender studies, cultural studies, human behavior studies, etc. And when those conversations reach a well-reasoned consensus with convincing arguments that sway the hearts and minds of people with control over interaction spaces, it can be a little startling when rules change! But being upset about it is a little bit like being upset that the web APIs changed due to the publications of WHATWG while consistently ignoring the well-publicized discussions and work of WHATWG.

Graham in this essay seems to be laboring under the belief that because these norms didn't originate from the STEM education space, the STEM industry space doesn't need to adopt them or take them seriously... As if they weren't originating from the space of professional consideration of sociology and human behavior.

> If anything, they provided an example of how the counter-argument is disingenuous: one person's opinion of what is and is not lewd did not dictate the community opinion on the topic in this context [...]

... because someone who spoke for the community spoke up forcefully in favor of the current rules.

"According to your opinion, and it's your site so you can censor people who speak up. But I can see that you don't take sexual violence seriously. It's your choice to enable serial sexual harassment through lewd comments."

There I put it in quotes so you can see the point being made. Considering I can attribute lewdness to nothing, I am easily capable of doing so from any comment. Now, as an "individual of color experiencing comment censorship" (the phrase for someone who is downvoted), I demand action.

I understand, but in my view it's neither a good argument nor a helpful point.

You're right that the meaning of a word like "lewd" is disputed. But disputed is not the same as arbitrary, so your argument falls afoul of this guideline: "Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize." (https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

Whem you respond to people with opposite views (e.g. scarface_74 and gedpeck in this thread) in that way, you stand no change of persuading them or even of generating a curious response in them. It's guaranteed to be alienating. That's the opposite of the kind of conversation we're hoping for here.

What it will do is generate reinforced agreement among readers who already shared your view, but this is also the opposite of the kind of conversation we're hoping for—not just (or even at all) because it worsens polarization, but because repetition is bad for curiosity, and these are some of the most-hammered nails that exist.

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so...

Ah, but you believe repeated statements that it's easy to know what lewdness is are helpful and novel? They are mere assertions, not argument, and can only be met by direct contradiction.

Regardless, you are correct that this discussion is tiresome and besides, pg has pointed out that it's over: freedom is winning. It's gauche to fight after victory is declared.

[flagged]

> obviously there is a limit

Whether there is or isn’t is irrelevant. The fact that when asked “how much,” the answer seems to have no defined limit is what I’m criticising.

I’m not the one who quantified things. Graham did. I take it then you agree with me that Graham’s statement was written without merit or justification.

EDIT: Graham wrote, “Not a problem on the scale that the woke believe it to be, but a genuine one.”

He stated a limit on the level of racism. He gave a bound on it. He said it is less that what woke people think it is. CrissCross is being deliberately obtuse. This edit is for people who come across this thread. My comment pointed out that Graham didn’t justify this belief. I don’t know the level of racism and I’m not arrogant enough to try.

> I’m not the one who quantified things. Graham did

He quite literally didn’t. There are almost no numbers in the entire essay. The argument you object to is qualitative.

> take it then you agree with me that Graham’s statement was written without merit or justification

No. The exact limit is both irrelevant and not definable. Your comment demanded a “scale to the problem.”

EDIT: > EDIT: Graham wrote, “Not a problem on the scale that the woke believe it to be, but a genuine one.” He stated a limit on the level of racism. He gave a bound on it. He said it is less that what woke people think it is

One, still not quantitative. Two, nobody is debating whether there is a limit. (I said “there is no limit to racism that has ever been proposed by the far left,” and you said “obviously there is a limit.” These statements can coëxist.)

The question is whether Americans’ subjective sense of our own racism is accurate. And I’m saying that someone who claims there is more racism than the average person thinks and then fails to define it (the burden being on them, after all, for rejecting the status quo), that said person is probably overestimating it. Not necessarily. And there are plenty of activists and academics who are quite precise about defining and measuring racism. But those folks aren’t usually the ones running around online calling others racist.

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