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Re:I was denied admission to a PhD program because of my per... by donatj on Wednesday December 16, 2015 @05:30PM (#10747866)
I was blocked by a large mass of people with a shared Twitter block list including a number of comedy feeds I used to like to follow, because one of them disliked my political affiliation I had listed on my Twitter page. The person told me as much before blocking me. I've since removed it to prevent future discrimination, but I shouldn't have to and I don't much care for this brave new world.
Re:I was denied admission to a PhD program because of my per... by __44x0 on Wednesday December 16, 2015 @07:02PM (#10748441)
There's nothing new about this. Some people stopped associating with you because they didn't like your opinions, a story as old as humanity itself.
Re:I was denied admission to a PhD program because of my per... by donatj on Wednesday December 16, 2015 @07:07PM (#10748465)
No. The new part is that even people I didn't offend with my sensibilities are not associating with me on an automated basis.
Re:I was denied admission to a PhD program because of my per... by MaysonL on Wednesday December 16, 2015 @07:50PM (#10748675)
In Bruce Sterling's novel Distraction, there's a bot trawling the net for opponents of a particular politician, and posting the names of the leading ones on a blog, where fans (in the original sense of fanatic followers) of the politician would note them, and they would end up assassinated. The novel seems to be coming a lot truer than I expected when I first read it (1998 or '99).
Re:I was denied admission to a PhD program because of my per... by dragonwriter on Wednesday December 16, 2015 @08:19PM (#10748804)
People choosing to delegate association decisions to others is not new; the mechanism might be novel, but seems to be hardly relevant to the basic effect.
Re:I was denied admission to a PhD program because of my per... by derefr on Wednesday December 16, 2015 @09:46PM (#10749149)
Sure, but the scale and the lack of oversight in the new methods is a lot scarier. Everything you can think of that works like this—DNSBLs, the TSA watchlist, etc.—creates a Kafka-esque hell for a non-negligible set of people. Whereas what these replaced was just lists maintained by people, somewhere—where those people could be reached and pleaded with.
Re:I was denied admission to a PhD program because of my per... by tangled_zans on Wednesday December 16, 2015 @09:04PM (#10749006)
What is your political affiliation that you shared? I am curious to know if I would empathise with someone wanting to delegate blocking people with your affiliation by a communal block list.
Re:I was denied admission to a PhD program because of my per... by donatj on Wednesday December 16, 2015 @11:43PM (#10749593)
Libertarian. Apparently detesting violence is unpopular.
Re:I was denied admission to a PhD program because of my per... by tangled_zans on Thursday December 17, 2015 @01:08AM (#10749888)
Huh. Well, I'm just going to go out on a limb here and say that it's probably some other aspect of libertarianism that offended them. Just saying.

Unless they're actually offended by non-violence, in which case they probably did you a favor.

Re:I was denied admission to a PhD program because of my per... by zo1 on Thursday December 17, 2015 @04:32AM (#10750421)
>"Unless they're actually offended by non-violence, in which case they probably did you a favor."

Most would not say they are offended by non-violence, and most would actually advocate non-violence. The problem comes in when you start pointing out that logical and consistent definitions of violence/aggression preclude a lot of the things people value and think noble. To some, mentioning you are Libertarian inherently means you are saying all of their "noble" and "good" ideas should be scrapped because they rely on aggression. Hence the cliched "you want poor people to starve" criticism of Libertarian-like beliefs.

Violence is also a bit of a misleading word, in that it paints a very physical picture. Threat of violence can be seen as aggression, and is on-par with actual violence because the implication is that if compliance is not achieved, the aggressor will exercise violence. Had to clarify a bit, as I did switch the discussion from violence to aggression, which is what libertarianism and anarcho-capitalism is mainly about.

Re:I was denied admission to a PhD program because of my per... by tangled_zans on Thursday December 17, 2015 @01:41PM (#10753400)
I acknowledge that this is how libertarians see themselves, but it is inherently dishonest to assume that just because someone disagrees with you then they're doing it out of a misunderstanding and overreaction about you "trying to dismantle all of their 'noble' ideas".

Their values can simply be different, and it is valid for them to disagree with you based on the conclusions they get from those values.

Aggression is defined differently by different groups after all, so the set of actions that a libertarian objects to based on their understanding of "aggression" would be different to a set of actions that someone else would object to based on a different understanding of "aggression".

Obviously you disagree with their conclusion of dismissing libertarianism and blocking libertarians, and that's fine. What's less fine - in my eyes - is to imply that the disagreement comes from the fact that you are the only one who understands some basic Truth about the world and those that disagree are foolish and cliche for disagreeing with you.

That's the sort of thing that I associate with religion, rather than an honest intellectual discussion of political merits of an ideology.

Re:I was denied admission to a PhD program because of my per... by donatj on Thursday December 17, 2015 @07:03AM (#10750969)
That's the problem in a nutshell, and quite elegantly stated.
Re:I was denied admission to a PhD program because of my per... by typon on Wednesday December 16, 2015 @08:56PM (#10748980)
Did people have to interact with every single Nazi to have a blanket hatred against them? Not really. I don't see why you think this is a new phenomenon.
Re:I was denied admission to a PhD program because of my per... by woah on Wednesday December 16, 2015 @08:24PM (#10748829)
What if that political view is that you're a nazi and think the holocaust was a good thing? Would it still be wrong for them to block you?
Re:I was denied admission to a PhD program because of my per... by hguant on Wednesday December 16, 2015 @08:46PM (#10748932)
I think assuming the OC is a Nazi goes a bit far...

But to your point - yes of course it's ok to disassociate with someone who is advocating violence or National Socialism, because it can reasonably be inferred that said person isn't rational, or has a twisted sense of morality than makes associating with them damaging to yourself. However, I'm assuming that's not the case here - it had come in vogue in SWJ and intellectual circles to immediately disregard anyone who has an incorrect opinion. Vote republican? You obviously are a terrible human being. Fall in line with the Democrats except you think abortion is wrong? Kill yourself.

Re:I was denied admission to a PhD program because of my per... by geofft on Wednesday December 16, 2015 @10:53PM (#10749402)
The National Socialists were a legitimate, popular political party in Germany, until they went too far off the rails for anyone to pull them back on.

Given the very serious discussions in US politics about placing US citizens in concentration camps and refusing them re-entry to the country based on their religion, the question about at what point a party becomes the National Socialists must be a legitimate one to ask. Clearly we're not there yet. But also, clearly there's a nonzero chance that we might find ourselves there very soon.

Re:I was denied admission to a PhD program because of my per... by Dr_tldr on Thursday December 17, 2015 @03:43AM (#10750291)
The real question is "would it be wise?" The idea that you can "no platform" your opponents indefinitely without ever engaging their arguments usually ends badly. If one side is opportunistically throwing together every single grievance (both legitimate and imaginary) and the other is totally ignorant of what they're saying and refuses to even talk to them, the side that runs away from discussion grows weaker while the other side grows stronger.

If you want extremist views to have free reign, then keep avoid them until they form a broad enough coalition of the ignored and disaffected to take power, I guess.