Re:Google Walkout Organizers Say They're Facing Retaliation
by DuskStar on Tuesday April 23, 2019 @03:24PM
(#19731975)
Coming back to this, I'd like to suggest [0] - it is possible for things to be both popular, or commonly known to be true, or what have you AND still be impossible to support or acknowledge without consequences. I think [1] feels relevant to the general situation of "X is declared to be true" as well.
0: https://slatestarcodex.com/2018/05/23/can-things-be-both-pop...
1: https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/10/23/kolmogorov-complicity-...
Yeah, that's fair.
> The people you discuss fear ostracism, but how does one get ostracized if one is in the majority?
Because there has never in history been a case of a small group of people exercising power over a larger group, even when the larger group could, if organized, easily overcome the smaller. Never happened.
But seriously, this is a game of equilibria. If everyone who speaks against X gets lynched, and people who don't enthusiastically support that lynching find themselves next in line, it doesn't matter how many people actually support X or like lynching. Any individual moving against that system gets lynched, including by the people who dislike both X and lynching, because no one wants to be lynched themselves.