As a non-American, I endorse the argument myself.
The US has a quite particular culture, and yet most of its population (from all my experience) seems to consider it either (a) the pinnacle of human culture that others countries should/do aspire, or (b) the natural state of civilization (what things just "are", with everything else being inconceivable).
Add to that the geopolitical force and might of the country, and the fact that its companies control most of the internet infrastructure, and it gets troubling that a country with very specific interests that it pursuits globally, and where Janet Jackson showing some tit was considered a major cultural "thing" the media and people wrote about for weeks, gets to decide such policies.
>* there is no culture that could run a centralized global social network without these sorts of problems becoming ever-larger, the only difference is where the flash points would be.*
Well, the EU for one has a much broader range of cultures within nation member states, and a much broader cultural and historical and geopolitical perspective.
I've heard people who work in radio describe the Janet Jackson Superbowl incident as a watershed moment. Not only did weeks of meetings and memos about "standards and practices" follow, but to this day it remains a moment in their careers that sticks out as a clear "before/after" point, a "life will never be the same" event."
At first, I thought they were exaggerating and being facetious or joking, but it actually was a major event for everyone in their industry: before the Janet Jackson incident, every radio program at their station broadcast live. If a caller on the air started swearing or saying "obscene" things, they would chide the caller and apologize to the listeners. Now, every program broadcasts with a 20-second delay, and they have a board operator with a "dump button" in case anything "obscene" is said. (As one talk show personality sardonically remarked, "What, are they afraid we're going to start talking about Janet Jackson's nipple?")
A profanity delay has been used in radio for _much_ longer than that. The first tape delay was introduced by WKAP in 1952. The delay is usually more like 7 seconds, not 20 seconds.
The poor editor is sitting with their finger on the beep button, but a segment surprises them. "Those fuckers <long beep> ..." goes out over the air. It's 5:30 on the drivetime news, prime listening time. The host apologies to the audience and everyone tries to move on.
The general manager calls in, demanding to speak to the editor. Editor is terrified of losing their job. GM asks with as much fury and fire as possible, "Since you didn't have a problem with fucker, i have to know what the hell did they say after that that you decided was sooo much worse you had to beep it out?"
The editor turns bright red, everyone laughs and station pays a small fine. The story gets retold when there's a new audience or a retirement. Guys who tell their version of this story relish the details. even though you see it coming a mile away, almost all of fun comes from those great storytellers.
I would say that, exactly as you phrased it, that's multiple cultures. "The EU" can't run a "Facebook", it would be "The French" or "The Polish" or something like that. The EU is definitely in a place where increasing the amount that one of the dominant cultures imposes on the rest decreases the ability of the EU to function. (I'm talking first derivative here, which as you may recall eliminates the original value; I'll leave it to the reader to decide how far the EU is or is not already down that road.)
It would have a base country where its HQ are yes.
But it would still have employees from multiple EU countries, and operate within EU's laws, guidelines and cultural frameworks -- giving it a much wider perspective than 10.000 Americans (+ some wannabe Americans that came there to study/work) in a building in San Francisco.
10 years ago I would have disagreed with that statement. Now I can't. SV has gone nearly ideologically monolithic. It may be literally the greatest danger facing SV right now, not that anyone in SV sees it that way of course. I don't live in SV, and I am starting to see people in my real life (not just on the internet, where all kinds of crazy things get said that don't really mean anything) start naming it as a problem. I haven't had to reassure anyone that I work for 'an SV company, but not that kind of SV company' yet but it's probably less than a year away at this rate.
So, are you referring to ideology of neoliberal economics mixed with social justice in the form of minority rights, or right-libertarianism, or something else?
> Why can facebook ban completely legal nude images within of minutes, but don’t even respond to requests from the police or even courts to ban a post promoting the Nazi party and suggesting genocide?
Germany is a particularly sensitive case with respect to Nazis, but from experience and those of others, European countries in general also tend to be far more accepting of nudity.
So long as ideas "follow the narrative" (regardless on how grounded in evidence or just made up) nerd culture will accept you. Otherwise, it's probably the most toxic and politicized groups around.
There's some topics and environments where I feel safe speaking my mind before I figure out what the prevailing political winds are and what my boss believes. Emacs vs Vim is one of them, no matter how animated the debate is. Gender politics is not one of those contexts. There's a really significant difference there.
Yes, you're right. There is a really significant difference between discussing Emacs vs Vim, and discussing gender differences. Which is to say: one is meaningless, and one affects the lives and livelihoods of half the population of our planet.
Please do not insinuate that I don't care about the lives and livelihoods of women. I do, and that's why I put as much effort as I do into thinking about and discussing community norms, discourse norms, and other meta-level stuff. I generally agree with the aims the social justice types want, disagree vehemently with the costs they're willing to impose on people to get them, and do not feel like I can safely participate non-anonymously to achieve either of those goals. Talking about discourse norms, at the very best, gets insinuations that I'm a Bad Person by misrepresenting me as being one of The Enemy. Working on object-level stuff enables some extraordinarily shitty behavior by The Good Guys. It's quite frustrating.
Do you think it's not?
And further: why do you need to participate? It isn't about you, it doesn't affect you. It's not your struggle, and it's not the kind of thing you can get anywhere deducing from first principles. If you don't feel safe contributing to the discussion, then don't contribute to the discussion. If there's a thread talking about some issue in C++ programming, I might read, but I don't contribute. I have plenty of opinions about C++, but no real experience, so I've got no place to participate in the discussion. And that's okay! I don't have to be involved in every discussion.
> It's quite frustrating.
You think you're frustrated, imagine how other people feel! "My opinion isn't valid or wanted" is a new feeling for you, but not a new feeling with to the women in your life. Maybe ask them how they handle it?
Observing that there is such a thing as nerd culture does not really qualify. It typifies a particular set of practices and norms that set it apart from more mainstream sensibilities.
There's a line I like "Hegemony means never having to admit you have an agenda."