Reminds me of Orthodox Judaism (other religions may be similar, but it's what I grew up with). Intense debate was highly valued and encouraged, but as soon as you questioned the fundamental truths that the belief system was founded on, you went too far. e.g. questioning that the bible was written by God, or whether God even exists.

That in turn reminds me of Al-Ghazali [1], and the impact he had on Islam. Unable to resolve why some things seemed to contradict Islamic beliefs, he developed and successfully spread the view that there's actually no such thing as causality or logic -- that every single thing is an independent act of god. In other words a leaf does not start burning when exposed to fire because it reaches a certain temperature (speaking loosely), but rather because god decided he'd set it alight at that exact moment. And of course that ash is not created by the fire, but instead by an instantaneous decision by god to turn the burnt object to ash. By rejecting any and all causality, he was able to dismiss all logical issues by simply asserting that causality and logic are social constructs. And that belief spread like wildfire, as such rationale that offers easy explanations for uncomfortable to accept phenomena is wont to do...

Today somewhere around 1/4 of the world's population is Islamic. And there have been a total of 3 Islamic Nobel laureates in the sciences. It's a rather nice demonstration on the question of whether 'geniuses' are born or made. If Allah's hand is not chained, what point is there in seeking to discover these alleged laws of nature?

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Ghazali

Over half the number of Muslim Nobel laureates (sciences and more), according to that Wikipedia link, have occurred since the year 200.

So, obviously, since the graph is spiking, we can expect to see lots more.

This is my sarcastic way of saying that taking a single metric which is affected by tons of different factors, and applying it to a complex argument about, basically, sociology/anthropology (human behavior and culture) really doesn’t provide a lot of value.

I think your post opens a door to a lot of interesting conversations, but that using the # of Nobel Prize nominations per religious / cultural group as a metric closed most of those doors.

It’s also not very scientific.

Please keep the crypto racism off HN.

The Nobel Prize is a European institution.

I'd say it's the same in other religions (from my personal anecdata with catholicism).

But I think that, in such context, the acceptance of fundamental truths are necessary to have a debate, like mathematical axioms are necessary for proofs. In addition to that the fundamental truths are about one's Faith, so I don't think there's a lot to debate on, either you belive or you don't.

Spot on. It's an effective technique to give people the illusion of having explored all possible options and arguments.

Relevant: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window

That quote is meant to be applied towards government and society. It doesn't make sense when you apply it to companies. Most employees are passive and obedient as long as they get paid. Do you think IBM or Goldman Sachs employees are allowed to dissent internally? I'd much rather work in an environment that's somewhat open than one that is completely closed.

Is your argument Facebook allows more dialogue then Goldman or IBM so this is okay?

Perfect example of what Chomsky was talking about, and the former cult member above who sincerely believes they were in a free speech zone demonstrates how effective this management technique is.

Basically saying https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wedge_issue with more words :)

This seems to assume that public debate is masterminded according to a particular design

Debate in a corporate environment is, in fact, masterminded. In these cases, its often specifically encouraged, in a certain fashion. The venues for the debate are built and moderated for that purpose, backed by the policies of allowed conduct of the employer.

An interesting comment from comments on TheVerge:

It’s probably worth bearing in mind that in any company that pushes this kind of ‘open’ communication, there’s an unavoidable pressure on most ordinary employees to say the ‘right’ things. A company that has so much of its internal correspondence open and visible to anyone will very quickly descend into 1984 territory. So those ‘dense’ folk bleating about integrity are likely to really be saying ‘I would never leak, boss, you can trust me’. And in all likelihood, the actual leaker is one of those voices. Personally, I find it baffling that so many supposedly intelligent people see an office under the Eye of Sauron as a Good Place to Work.