I learned this lesson a long time ago from the role models in my life that ended up getting burned because of having a differing viewpoint from whatever societal winds were blowing. I, and I realize probably cynically, now only elect to share, post, tweet, or whatnot whatever only can positively benefit my "brand". Sometimes I have to act like my own PR person, because if I learned anything, anything you say can and most likely probably will be used against you. Working in foodservice for 8 years before switching to developer taught me if something you say doesn't offend or piss someone off, you just haven't ran into the right person yet.
Even right now, writing on a niche message board using a fake name, I'm hesitant to voice my honest opinions about anything related to race or gender or other topic like that. it's like there's an army of internet people waiting for you to mess up and will punish you with controversy and/or honestly try and get you fired.
"...so I thought the talk was well received.
But then the discussion began, and it was the most unremittingly hostile questioning I’ve ever had. I don’t mind when people ask hard or critical questions, but I was surprised that I had misread the audience so thoroughly. My talk had little to do with gender, but the second question was “So you think rape is OK?” [..]
After the first dozen questions I noticed that not a single questioner was male."
https://heterodoxacademy.org/2015/11/24/the-yale-problem-beg...
I don't feel like I have anything particularly controversial, inflammatory, or offensive to say. But, I so strongly don't want to be perceived that way that I just opt-out most of the time.
There is no serious dialog on complex issues like this, because if something you say gets misunderstood, your career is in jeopardy.
Freedom and rights are wonderful things. But as I see them used to justify censorship, I can't help but think that's exactly what's happening: they're being used.
I don't know about you, but I rather resent being used, and I won't have it.
We need our serious dialogue. We are undertaking a revolutionary project, realigning the way the sexes relate. The changes of the last century have been enormous. It is arrogance and folly to think that the monotone wisdom of one political perspective is all we need to guide us through such a storm. We need diversity and respect for opposing opinions. We need to gather wisdom from all experiences and backgrounds, and build something excellent.
It sounds like you can relate to existing as a person who is different in tech, then.
... with its scope extended to any imaginable opinion without exception.
Free speech is dead.
Ultimately it's an effect of large, diverse communities and deep political divisions.
If you want to have political discussions in such public places without suffering a reputation hit, the only way to do so is under a pseudonym - and you're free to do that on many sites.
In the past, you could just vocalise your opinion, and it would not survive many hops in the real-world social network.
So yeah, you can express your opinion, but your chance of being crucified for it has risen significantly.
From my viewpoint, an issue with a lot of today's social media is it doesn't feel as nakedly public as it really is. Personally, I wouldn't go into a large room of often random people that you don't know well, and loudly break traditional rules of etiquette by broadcasting inflammatory viewpoints on potentially pot-stirring topics like politics, religion, etc. Likewise, I feel the same with Facebook: that is not the place to discuss these sorts of topics due to how very public Facebook is. Yet a lot of people do that on Facebook and Twitter every day.
In the past, "vocalizing your opinion" meant debating friends over drinks, the difference today is that every person with an opinion deliberately leverages modern technology to broadcast that opinion to as many people as possible, and the more that receive it, the better. Naturally, people who disagree will respond... the system is working as intended.
It's not the person who got hurt that "leveraged modern technology to broadcast that opinion to as many people as possible" - it's the other person, the one who overheard stuff and got offended. This is why many start to feel afraid voicing their opinions - because even if you try to keep it to a small group of your friends, there's no telling when someone decides to rebroadcast it publicly on the Internet, and then all hell breaks loose.
Someone with a dozen twitter followers, all friends and family, who has no intent to "broadcast to as many people as possible" but just to comment to acquaintances, can say something juuuust a little bit ignorant and, if they happen to get noticed by an "influencer", suddenly have thousands of angry replies, calls to their employer, death threats, etc. They might not have even been broadcasting on twitter, but might have told a joke to a friend in a public place, perhaps even a joke that was misunderstood or misheard by someone listening in, and then suddenly find themselves in the middle of a storm. And it's not typically a storm of people correcting mistaken ideas or helping them reason through errors, but a storm of people seeking vengeance -- not "hey man, that thing you just said is demeaning and wrong", but "you're a bad person and you should be cast out of society".
That is not "the system working as intended" (well, maybe it is in some peoples' minds, but if so it's a terrible system!) That's not a system that fixes ignorance; that's a system that creates a black market for unpopular opinions and that creates fear and resentment.
Interesting elision. Will you expand upon it?
https://heterodoxacademy.org/2015/11/24/the-yale-problem-beg...
Those who you are appearing to condemn would just as easily use the language of "justifiably afraid to speak" in the context of their own political issues, but I am guessing you would disagree with their particular justifications, yet the implication you seem to be making is that they are "more free" to speak, even though both sides are equally capable.
The particular topic is irrelevant, there is certainly a venue in which any opinion would antagonize a particular crowd of close-minded ideologues, but just because a certain group of people are closed-off to certain types of ideas, doesn't mean you are any less free to speak them.
Imagine Obama giving a speech to a crowd of Trump supporters.
Imagine Trump giving a speech to a crowd of Obama supporters.
Both sides would claim "they screamed our guy down and didn't even give him a chance to speak, the [right/left] are killing free speech"... well, they'd both be wrong because freedom to speak doesn't mean everyone will agree, and if you broadcast an unpopular opinion in the wrong crowd, you get an angry mob; this doesn't mean your freedom is being trampled on, because there are plenty of places you can go to speak your ideas where everyone will clap and cheer and exclaim how enlightened you for sharing the clearly-correct-opinion regarding topic x.
I don't imagine that either side in the current political conflict would in general be any more virtuous than the other, given power. The thing about power is that, having it, one is tempted to use it. But it would be foolish to ignore the fact that, in the current political conflict, one side by and large does have power, and is less shy daily in wielding it.
Some believe the proper solution to this is to wrest that power away from those who now hold it, the better to wield it and say, well, they hit us first. I understand the appeal, but disagree with the goal; I would rather see a modus vivendi which enables both sides of the political divide to live more or less in peace with one another, ideally without the sort of constant incitement that goes on today. Such behavior seems probable by trivial extrapolation to take us all to a place where nearly none of us wants to go, and even most of those few who think they think otherwise will drown in horror and regret.
Ignoring reality doesn't seem likely to advance such a goal, but on the other hand, there's little evidence to suggest that is a goal which many are likely to share.
Ultimately sheer quantity of people is the bigger problem than anything else.
And then, someone decides to take a screenshot, out of context, and post it somewhere for the whole world to see.
The social price is extremely high now. It's very nearly as bad as being tossed in jail.
it's not unheard of for this to go much, much further. doxxing, harassing associates, campaigns to fire people, 'de-platforming', stigmatization etc.
such pursuit of wrongthink produces chilling effects and balkanization.
Of course, this is really only a significant issue on a public forum, on which you can post pseudonymously and still gain any benefits of discussion without paying any significant toll. Some people view this as a negative and want to ban this kind of commenting - I love it, it means you can experiment with different views, make arguments you might not want to make in real life and see what sticks with you.
You can say that about almost anything. I'm at liberty to murder my neighbor, I just have to accept the price.
Denying your neighbor the ability to speak out against your opinions violates their right to free speech. If you don't like it, argue back.
the quoted 'at liberty' seems to refer to something like not being restricted by the law of the land.
saying 'at liberty to murder' seems to refer to something like bodily autonomy/physical capability.
Voat for example was set up as a website that's like reddit but free from "censorship". That being its attractive quality, many people who value that quality highly went there, and it quickly turned into a truly vile place. My hypothesis is that this happened because the most of the people who could be described as "censored on Reddit" were actually censored for what I would think is a good reason - for saying vile/Nazi/etc. things. Therefore, even if that group was not entirely made of such people, Voat became a place just for them.
I think that communities which have a major selling point of free speech will tend to attract those who feel censored first, and bound to fall into the sort of site almost nobody wants, driving away "legitimate" censored users and failing to attract more people. Most "good" things aren't censored, remember.
You're taking people who maybe think that say, write shitty things about fat people or want to use that as motivation to lose weight and putting them in a basket with people who were subscribed to /r/niggers.
Pushing people out of major communities over minor offenses only results in the promotion of more offensive views in those people. This kind of exclusion from the mainstream results in extremification of views in those individuals. I've felt it myself, I've found myself agreeing with things that I know mere years ago I would have outright rejected, but now contemplate. People don't back down on views like that, they just clamp down harder. So in my opinion it's a lot better to just argue with them and not to censor them.
On the one hand it is probably good for your "brand" on the other hand, authenticity is a key factor in having a strong brand.
No-win situation...
That's the difference between marketing and advertising. Done well, your audience won't even realize you're marketing to them.
If you do the public face just right, people will think you authentically share those same views in private.
It could be someone who is outraged or someone who actually uses your words to further their ideological agenda against those who are outraged.
In short, the more people see what you say, the more chances that it can run away from under you and distract from your brand and its focus.
That is why Coke executives don't just tweet their personal views on topics, etc. and why politicians stay on message.
Anything you say publicly can and may be used against YOUR GOALS. And maybe against your character.
"Give me six lines written by the most honest man, and I will find something there to hang him. As quoted in Champlain's Dream (2008) by David Hackett Fischer"
And with AI you can probably quote mine anyone like Richelou.
Sometimes, like Trump, the controversy helps attract media attention and you can find a core audience who flocks to you. Then you become a polarizing figure. If that's your way of getting famous, then the price you pay is people quote mining what you say later and you having to filter out people who are constantly lining up to debate you and take you down.
Trump has been able to sidestep the parsing of his words by not standing for anything and being so willing to change with the wind and just say so much random stuff, while at the same time saying what enough people want to hear that he totally polarized the country.
When I posted this, the upvotes went up to +3 points, and then steadily have been declining to -2 points.
No one has commented as to why they are downvoting or whatever. Fine. But I have noticed this on many of my other posts. And I wonder sometimes whether people actually have downvoting rings / clones on HN for topics/people/opinions! It seems to be free to downvote or upvote, so economically it would make sense that there are no repercussions.
Since there is no cost to downvoting, it is cheaper in terms of time and effort to--anonymously!--censor opinions than to express them. It's doubly bad because, in order to acquire downvoting privileges, you must first express enough "correct" opinions, which makes the system self-selecting for certain views. It's a fundamentally broken system, because it incentivizes the wrong things, and it's why I stopped commenting here....oops.
Sometimes it's cheaper in terms of time and effort to downvote rather than engage because the comment or commentator displays obvious* signs that a discussion will be fruitless.
* To me, of course; I only represent myself and my opinions.
I think it's foolish to tie the two together if you ever want to express your personal opinions. Just because they're "popular now" or aren't causing harm in the now doesn't mean that will hold true 10 years from now, keeping in mind that "the internet never forgets".
I have a professional life, using my real name, with virtually no public exposure. I have a personal life as well, using social media, but locked down to close family and friends. And I've had numerous "hobby lives", Mirimir being one of the most recent and active, isolated through VPN services and Tor.
Agreed. No matter how calculated you are chances are someone is going to be angry or atleast peeved by you having an opinion. I believe that everyone has a right to voicing their opinion. By this I mean that people should have a chance to be heard, but I believe the backlash that comes from voicing an opinion is sometimes a necessary evil and it too should not be completely silenced. There's a healthy balance in the war of words.
I personally feel despite the backlash if you feel strongly about something that you feel is right then speak out about it, and have a voice. Some words need to be heard and expressed. People do often have strong biases, but your words can hold power to sway someone to either side.
One important thing to note about truly making a debate a learning experience is just because the person is on the other side of the debate doesn't mean you can't learn some principle or truth from them. You can almost always learn or see some shred of truth from any argument no matter how fallacious, wrong, or stupid it may seem. Our job as conversationalists should be to try to separate the fact from the fiction.
As words are expressed and understood people come to know where their misconceptions lie. They start aligning their perceptions with what they truly feel is right.
I love hacker news the community often does not take a single side, and the views on both sides are heard. This helps me decide where I should stand on the issue. So I just have to say thank you to those who give constructive thoughts that help guide the conversation.
Can I quote you on that?
I empathize with those who've also turned to self-censorship for fear of being branded as part of a the problem. I want to have the tough conversations, but not at the expense of being made a public example for holding opinions that are neither hateful nor malicious, just colored by my origins and journey through life: the exact same factors that others advocate taking into account.
The whole thing is really unfortunate: people holding moderate (and in many ways, mainstream) opinions are withdrawing from the public discourse, which I don't believe is conducive to satisfactory progress.
I would very much fear for the economic consequences of voicing various opinions. Even if they didn't lead to my termination at work, I'm certain they would prevent any kind of career advancement.
I'm reasonably sure I can survive in the world without my opinions being known, or the changes I presumably would like to see not being made. In short, they win, I'll survive somehow, and my kids will eat. They'll also maybe learn that some things I might believe are not acceptable, and will have to think about that when choosing to believe them themselves.
Certain ideas and people have definitively won the day, and it's now just survival mode for many.
These free speech rights we technically have were not acquired without cost--on the contrary, they came at enormous cost in blood. Now we refrain from defending them because doing so might inconvenience us.
Of course, it's easy for me to say this, sitting in front of a computer writing vague comments. Food for thought, especially for Americans the day after Independence Day.
i'm still bothered by the active censorship of comments and discussion that occurred earlier in the week, and i hope this discussion is informative for the moderators, who are hopefully having discussions about how best to handle similar situations in the future.
Mods are not trying to optimize HN for opinion but for intellectual curiosity, and that requires substantive discussion. That's pretty much the whole story, though of course there are a thousand details.
This thread is different from the other ones because the OP is different. Mods are doing the same thing here as in any other. That's devilishly hard for people to see because everyone interprets moderation through the filter of their own pre-existing opinions and there's little we can do about it. I wrote about this here if anyone wants more: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14693348.
I almost feel sorry for anyone who is to deal with either side. Harassment is one thing, but if that industry is the only help you can turn too- that is worser. Cause this side has no interest in resolving the core Issue (it literaly lives from it) and doesn't have a interest in a good outcome for the harassed either.
Still, if i think back on the woman i tutored in the freshman C-class - and later in there careers - any creep in power molesting those: Its good that this industry exists, to apply pressure too keep standards. For every woman in tech, should be able to walk, live and write like maria.
Some simple things I do to try to make things better in my workplace:
With others:
* actually listen
* never interrupt
* make sure criticism is constructive
* in a shared codebase, use the lightest possible touch (avoid aesthetic refactoring)
* acknowledge my own privileges/biases, and be aware of the fact that simply what I look like/how I speak etc. can affect other people
* be open to the possibility that my own opinions may not be immutable objective truths (this is hard)My new motto (if I can pull it off), is to never criticize, ever. If I see a project on an obvious downward trajectory, rather than pointing out the blatantly obvious things that could turn it around, I am going to smile and repeat the same nonsense feel good crap my coworkers do as if everything is just fine, and watch it crash and burn. And then in my next interview, I will declare it a smashing success! In my experience, this is literally the recipe for success in modern times.
I should note, these observations are based on working in large enterprises where failure of an individual project can be absorbed, as opposed to a smaller shop where success actually matters.
I'm fine with acknowledging my shortcomings. I think it shows a healthy humility and a kind of leadership that is really lacking these days.
But I find the language of privilege to be a certain kind of virtue signalling. I don't ascribe to the underlying philosophy, so I would be misleading my audience to talk about my "privileges".
> the fact that simply what I look like/how I speak etc. can affect other people
That can describe really bad, really racist outcomes. It's not fair, at least in the Rawlsian sense, to make people responsible for how others react to who they are.
We're talking about the behavior of others; who cares if Sally wants to order chicken or Fred wants a blue car or Mark and Sarah want to form a club for Pittsburgh-expats? If someone wants to create an award for women/minorities/lefties/gingers/etc, it seems perfectly reasonable to feel neither positively or negatively about it. This isn't a test, you don't get marked down for "no answer".
That said, I admit that a men only event is reasonable in certain circumstances.
The post and the parent comment show that this is not a matter of opinion, not a matter to be confused of; we're all human, nothing more, nothing less. Keeping this in mind will clear things up for everyone eventually.
Better to ask questions, share links, and tell stories based on personal experience if you have any.
I already treat women as equal (actually more), same goes to my LBGT friends and colleagues, and same for all non-white people. But constant presence in media is making these topics so annoying to me, I wish more focus was dedicated to healthy lifestyle for example (probably being selfish here but that's my view, and view of people close to me too).
Things like company-wide emails encouraging us to go to gay prides over weekend "where you can finally participate and show your hetero support" - god damn I work for banking corp with 130k employees. If I wanted to go there, I would be already going for last 10+ years. I show support to the cause by treating them as equal, because THEY ARE EQUAL, not treating them like disabled kids. Keep work emails about work, and let me do my own stuff in my own time.
Your point is "I don't do racist things, therefore there isn't a problem", which is just not true - there are still huge problems for tons of people with racism, sexism and other bigotry, and just because you don't see it or notice it doesn't make it not a problem. You got annoyed? I'm sure some non-racists were annoyed when all anyone could talk about was how bad slavery was. If you don't care about the issue, feel free to ignore it - but saying that people are imposing on you by caring is just unreasonable.
Being an island, Ireland was quite cut off genetically from the world for quite a long time, allowing a distinct ethnicity to develop. And as you may be aware, "race" isn't a real scientifically valid concept, but the word is used colloquially to refer to ethnicity, which is a scientifically valid concept that can be measured using genetics.