The trick is to create channels with limited audiences, where you can set an expectation of which ideas are acceptable and which are not.*

It always has been, but the the arrival of new communication methods has disrupted the traditional channels, and now every idea is propagated to a much larger and looser audience, which aren't aware or don't share the expectations of the sender.

We need to rebuild the architecture of communication channels around this principle of limited audiences sharing a common understanding, and reshape the current "free" massive communication tools so that they respect this principle instead of exploiting the benefits of popularising aggressive messages for their shock value.

This compartmentalisation of channels would do much more for freedom of expression than the current "everyone gets a distorted and contextless version of the original message and can have their say".

* By the way, this is the reason why explicit Codes of Conduct are a good thing for online projects. Without them, you simply get a default implicit code of conduct based on the expectations of the dominant group; which is not a good solution for people coming from any other group.

Being offended is about obtaining value and for mobs to obtain power.

The two way street of both trying to not offend AND the listener trying to honestly interpret what is being said goes out the window

Whenever you have a bad actor on either side of communication, it breaks down.

The common wisdom, though, is that the bad actor is always the speaker.

And its simply not true.

The other problem is, as a culture, everyone is responsible for everyone else's emotions. No one is asked to be responsible for their own.

I don't have a problem with codes of conduct per se.

I do have a problem with a culture that constantly asks people to not be responsible for how they process information. Even negative, even offensive information.

Relationship therapists teach couples to use "I" language vs "you" language to express feelings (Google it if you don't understand)

This way you take responsibility for how external stimuli makes you feel rather than making your partner wholly responsible and thus making discussion adversarial

This problem is happening in FOS projects or even just social media in general.

Everyone is a soccer player, falling down, grabbing their leg hoping to get the most people feeling sorry for them, claiming 1% if the bullies and edgelords out there are some dominant social group. It's crap

I'm not ignoring that, I'm describing what I see is an underlying cause. If online discussion tools respected the principle of setting proper expectations for each communication channel, the problem would be much milder, as the problems you describe would be limited to smaller groups of interaction, instead of being escalated to viral dimensions.

But all the rules in the world can't solve for bad actors - both speakers and listeners.

There's a fluidity to human interaction that rigidity of rule sets will never totally compensate for.

And too many rules can be counterproductive and be empowering to bad actors who thrive in increasing beaucracies, at the least by making it difficult for everyone else so they look good by comparison. Then the whole focus gets lost. More time is spent navigating, adhering to, debating rules than the primary focus...

And trolls love thst shit.

Despite that, for groups where people come from very different origins and cultures, it is better to spell out the expected rules of behaviour to some degree. "No rules" only works when participants are homogeneous enough that all them already know the rules.

On the other hand, when a statement is made about you ("what you did is wrong") you always have a chance to discuss the facts. When a statement is made about personal feelings ("I feel offended by what you did") no discussion is possible any more: I can counter your interpretation of facts, but I cannot possibly argue about your stated feelings. You won, period. This seems to me the danger of the "I language".

If you're not interested in moving forward together then I or you language doesn't really matter.

Do you mean that a community could allow argument X, but disallow counter-argument Y? That sounds like a recipe for an echo chamber.

I definitely see the benefit in saying that certain topics are out of scope for a given community. But saying which ideas are acceptable and which are not sounds like codifying the dominance of an official viewpoint.

Yeah, exactly. But any anthropologist or sociologist will tell you that any social group works exactly that way, it's an inevitable reality of being social humans.

The trick to support freedom of expression isn't forcing all possible communication forums to accept all possible topics and ideas; it's to create cross-pollination groups where some ideas that are taboo in other forums can be discussed in an adequate context.

University used to be such a forum intended for cross-pollination and having a different set of taboos than the mainstream society, before it was hijacked by the dynamics of social networks.

Pederasty is so far from our cultural norms it’s current form is meaningless compared to a socially accepted version. In a society with active mentoring of youth by people across the gender and sexual orientation spectrum pederasty would reduce the stigma’s associated with homosexuals thus increasing social cohesion.

War is a stress test for societies. By destroying less efficient social structures it promotes long term progress and reduces inefficient practices like slavery.

Heroin is an opioid and can be used as such. It’s current stigma is associated with recreational uses, but it can easily be used for chronic pain in a hospice instead of similar opioids.

PS: IMO the real reason to segregate ideas across forms is to avoid having the same conversations everywhere. Bringing up politics means people talk about politics rather than whatever the original subject was.

Increasing acceptance of gay people by checks notes encouraging adults to have sex with minors.

And before you accuse me of cutting out a part of your argument, you haven't actually given a definition of pederasty that's not the one everyone understands, which is "adult men having sex with minors".

It has obvious terrible effects involved with it and the very fact it is being considered is a sign that things are deeply wrong but bizzarely winds up a lesser evil in some ways. Which arguably just makes it more insidious which is a whole other moral topic.

Anyway, the point was not to convince anyone just to discuss the topic in a positive manor without provoking a massive negative response from HN. Consider taking some issue you strongly disagree with and making a single positive argument about it. For example, the upside of infanticide?

War destroys progress and is incredibly inefficient. The mere threat of war creates an endless arms race resulting in half of discretionary spending going to defense.

The reason for submitting to government authority is for protection of life and liberty. War results in destruction of life and reduced liberty, so it's a major failure in that regard.

"Sorry ma'am, but your son died in the Great Stress Test of 1861. I know you just spent your last nineteen years raising him, but we weren't sure if slavery was efficient or not, so we needed him to help settle the question on the battlefield."

The global average military spending is 2.2% of global GDP, the US spends 3.4% of GDP. In a vacuum that looks like a dead loss, but over the last 10,000+ years even minor increases in progress could easily make up for that. Consider the USSR was destroyed by failing to manage that expenditure, in a world without war it could easily still be around. Now extend that back to every poor use of resources eliminated by war like Aztec mass human sacrifice or the southern states use of slavery.

I don’t think it’s acceptable trade off for the direct suffering of war, but it is a defensible argument.

And sometimes destroying leads to improvements - the blitz destroyed a lot of slum housing in the London east end, which was rebuilt en mass in a way that wouldn't have been possible without the widespread destruction.

Massive losses felt across the population in the UK led to a national unity and a desire for improvement of everyones lives, leading to things like the welfare state and healthcare for all.

Looking further back in history, the US war of independence is deemed to have had desirable outcomes.

You can still think war is a failure but acknowledge that it can lead to benefits as well as drawbacks.

Please explain the monumental advancements of technology witnessed during both world wars. Even if they were not a direct result of the war effort, they still succeeded in spite of all technically and scientifically advanced nations being on a war footing during those time periods.

> The mere threat of war creates an endless arms race resulting in half of discretionary spending going to defense.

Please explain why we have not seen a significant drop in defense spending during the periods when the threat of war has lessened. Especially after the fall of the Soviet Union when the world was decidedly unipolar for more than a decade.

> The reason for submitting to government authority is for protection of life and liberty.

I would argue that ceding some liberty to government is necessary for peaceful defense of life and property (backed up by the threat of collective force) but I don't believe that a government inherently defends liberty. To the contrary I think that liberty must be actively defended from the excesses of government, preferably by building those protections in to the legal foundation of the governments power so that if they are violated it invalidates the mandate granted and provides legal recourse against the government in favour of those wronged by it.

To be clear, I don't support war and I think that there are much better and less destructive ways to stimulate technological and societal growth but I don't hold with weak arguments either.

But we have. See the second chart, covering Defence spending of the United Kingdom from 1900-2020. https://www.ukpublicspending.co.uk/past_spending

Spiked over 45% of GDP during WWI, and over 50% during WWII. Took a small bump over 10% that I believe was the Korean War, and has been fairly consistently drifting downward since, and is roughly comparable to 1900s pre-war spending.

The United States has a similar graph https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_budget_of_the_United_... and while it's still nowhere near pre-war spending, there's been a similar downward trend over the last 50 years.

The problem is that you can't counter this by showing the monumental advancements that may have happened without the destructive nature of those wars on lives, economies, etc. because, well, we have no idea.

> Please explain why we have not seen a significant drop in defense spending during the periods when the threat of war has lessened.

Because "the mere threat of war" still exists - except instead of Russia, it's now terrorists, Middle Eastern countries, North Korea, etc. Also because the military industrial complex has an ungodly hold over governments.

Sorry, what? Slavery was never "inefficient." The problem is that humans have rights and holding slaves deprives them of those rights. To the contrary, slavery was, is, terribly efficient for the slaveholder.

The really fucked up part is that the advent of slavery was an improvement over stone aged bands warfare of genocide where at best some of the women and children might be forced into concubinge and human sacrifices to dispose of unsustainable mouths to feed.

Wonder what he would say to the mechanization of labor through technology and its benefits of ending the institution of slavery and providing owners cheaper or eliminating labor expenditure?

So just another view point on the issue of "inefficiency of slavery" argument.

Modern war not only means crazy lot of civilian casualties, and environmental destruction. It is literal breeding ground of hate, human misery, all of worst qualities of people. Only a defence contractor would advocate for war.

The struggle between people who believe in this and people who don't is more or less the plot of Babylon 5. The show actually moved me closer to the Shadow position: excessive stability is as much a problem as excessive chaos. Civilization seems to find a balance on the long view.

Surely explicit guardrails act as therapeutic discourse, in that it seeks to clarify systematic self-deception. By self-deception, I refer first-and-foremost to the myth of objectivity that often surrounds contemporary debate.

I fail to see why moderators should police tone over content and I'm not convinced this is even the case.

My point is that every stable community has a different subset of things that you cannot say.

It's easy to create a group where pederasty, war or heroin can be freely discussed or praised. The problem nowadays appears when utterances aimed to that specific group are picked up and propagated by the general network, reaching people who were not their intended targets and who didn't share the original channel's assumptions for what can and cannot be said.

That works once. Twice. Twenty times. It doesn't take long before these "just raising the controversy" comments overwhelm sincere and thought-provoking discussion. A rhetorical DDoS/DoS works the same way a technological one does.

There are a few small, well-moderated communities/outlets where people have gone a level or two past propaganda and stereotypes, but they come into the discussion with an open mind. I can at least feel like, if I found the right angle, I might persuade them toward my viewpoint.

And most importantly: people come into those spaces knowing what to expect. I expect to see some serious discussion over whether or not I deserve equal rights, for example, but I don't feel like it's futile the way I do with people coming in with a roster of thought-terminating cliches and propaganda as a cover for hate.

who judges this? fundamentals of human right are often old, who decides they are tired or outdated?

If they are constantly repeated, then either they aren't considered rebutted, or the rebuttal rarely spreads, and that is the thing that needs to be investigated.

We need to identify "thought-terminating cliches and propaganda" via a bipartisan standard. The current standards seem to be "your propaganda is propaganda, my propaganda is defence".

I would argue that code of conducts were a symptom of the start of the problem.

The strategy of the grievance class:

- Propose a code of conduct which surely nobody can disagree with, it's great to have rules and be nice to each other.

- Design the code of conduct so any perceived offence falls under it

- Wield it as a tool to push out any dissenters

Let me give you an example: you have a group of friends. Two of your friends have recently experienced a miscarriage. The implicit rules in your group have now expanded to include "no dead baby jokes" (depending on how dark your group's humour was, this might always have been a rule). The reason for this expansion is that two members of the group will now be hurt, upset and offended by those jokes. Making a "dead baby joke" is now a good reason to think the offender is an insensitive idiot, who probably isn't someone you want to be friends with.

This is no different from "no jokes about fags" when your group includes gay people. But sometimes, some people insist on being able to make "fag jokes" because "snowflakes are over-sensitive". Of course, they may not know the group includes gay people, and the gay people in question may not want anyone else to know their sexual orientation (none of anyone else's business). So it's better to spell it out explicitly that "fag jokes" are not allowed, even though there are apparently no gay people in the group. This is what a Code of Conduct does.

Yes, there are Purity Spirals that end up pushing this to extremes. But that's a separate issue. Codes of Conduct are still a really good idea.

In public discussions there has to be some baseline ability by the reader to accept that they can be offended while the value of what was said to the rest of the audience may outweigh their own feelings. The implicit rules of what is acceptable to talk about, especially online, have been getting stricter to the point of being ridiculous in my experience.

The core reasoning behind Codes of Conduct is sound.

Quite agree. Thus my proposal to create smaller, more controlled discussion groups. The larger the group, the more difficult it is to build a code of conduct that will satisfy all participants.

But it is very likely same sensitive people will jump and say "how can one be quiet when XYZ minority group is getting harassed/attacked/bullied/doxxed ? Say something don't be quiet on grave injustice." By saying something most likely means always in favor of over sensitive folks. If one tries to bring in different POV which does not fit the offended person's worldview, the person who said something is now racist or some kinda anti-minority douchebag.

So to me COC have one main point that is to attack on people who you do not like.

Try organising an event without one and with one, and you'll see. They an extremely useful tool. The fact that (like most tools) you can also weaponise them doesn't make them not useful.

Should a CoC have a "no politics" rule? No profanity (in an 18+ group)?

In any group you will need to agree on a set of rules about these things. A Code of Conduct doesn't change that, just makes it explicit.

The reason that Codes of Conduct are good is that it makes the life of an organiser so much easier. If Bob is being weird around the ladies (again), then an organiser can take him to one side and point to the "no being weird around the ladies" clause in the CoC. This is a massively easier discussion than without the CoC, where they would have to explain to Bob that his behaviour around the ladies was causing them distress, etc.

Yes, this includes "grey" areas, because it involves human feelings and emotions. Charles might behave in a similar manner to Bob, but not be "weird" about it, and people find him funny not creepy. Therefore he's not breaking the "don't be weird around the ladies" rule. That's down to human perception, unfortunately for Bob.

But that rule already existed, and was already "grey". Without the CoC, the organiser would still need to take Bob to one side and have the chat. Because weirding out the female members of the group is a dick move regardless. And Charles would still get a pass because he wasn't being weird. The CoC hasn't changed anything, just made it explicit.

So it's all down to the interpretation (of both the CoC, and whether behaviour falls within it) of the organiser? Especially under such vague standards as "being weird" or "being creepy?

This sound like the exact problem with CoCs. And the "rule-breaking" aspect goes both ways. It's eventually a way to streamline the process by shutting down group dissent. Work fine if the rules, and their enforcement are just; not so much otherwise.

> But that rule already existed, and was already "grey"

No it didn't. The reasoning behind the rule did, but not the rule. Once the rule exists people can appeal to the rule directly without considering the reasoning behind it; Much like arguing that abortion is bad because it is murder, without reconsidering why murder is bad in the first place and re-engaging with that logic in the context of abortion.

What you're missing is that this is something that will happen anyway, explicit CoC or not. Someone with power will always be in a position to judge the rules and enforce them in his own way on someone without power, by definition.

But if there is an explicit code, you are warned in advance of the actions that will more likely trigger enforcement, instead of finding them after the fact.

Therefore, you can decide to avoid those actions, or avoid the event entirely. In some ways, an explicit CoC is giving more power to participants over the organizer, not the opposite.

True, but maybe a CoC gave them that power. A CoC is a sufficient-but-not-necessary condition for such abuses.

> an explicit CoC is giving more power to participants

In the sense that it gives an opportunity to self police. The biggest army never needs to fight.

Until a topic (think BLM kind) came along that people thought should be an exception; The usual arguments: this wasn't politics, this was basic human rights / existence; It was offensive not to allow, is was oppression to not discuss.

Basically, enough people cared more about <topic> than their continued membership, or even the continued existence/stability of the group, that may become fractured by <topic>, that they where willing to leave and make a big stink about doing so, enough to potentially give the group a bad reputation, and leveraged this threat against the policy.

If social norms change and you want your group to have continued legitimacy, you may need to change with them. Not having a code of conduct doesn't make things any different.

The you'd describe being apolitical as not being "legitimate" is chilling.

In some sense, what I'm saying is that it's not possible to be apolitical. Politics is just lens through which we analyze human interaction. You can't have social groups without politics.

If you mean specifically "politics" in the US democratic/republican party sense, that's in theory a more attainable goal, but keep in mind that under that definition you excuse what is objectively bad behavior (IBM supporting the Nazis, as an example). Not to mention that the political parties in some sense have a vested interest in making things that shouldn't be political issues "political".

And you also get into the question of what is political? Are facts political? Is saying "black people are killed by police at a higher rate than white people" political? You're ultimately just advocating for a different form of censorship, which is fraught with all the same problems as any other form, but additionally with the duty to appear unbiased in how you define what is or isn't political.

That's an inherently conservative position to take. Which you should recognize if you want to take it.

The difference now is that these codes are being challenged by outsiders to the former dominant class; and making the new groups work requires the code of conduct to be enumerated explicitly, in order to define and coordinate the new, non-classical values.

The trouble I'm having with social changes, expectations, per person pronouns, and other things is that managing all of these interactions can be a crushing amount of cognitive load.

Now that I think about it, it's the same challenge I have with microservices. Formerly simple interactions are now hellza complicated. I'm not fighting the trend. I'm just fatigued.

I don't think perfect adherence should be expected. If there's a code of conduct and someone runs afoul of it, just give them a gentle poke and point them to what they ran afoul of. If they're cool with the code of conduct, great. They fix their behavior and everyone's happy. If they don't like the code of conduct, then they're welcome to join a community with a code of conduct that better matches their outlook. If they continue to stick around anyway and violate the code of conduct after being informed what they're doing wrong, they get the boot.

Where this gets stickier is when you build monolithic communities like Stack Overflow where "the boot" is actually seriously punishing. I only ever moderated little game forums where the consequences of a ban were far less severe. Which is why I tend to think it's better to have small distributed self-managing communities rather than monolithic communities. Makes it easier for diverse outlooks to live-and-let-live without requiring minorities to conform to the majority.

No, this doesn’t work at Facebook scale. I think we had a good thing going on the early web with lots of small discussion boards.

Are per-person pronouns really such a big deal to manage? I've known more people who have changed their name in marriage than changed their pronouns.

I'm more concerned about getting crap from someone who only thinks there should only pronouns for their notion of binary genders. For now I just use "they/them" for any given person if I'm not sure, because it's safer than asking in many cases.

And just for saying this, same people will accuse me of hating trans people and rejecting their right to exist. But you know what - people with successful HRT who also pass don't exhibit this behavior. They also don't self-identify as trans.

A lot of them do.

> They take everything so personal even if its not about them.

Is this an actual experience? I've worked with/interacted with quite a few queer people. And I've misgendered people on more than one occasion. Nothing a "shit sorry" hasn't been able to fix.

This forces me to wonder why our experiences are so different. Do the queer people I work with have different norms than yours? Do I have some level of legitimacy among them that you don't? Or is there something else at play?

If you go trans because you suffer from gender dysphoria, your 'fix' is to become accepted as the gender you identify as. To achieve it, you do HRT and a surgery (if you suffer from bottom dysphoria), and you present yourself as the gender you identify as, NOT as trans. This goes so far that these people correct you if you call them trans - they are a "Man" or a "Woman" now. If these people pass, they also pass as cis and are thus not easily recognizable as having undergone transition.

I'm active in a fan community of an Anime that features dissociation, so it accidentally attracts people with gender dysphoria. I had affairs with some people from this community and, this way, also got into the gay/trans community, which has an significant overlap. This is how i learned that identity politics is not representative of queer people. Heck, even the CSD/gay pride with the rainbow flags isn't representative of the gay community - many sexually deviant people just want to live a normal life and not be associated with pants where your butt cheeks peek out. I'm one of them.

This is a bit of an outdated view on being "trans". I'll elaborate a bit because this old view on transness I think is the main difference in our views.

As background, I assume we'll both agree that gender is (in western society anyway) stereotypically expressed as a binary: masculine and feminine. The extent and degree of this binary has shifted over time. At one point women wearing pants was unacceptable.

The historical view of transness was that people who are trans wanted to present as the other part of the binary. "I want to be seen as a man instead of a woman". This raises a question: why? The answer follows: "Because I feel like I should be a woman."

If you stop at the first question, your view of trans identities make sense: a trans identity is only valid if it fits snuggly into the existing gender binary. You are a biological male who identifies as a women, or a biological female who identifies as a man. And while both of those work under the second framing, gender nonconforming identities, which don't feel like they should be a woman, but instead feel like they shouldn't be a man (or a woman). I'll note that I'm intentionally simplifying here which has the consequence of erasing some identities like gender-fluidity. The framing still works for those, but the answers are different.

So "old" trans was about perception, "new" trans is about identity. Passing (or not) doesn't make someone's voice valid. Identity does. If you identify as trans, you are and that identity is valid is really how I'd summarize things. There's the potential for abuse of this, but in practice it doesn't happen.

So I reject the notion that one need to be visibly non-passing to be valid in any circle. This I think also addresses much of your second paragraph: there are many people who choose to identify as trans even though they are passing or mostly passing, if only because the shared experience is useful to identify. And they may do so only in certain circles (e.g. Be "out" only in queer circles where they feel more free to discuss their trans experiences).

> many sexually deviant

I'd be careful conflating sexual deviancy with LGBT identities for two reasons. First, "sexual deviancy" has historically been used as a pejorative for LGBT people in the US, and I assume elsewhere. And second, it's not particularly relevant. In psychology, "sexual deviancy" refers to paraphilias or kinks, which are explicitly sexual in nature. But a trans or gay person could be totally asexual. Even still, they could be romantically attracted to same sex people or have some gender dysphoria. Neither implies anything about the act of sex itself.

This is still how trans people think today. And if you are into language details, you'll realize that 'transgender' literally says that - getting across to another gender. Same way like transport meant getting to another harbour.

> I'll note that I'm intentionally simplifying here which has the consequence of erasing some identities like gender-fluidity.

> So "old" trans was about perception, "new" trans is about identity.

If the identity of gender-fluidity can be externally erased by your wording, its perception, not identity. I'm sure the same applies to trans.

> Passing (or not) doesn't make someone's voice valid. Identity does.

The wrong assumption here is that your LGBT status can make your voice valid or invalid. The idea that interpretation sovereignty for things comes from your subjective identity is appalling. I'm not sure how you read that into my posting.

> Identity does. If you identify as trans, you are and that identity is valid is really how I'd summarize things.

Only a very privileged person (or lack of social experience) would be in the position to even assume that this is how things work in reality. Subjectively identifying yourself does not work for anything except your name. Its all about how others perceive you.

And i tell you, they explicitly told me that they want to be seen and accepted as women. This is like, the greatest wish of people with gender dysphoria. This is definitely "perception".

> There's the potential for abuse of this, but in practice it doesn't happen.

What about Jessica Yaniv?

> I'd be careful conflating sexual deviancy with LGBT identities for two reasons [...]

I meant 'deviant' literally. As in, "deviance". Remove the "sexual" if it bothers you. I don't have contact fears with that word and will use it to refer to myself to reclaim it. You better not have any problems with that.

You are repeating the mistakes of identity politics. Like, if it was just a random opinion, fine. But identity politics are (due to their observably wrong dogma) alienating to both LGBT people and allies. If people go on like you, acceptance might fall enough that LGBT rights will be rolled back (already happening in the US). And this will hit LGBT people, not you.

Some trans people find external validation important, yes. But being trans is not defined by external validation (and certainly not external perception), but instead self perception.[0] This is obvious: it would imply that a man in drag is a trans woman, which is obviously untrue.

> If the identity of gender-fluidity can be externally erased by your wording, its perception, not identity. I'm sure the same applies to trans.

No, gender-fluidity can be erased only due to the simplification that feelings are permanent. If we accept that how one self-perceives can, for some, change over time, then that leads obviously to gender fluidity. Like I said, I was simplifying, and specifically the simplification erased some identities. Removing the simplification doesn't erase any other identities. The identities were never invalid. The simplified definition I was using just didn't extend to them.

> Its all about how others perceive you.

Self perception certainly isn't all about how others perceive you. It may indeed be influenced by external factors, but I identify as a man not because of how others perceive me but due to my innate feelings about myself. Dysphoria is a mismatch between self-perception and external validation. The self-perception isn't defined by the external validation, if it were you couldn't experience dysphoria.

So I'll reiterate: trans people are trans based on how they identify, not based on how they are perceived. A biological male who is a closeted trans woman is still trans, no matter how I perceive them. The same person is still trans if they eventually become a passing woman.

> The wrong assumption here is that your LGBT status can make your voice valid or invalid.

When discussing the experience of being LGBT, of course it does. In general, of course it doesn't. You seemed to imply otherwise when you said "because this is what they think makes their voice 'valid'."

Which, like I said, isn't the case. None of the trans people I work with or know believe that being physically non-passing makes their voices any more valid than it would be if they were passing. Let me just reiterate that: None of the trans people I associate put any particular weight on being non-passing, this was something you invented, and it entirely contradicts how the trans people I know define their transness.

In other words, to make that claim is to misrepresent what being trans is for many trans people.

> This is like, the greatest wish of people with gender dysphoria. This is definitely "perception".

Yes, for some trans people that is absolutely the case! I'm not denying that people who are "classically" trans are trans. They absolutely are. Their dysphoria is still driven by a self-perception mismatch.

Let try to approach this another way: if we agree that classical trans identities, those that align closely with the gender binary, are valid, then the question is what about people who have less severe dysphoria? Like if we accept that it is possible for someone's self-perception to completely mismatch their body, why do we reject the idea that there can only be partial mismatch. In other words, they don't perceive themselves as either strictly a man or a woman. This is where you get various non-binary trans identities.

Again, all I'm doing is adding more people under the trans umbrella, I'm very much not denying any particular trans person's experience.

> What about Jessica Yaniv?

I'm glad you asked! Here's Contrapoints again to dive into the concept of "trans-trenders" and specifically Yaniv better than I ever could.[1]

> acceptance might fall enough that LGBT rights will be rolled back (already happening in the US)

If you honestly believe that LGBT rights are at risk because of a perceived backlash to "identity politics" (which, to be clear is a phrase I still don't understand the meaning of), and not simply the US religious right doing the same things it's always done, you haven't been paying attention. Education and normalization does more to protect LGBT people than staying silent.

[0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n9mspMJTNEY

[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EdvM_pRfuFM

Did i say so?

My observations and your 'definitions' are different.

> Like I said, I was simplifying, and specifically the simplification erased some identities.

Language is inherently symbolic and thus an simplification (an reduction). This makes "Identity erasure" an very toxic concept - you are guilty of it because there wasn't a way to comply with it in the first place.

> The same person is still trans if they eventually become a passing woman.

Wow. You can't say that - that's really rude and a offense to transitioned people. They are a woman - becoming so was the whole purpose of transitioning. You should know that.

> and it entirely contradicts how the trans people I know define their transness.

If that's so, fine. The trans people i know don't even "define" themselves, because here people aren't obsessed with self-identity as in the US. They only want to be accepted as Women.

> [...] they don't perceive themselves as either strictly a man or a woman. This is where you get various non-binary trans identities.

Only in identity politics. In the outside world you get people that don't conform to various gender expectations, and the majority of them does not need to make up their mind around that being an identity. They "can be".

> Education and normalization does more to protect LGBT people than staying silent.

Yes, but then do it correctly. Identity politics as it is now has resulted in a large number of "shit liberals say"-outrage-memes. People are making fun of self-identifying because it is so absurd - does "I sexually identify as an Apache Attack Helicopter" ring a bell for you? I'm sure you have good intentions for LGBT people, but if you unironically argue with concepts like self-identification or identity erasure, people will be driven off. I'm driven off. Its neither how things work in practice nor how we will get LGBT acceptance in the future.

> "identity politics" (which, to be clear is a phrase I still don't understand the meaning of)

In the US, identity politics is the most vocal view on LGBT issues. Its core feature is the strong emphasis on self-identity and that it must be 'respected'. How the latter happens in detail is subject to being abused as leverage to control other people. Its only a power play if you see through it, and it rejects the normal-ness of LGBT people, segregating people into groups.

Contrast it to the other parts of the LGBT community, where people are like, normal people. And happen to have transitioned or a having partner of the same sex. That's as normal as chewing gum. Nothing 'special' that needs any kind of extra things to be respected. Just personal life choices.

I've isolated the statement I was responding to at least twice: "because this is what they think makes their voice 'valid'." You seem to think that trans people believe that, even if you yourself don't.

> Wow. You can't say that - that's really rude and a offense to transitioned people.

I don't see how differentiating between passing and non passing when we're talking about the impact of external perception is offensive, but please elaborate, I'm open to criticism.

> They only want to be accepted as Women.

And as I explained, this limits the definition of Trans to only a very specific type of trans person. It seems like you're saying that those are the right kinds of trans people. Perhaps that's why you're met with friction with those people: you're choosing to invalidate their self-perception because they don't conform to how you think a trans person should be.

In your mind, the trans "identity" is someone in one gender role who swaps to another gender role quietly.

After this point, the rest of your post was really just a rant about how you don't want to accept trans people who don't conform to your perception of them. That's you playing identity politics, it's forcing an identity on to them. And this is why I mentioned that I don't get identity politics: it's not a liberal or US-centric thing. It's a lens. It's a form of analysis of the world, a framework for looking at interpersonal interactions. Forcing someone to conform to an identity is identity politics just as much as identifying with an identity in a way you disagree is. They're two sides of the same coin.

The argument that identity politics forces you to be controlled is the exact same argument that the US religious right used for years to push back against all the "personal life choices" you mention, like marrying a same-gender person. It's the same argument that the US religious right pushes when they try to ban trans people from using the right bathrooms. The argument that respecting someone else's personal choice is an imposition on you. It's the same argument.

> And just for saying this, same people will accuse me of hating trans people and rejecting their right to exist.

I mean, what you posted is a textbook example of transphobia, no matter how light it may be. I've worked with many trans people and have many trans friends, none of them have gotten angry when I've had to ask for their pronouns if I can't remember or need clarification.

As a thought exercise, if you were to change your argument to be one about race, it would be a racist thing to say 'I don't wish to work with black people because they take things so personal'.

A better analogy than the one you provided:

If someone comes to an online community and announces that they are cisgendered and must be referred in way X, i don't want to work with them, either.

This isn't a question of gender, race or sexuality. Its a question about not being self-absorbed prick that forces everyone around them to walk on eggshells.

Experiencing gender dysphoria is a driving force for engaging in this kind of behavior, this is why my complaint is focused on these few trans people.

This literally happens all of the time, though? It's the 'default'. If you called a cisgendered man 'she' or a cisgendered woman 'he', they would likely politely correct you in the same way anyone else would. The only way you'd avoid that is by collectively referring to everyone in gender neutral pronouns which is certainly possible.

> Experiencing gender dysphoria is a driving force for engaging in this kind of behavior, this is why my complaint is focused on these few trans people.

And this is objectively wrong. People experiencing gender dysphoria is not a driving force in engaging in this kind of behavior (ie what you call 'taking everything so personal') considering, again, I have friends who have dealt with such issues and do not behave in the way you claim.

It really sounds like you're stretching your argument in attempt to justify your own transphobia. At best you're unfairly stereotyping them based on your own experiences and at worst you're behaving in an irrational manner by attempting to avoid them because you seem to think of them being 'self-absorbed pricks'. You're essentially arguing that people should shut up and not mention who they are at all.

No. Our conversation is a good example of that. The default is to state your business, not your sexual identity or race.

Normal people don't want to be judged by their skin color or sexuality or things like that, this is why they don't lay it out.

Stop taking sexual identity so seriously - its not central to anything.

> People experiencing gender dysphoria is not a driving force in engaging in this kind of behavior

I say, craving validation is the connecting factor. If you have different experiences with that, so it be.

> I have friends who have dealt with such issues and do not behave in the way you claim.

No one of the trans people i had relationships with acted in this way, either.

But in online communities around open source software, there are always a few black sheep that turn really emotional if you accidentally don't "respect their identity", and this includes alot of otherwise innocent behavior.

Is it? You started your conversation literally around identity, and claiming you chose to avoid people based on that identity. Regardless if they self-identify or not, you're the one that brought identity into this debate. The fact that you seem to choose to downplay sexual identity is rather funny, considering I'm willing to bet if you went out of your way to refer to a cisgender man or a woman as the opposite gender they would eventually get angry. So claiming it's not 'central' is bullshit.

> I say, craving validation is the connecting factor. If you have different experiences with that, so it be.

People want to be identified as who they are. Not sure how this is controversial. If you're talking to someone named John and you keep referring to him as Johnny when he says he doesn't want to be called Johnny, that's 'craving validation' by your argument. Remembering 'John wants to be called by John and not Johnny' is about as difficult as 'Remembering [Person] wants to be called by She and not He'.

> But in online communities around open source software, there are always a few black sheep that turn really emotional if you accidentally don't "respect their identity", and this includes alot of otherwise innocent behavior.

Yes, there are always a few assholes in open source development. This isn't exclusive to transgender people, I've met my fair share of cisgender people that turn emotional if you don't follow their rules. Does that mean I should start avoiding cisgender people all together?

I tried to outline a specific behaviour that predominantly comes from self-identifying transgender people. If you haven't experienced these behaviours, we won't find a common ground there.

Yes, there are always some difficult people. There are red flags to watch out for, and "self-defining as trans" is one of them. Putting much emphasis on your sexual identity is also a red flag in general.

Also personally, one of the red flags I find in difficult people is those that choose to stereotype an entire group. Usually they'll end up causing further problems down the line by not wanting to work as a team or ostracizing said members they stereotype.

As a parent of a teenage child, I see it reasonably often between teens and "boomers". Teens absolutely use offense of misused pronouns as a weapon against older folks. But in fairness, older folks also refuse to use preferred pronouns as a weapon back.

But, of course, this is all typical generational strife, and the pronouns are mostly an irrelevant detail to the actual hostility.

So many social and cultural interactions are covers for hostility of various kinds that attempting to sanitise a relatively small subset is bound to fail.

Hostility runs on a spectrum from over-reaction caused by previous trauma to outright aggressive narcissism and sociopathy.

Unfortunately we don't have the social sophistication to reliably identify and call out hostility, or to accurately parse the difference between conscious ill intent, unconscious hostility and ill intent, over-sensitivity, personality disorder issues, criminal issues, and other forms of power play.

Using the wrong one can activate a low-level fear response for people trying to "pass" on the binary, but it's easily quelled by generally being kind. The fact that you're concerned about being wrong tells me you aren't the kind of person they worry about. Conventions wouldn't hand out pronoun stickers and pins if the widespread expectation was that people would just know.

Most of the social pressure you perceive comes from well-meaning cisgender allies trying to use their privilege to mold the world into something a little safer. Sometimes they go overboard. Have you ever seen a cisgender person try to argue with a nonbinary or binary trans person about their own identity not realizing they're talking to a person they're arguing about? It's surreal. They mean well.

I was friends with a couple of trans people on college, and I would always either directly address them as "you", or use their name where I would normally say "he/she". It's not a big deal, I just hate that there is a subroutine in the back of my brain shouting "Don't say the wrong word! Don't say the wrong word!". I think that's the cognitive load OP was talking about.

I mean facebook is already doing this, on purpose or not (right now the blame is on the algorithms). Either way this is not the right way forward.

I'd ask you to think how this is any different from anything we had before the internet.

I actually think there is a difference in current communication patterns, but it's not being a structured echo chamber (we already had plenty of those before), and it's not something to be proud of.

The novel effect of social networks is amplifying and concentrating in a single point the worst instances of biased and unsubtle discussion, causing the recipient to burn up from the concentrated heat.

It's a process that replicates the dynamics of lynch mob; at least those were local effects, while now we get to have world-reaching lynch mobs. We need to put up firewalls so that inflammatory speech won't set everything on fire; and structured small communities is as good a solution as any.

Ignorance is not strength.

For whatever it's worth I was raised dirt poor, central Britain in a city that had been in rapid decline for many decades- Yet I believed, fiercely that Europe was less than Britain, that Muslims were coming for our benefits and our women and that Britains colonial past was something to be admired, we had brought civilisation to the world. I believed that I was born "rich" compared to the rest of the world and I had a birthright to be taken care of.

I don't have to tell you how much it hurt me to learn how ignorant, bigoted and wrong I was.

How much taking in things that were true conflicted so concretely with what I believed that I rejected it outright.

Obviously my opinions have changed, but allowing me to hide from the world would not have done that. Only stepping forward and being exposed to that which causes discomfort allows for it.

My own view is that I could limit my intake of knowledge to just a handful of people, but if they were the right people, I’d end up with a more original worldview than if I tried to read “both sides” since “both-sides-ism” tends to reactively assume the people shouting old views loudly represent an entire debate.

Exposure to the real world had a painful destructive effect, and if I had clung back into my safe little cubby hole I would have done so swiftly.

--

I believe "both sides" is important; but you're right that people scream and drown out any modicum of moderation; but it noble to attempt to at least understand the spirit of the arguments on every side of a debate.

Make your own reasoning about the facts based on the perspectives that are given, but other than that don't allow yourself to be emotive.

Really, this is what journalism is supposed to be, but that kind of journalism dies out because humans love to _feel_ so selling feelings about things is quite easy; this fuels divides. Since news is no longer fact it's merely "view" of the facts, and often not all of them.

I feel you on the growing up in a dogma infused environment, in my case rural England rife with homophobia, transphobia, xenophobia and all that sort of general ignorance-based hatred and revulsion. Luckily I also had an internet connection from a relatively early age so I had exposure to outside perspectives or I would've likely had more years of repression and self loathing than I had and wouldn't have had anywhere near the opportunities I've had.

In my mind, journalism should focus less on giving all sides equal weight and staying neutral but more on finding all the evidence, giving you said evidence, and then discounting lies and manipulation of evidence. Or at least on giving you all the evidence for you to digest and come to your own conclusions rather than just a match of he-said, she-said type reporting. I find the issue I've described especially prevalent in some BBC news stories..

Edit: I forgot to add that I also strongly agree with you in the many news organisations and journalists overly sensationalizing and giving opinion as "news" and/or trying to incite emotions rather than broadened perspectives/informed opinions.

I mean, so offensive that I closed book and put it away. Stopped thinking, stopped listening, stopped learning. Hurt me a lot.

And yet, I am so happy they entered my mind and I returned to them when I got older.

Needless to say, they became corrupt very soon, because no one was allowed to say a word against them.

Not really. That would assume that the only existing channels are official channels. My description works as well for self-organised, distributed, unofficial channels.

The Saudi Arabian religious police enforcing public edicts are preferable to ISIS pulling you out of a truck, giving you a theology pop quiz, and then shooting you when you get some answers wrong. The Anglican sacramental Test Act is preferable to a fake regime of toleration.

If we could get an explicit code of conduct with explicit interpretation with explicit enforcement then yes, they work quite well. Sadly most communities leave interpretation and enforcement up to the dominant group with an often explicit desire to not have those parts visible.

Again, I sympathize deeply that some people are hurting badly right now, but what should we do when we're dealing with life-and-death situations and there isn't time to craft the perfect message on the perfect platform?

True, but in those cases, you limit the participation in that channel. They didn't allow everyone to call in on the communication channels of the Apollo project, right?

One day, he arrives at a scene after a passer-by called 911.

A homeless man is lying on the street on top of garbage and cardboard boxes. There is urine and feces everywhere - it's a bad situation - and there are used needles lying next to the man.

The man is obviously in medical distress, and is unable to respond. When they try to attend to him, he wakes up and swears at them and swats at them, but then says he feels like he's dying and wants help. When they come close again, he again swears at them and swings at them.

As a matter of protocol, they have to radio in to headquarters and explain their situation.

This is tricky - they have to be politically correct about how they describe him. He's visibly degrading quickly, and may soon die if they don't intervene, but instead, they have to spend previous time on the radio making sure they use all the politically terminology so that no offense is caused - describing the homeless in California is a very politically charged subject and they could be disciplined if they use the wrong words.

If he is going into cardiac arrest, seconds can be the difference between life and death, and they're using them on trying to remember all the correct terminology and socially-acceptable phrasing.

If they're required to use a term for a person, but haven't been briefed on what term to use, then I think there are bigger problems there and "political correctness" is not the problem. Basic communication is. They will also not be penalised for using the wrong term when there's no briefing on what the correct term is.

If they can't remember what term to use when they have been briefed on it, then they have bigger problems (there are thousands of medical terms they presumably also struggle to remember).

So, were they briefed on the correct term or not?

For the record - I checked with them - and they told me they were asked to take a test to check if they harbored "unknown biases". They were then sent to diversity and inclusion training, and came out totally confused about what to do and say, but they were assured that the hospital and the ambulance services were monitoring comms and wouldn't look favorably on "potentially offensive" terms.

Trying to describe a homeless man sleeping on rotten cardboard boxes who is covered in urine and feces with needles strewn around everywhere, who is both asking for help and attacking them is VERY HARD to do without using a term that someone could potentially find offensive.

(and I'll note that you spent a bunch of time mentioning ultimately irrelevant details. Being homeless, or in an area with feces and urine and cardboard probably aren't relevant to anyone responding. The important facts are that there's a person in need of immediate medical assistance, the area is potentially hazardous, and the person is being uncooperative).

Those are the three things that need to be conveyed.

See? This is the problem. The filtering is more important to some people than actually doing the job correctly.

This is why speech must be free, because I don't want a paramedic who's treating me to be debating exactly how to define me to dispatch. I just want them to save my life.

You're arguing for essentially the opposite of that.

> They're relevant details because they directly affect the health and safety of the ambulance staff

A person being homeless is not relevant to the health and safety of the medical staff. A person sitting on wet cardboard is not relevant to the health and safety of the medical staff. The area being hazardous is relevant, and was conveyed. You may argue that "the area has feces and needles" is necessary to communicate. And that's fine.

> This is why speech must be free, because I don't want a paramedic who's treating me to be debating exactly how to define me to dispatch

No, if this is your goal what you want is paramedics who are well trained in how to communicate effectively over radios, much like pilots are. This has nothing to do with free speech. Restrictions and regimentation on speech in this context would actually make the communication more effective. For example, specific guidance on what things should be communicated about the hazardous area: that feces and needles are relevant but that cardboard boxes and homelessness aren't. This way, there are fewer wasted words.

The tragedy of that is that IATs don't even measure what they purport to or, generally, work: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/174569161986379...

That seems better than "there's a homeless guy with a bunch of needles and feces" in terms of descriptiveness.

Edit: aren't communications protocols a very standard thing among first responders / military / hospitals / etc?

Social sciences call that framing and I think it is really not constructive in many ways. Euphemisms don't help the people in question. Their last crusade is of course the gendered nature of our language, so every maskuline term has to be changed to be neutral. They could open their own mental asylum by now. To be fair, there are many social workers that really put in effort and have long since given up to fight against this insanity. But those are the one who actually have contact to patients.... CLIENTS! I am sorry, we don't call them patients anymore if their suffering is due to mental conditions....

You can always pretend we are right about this and those who are offended are biggots, but then you would make your parent's point.

I truly feel that HN is a safe haven for such notations. It's a provable, working example where first and foremost is to regard the other's words in a positive light, rather than assuming the worst. Anything deliberately otherwise gets moderated. I figure @dang sends a lot of personal emails struggling to adhere to this.

It's a system that can and should be replicated elsewhere imho.

Ironically, parent's comment here on HN has alerted me (& presumably others) about this diabolical practice (thanks @AHappyCamper), again proving HN as good, receptive platform.

You are not responsible for those people being offended. If people actually respond that way to your efforts they look stupid. Just carry on doing what is right.

Most of them are not actually offended but are claiming you may be offensive to someone else.

This is objectively false, you can get fired for offending people both at your job or outside it.

The fact that people and companies don't understand this is a separate, though obviously important matter.

So you obviously need to be aware of the (imho crazy) environment we are in, but also need to distinguish "might" from "right".

Someone's opinion on how things should be cannot be objectively false.

i remember how back in my youth if i said something offensive against the government i would lose my job and be sent to a forced labour camp. that was during communism.

history keeps repeating itself.

That being said, I don't know him personally, but I respect that he actually RESEARCHED and tried to have a dialogue, which unfortunately is lacking in today's society on both the left and right. I respect that he has an opinion, he shared it, he suggested changes and he actually seemed to be trying to reach the same goal that diversity programs are trying to reach but offered a critique.

I'm quite upset about how he was treated, and I wish that he took the lawsuit to it's natural conclusion in court rather than settling.

I think we can all agree, the main issue today is in our effort to create safe spaces and make the public forums safe for all, we've completely removed our ability to rationally think and listen to others viewpoints. What is offensive to the sensibilities of one person maybe completely rational and sane to another.

One of the reasons the legal system (supposedly) works is because it attempts to remove emotion from the process to provide a fair trial. I may not like the individual and think that they are guilty, but that doesn't matter. We need overwhelming evidence to determine that they are. We need to learn to put our differences aside and listen to the perspective of the other side and empathize. There is usually at least a grain of truth to what is being said. Without this, it's a pointless shouting match.

It was in conflict with the goals of management to get more women into tech. I also think such a memo (haven't read it) can put women under more scrutiny, even if it describes general trends that might not be applicable to individuals.

I think he is someone who can easily make the distinction in contrast to his accusers and everyone who studied computer science knows the demographics. Discrimination can be ruled out as a main factor easily. But even if the opinion of his accusers is dead wrong on all levels, management has decided that employment is not beneficial anymore. Science or not.

No, some people celebrated it. A noisy minority.

It was a convenient mistruth (for corps not wanting to threaten their bottom line with unwinnable controversy) that Damore is just a rabble-rouser;

You shouldn't pay too much attention to him, or read his actual memo, (or supporting links for context) - but if you are interested, we vox-plain the important stuff for you right here!..

The effect of which would silence both their work rights and free speech rights.

Google, a private corporation, not a government, decided to stop contracting with him, as they have women and minorities on staff whose employment output likely outweighs his personal need to write long, politically charged, essays at work. To me that sounds like no one's essential rights were violated at all.

That is completely false and you should be ashamed if yourself for spreading such blatant lies. I urge anyone reading your comment to check for themselves and read Damore's essay, which was well researched, rational and compassionate, the exact opposite of the kind of libel that has been used to slander him. Damore will be a case study at some point when reason returns and people look back and try to understand how it came to be that fools and liars became the arbitrers of what others were allowed to say and think.

> Google, a private corporation

Which by the way told its employees that they were free to publish their opinions and Damore acted on that premise.

It doesn't allow you to state as fact that someone holds an opinion that they do not. You can express an opinion, but there are limits on stating falsehoods, especially wrt other people.

you say "encounter an opinion they happen to disagree with", implying your statement about the memo is just your opinion, but you didn't say it in any way that suggests it was that subjective; and, making any unsubstantiated claim about a person is on shaky ground even if you did make it clear it was just opinion.

Newsflash!! This was being debated 30 years ago. No evidence ever found, apart from < 50% women in STEM

So whatever the truthity fairly idiotic

"Differences in distributions of traits between men and women may in part explain why we don't have 50% representation of women in tech and leadership."

Which could be interpreted, honestly, as saying...

"women and minorities could be incapable of joining the software profession based on their genetics"

Because both are encompassed by the more general "people could be incapable of joining the software profession based on their genetics."

And that's of course not the only interpretation possible, but the one you choose. You say it's because of "capability" but you could look at it in terms of "inclination", "interest", "comparative advantages" or other angles.

Much of the thrust of his essay was a critique of the methods being used to increase diversity, not of the goal or the feasibility of achieving the goal.

It was a technical critique. This method won’t work, kind of critique.

Not sure how this differs from a firing unless you are suggesting it was unrelated to the memo.

> his personal need to write long, politically charged, essays at work

You don't know the context. He didn't force the memo on people - he was actively encouraged to provide feedback to a forum on this exact, politically-charged, topic; then that memo was leaked, without his permission, (to unfriendly, politically-charged outside recipients) when someone found issue with it.

The insinuation "write long, politically charged, essays at work" that he abused company resources to do his own thing, versus being encouraged to engage with politics (which google does) and then finding himself on the wrong side of opinion is exactly the kind of abusive framing that hit-pieces used.

> women and minorities on staff

Who saw the memo because someone tried to offend them with it - not Damore. I don't disagree that sensitive topics might not be appropriate for wider audiences, but Damore is not responsible for that. No one was fired for leaking the memo, nor are media outlets being sued for propagating a false, offensive representation of the memo.

To be clear "women and minorities should be incapable of joining the software profession based on their genetics" is not something Damore said, it is something the media said, attributing it to him. It is the media therefore that owns these words and the offence they (and their distribution) caused. Not only did they slander Damore, but they also caused the offense Damore was fired for.

He absolutely did no such thing and this is an incredibly disingenuous representation. You can still argue he should be fired without this.

https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3914586-Googles-Ideo...

Perhaps he should not have been fired, but what a prick!

EDIT: And The Scarlet Letter seems relevant as well.

Q.E.D.

There are different ways of communicating the same basic fact. Telling my wife she has a fat ass and telling her she probably shouldn't wear those pants contain the same basic information but will have vastly different outcomes.

The one message carries the side-band information that I am insensitive, lazy or just plain don't care about her feelings and the other shows that I am trying to state an uncomfortable fact honestly while taking her feelings into consideration.

Or you might also consider the route of "these people get offended and i don't understand why so i'm going to work to listen to them and talk with them one by one until i do understand on a core level how they feel and where those feelings are derived from, and based on that i will do my best to share my thoughts in a way that is considerate of my deep connection and understanding of all the people around me, and because everyone has built a personal connection to me, they too will be able to accept my feelings and assume charity."

Just depends on which route you derive more self-satisfaction from. You can assume an air of superiority and righteousness in either direction, and that's something that all humans love to feel.

Look at history where the "moral" authority suppressed speech, it will end up just like that. There are also people that lie about being offended. Reaching out is falling into a trap in that case.

The dichotomy of these "routes" is wrong. A discussion must not be an argument, even if internet exposure lets you believe otherwise, but it can be.

Many of the people who are actually condemned for being offensive are condemned by the media or by some third party who's being offended on behalf of someone else, who we never get to actually hear from, and who might not even exist.

Are they trying to get support from the government, but government officials are offended that they use the term "Black Market" in their communications and refuse to engage with them?

Are they trying to raise public awareness, but their posts are being flood with replies demonizing them for using the term "Black", and so they feel they're not able to effectively spread the message?

Are their efforts proceeding exactly as hoped, but the media is demonizing them for using the term "Black"? Or maybe a grandma facebook group? And they feel slighted when they are trying to bring about this great benefit for the world?

Are they not actually seeing any offense at all and just want people to beat down a strawman for them?

The recent news stories about it happening in newsrooms and businesses should be no surprise when those stories were occurring with colleges for years prior. They learned they can take their heckler's veto to beyond silencing to the point of causing real damage.

People used to throw up the bogeyman of the religious right silencing the masses but instead we have the tyranny of the left to whom ideas are weapons and justification comes by laying claim that physical threat exists in mere thoughts and that justifies real punishment.

Be honest, I can guarantee many here are enjoying it to the point of glee but that is because you have been market researched manipulated by politicians into a certain pattern of thinking and reaction. Now that reaction is turning violent and it will eat both sides.

Unfortunately, this strategy doesn't work, because these people have the power to have a significant negative impact on your life (get you fired, ruin your reputation etc).

Of course, black in this context refers to the transactions being performed in the shadows, and has nothing to do with the colour of the skin of the participants in the market.

It’s all a bit absurd, but it’s also a trivial change to adopt.

And now I’ve offended adopties. I jest.

The amount of energy that this takes up is ENORMOUS, especially when you're dealing with something as difficult and dangerous as the slave trade. And what do you do when the new terms you've chosen all of a sudden become not acceptable?

If we agree that many types of non-threatening speech are no longer allowed, it becomes almost impossible to talk and convey ideas, especially in high-stress areas like this one.

Imagine a medic who waits to treat a homeless person who has overdosed because they can't remember the politically correct way to refer to the person, and they need to radio into the command center first before they begin treatment. So the person dies because the stressed out medic couldn't remember the politically correct terminology because they were trying to work out the best course of treatment...

Is this an example of the slippery slope fallacy?

There was no meeting required, the idea and action were raised and taken in the same parent post. Parent poster started with that type of thinking and avoided the halting problem.

>> The amount of energy that this takes up is ENORMOUS

Is it possible that learning to use different words in many contexts is the same as the act of picking up a thesaurus? How commonly does it not take such a trivial amount of energy? How commonly do you need to expend an enourmous amount of energy to achieve this end?

>> especially when you're dealing with something as difficult and dangerous as the slave trade

There's a bigger point can be made here, what if you're dealing with a topic you don't know well enough to navigate possible sources of offence? If you don't know, then your 2 choices are learn or ignore, it's possible that both of these are valid choices depending on context.

>> no longer allowed

"Allowed" is quite a vague term for the concept you raise - are we saying law against particular words or are we saying social norm and convention that can be broken in art, in protest, in challenge to the status quo? If it's anything short of a law that expressly forbids particular words, then the rest of your sentence's argument is nullified.

>> Imagine

Or don't. Slippery slope fallacy is a real danger in itself to be avoided.

Is it? It doesn't seem like it is because...

> There was no meeting required

... GGP's comment started a discussion on this very matter, still ongoing, instead of merely accepting that the term "black market" isn't offensive... Which it isn't.

> Is it possible that learning to use different words in many contexts is the same as the act of picking up a thesaurus? How commonly does it not take such a trivial amount of energy? How commonly do you need to expend an enourmous amount of energy to achieve this end?

You don't find this whole discussion exhausting? I do, it's entirely asinine.

> If it's anything short of a law that expressly forbids particular words, then the rest of your sentence's argument is nullified.

Because people haven't been fired and/or had their reputations ruined even though they said perfectly legal things? The argument is not nullified just because you try to will it so.

It's not. The parent and grandparent conversation stopped where they did. Our discussion isn't theirs. We're not pursuing the slippery slope on their behalf, we're not debating the merits of particular word choices.

> whole discussion exhausting? I do, it's entirely asinine

And yet, you of your own free will continue to engage it. Something doesn't stack up between what you say and what you choose to do but it's your affair, i have no cause to dig deeper so i stop here on this particular avenue.

> The argument is not nullified just because you try to will it so.

Agreed. Your argument

>>> it becomes almost impossible to talk and convey ideas

was nullified by:

>> If it's anything short of a law that expressly forbids particular words

A law doesn't make it impossible for me to use the words - i can choose to use the words but only at the cost of breaking the law. It's fair to characterise that as "almost impossible".

No construct exists with lesser severity than a law which exceeds the "almost impossible" test. QED.

Someone once said "Arguing with an engineer is like wrestling with a pig in the mud. After a while you realise the pig likes it."

EDIT: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vuEQixrBKCc

We? I’ve never. When did you fall for it and why would you?

They are after social capital so harm and belittle their social status as much as possible in return. Treat them like any other cowardly bully or predator and make yourself offically Not Worth It as a target because their capabilities will be harmed by the proverbial scratched corneas.

"Offended by the term Black Market? That is the offical term for illegal portion of the economy and this is about the ILLEGAL slave trade."

Are you saying in any context? That's not the proposal as i read it.

>> >> Could you just say

>> censoring

For censoring to be the case, it must be that you can't use particular words.

I read the case as

  1. the GP's post expressing a desire to show heightened care to a reader
  2. your parent posting a possible solution

They'd still not be censored though. Documents would continue to be written with the offensive terms by those who seek to offend. The words would be used in the socially unacceptable way in service of making a stronger point.

You’d have to recognise that the word wasn’t benign in that context first?

> So what should I do? Just shut my mouth and don't say anything? Then the slave trade will continue to operate freely... All speech besides threats of violence needs to be free, or we can't progress as a society.

This especially hurts new commenters, whose credit is fragile (and who don't know the cap on down-votes). Which keeps the conversation "safe", and the lurkers quiet.

Cynical me thinks this is a reflection of a society that thinks we need to quiet (and punish) everyone who disagrees with them.

EDIT: Replaced "he" with a gender neutral term to be safe.

I don't think that's a good reason. You should downvote if you think someone is arguing disingenuously or otherwise writing nonsense that doesn't belong on HN. If you merely disagree, you should upvote instead, and articulate your disagreement in a reply.

It happens a lot here, and it doesn't reflect well on those doing it IMO.

I think it is wrong of HN to not have a disagree but great comment button, hence my complaint about it reflecting a negative aspect of society.

But, the common practice is to do as I described. Case in point, my comment was down-voted! I clearly agree with you, and am pointing out an unfortunate fact, but since someone don't like that fact, I lost a point.

The problem with that simple rule is that there is no simple way to distinguish threats. Take a statement like "I don't think black people deserve to live", technically not worded as a threat, but the sentiment is no different. Similar examples varying in strength, obfuscation and contextual meaning can be produced in unlimited quantities. No hard rule can deal with all this, so have to debate what should and should not be allowed.

By this argument almost any idea you disagree with could be considered a threat, and honestly, it seems like it is human nature to sort of behave as if ideas that are ‘bad’ are a threat to my safety.

It takes effort to fight that impulse.

We need very narrow exceptions to free speech: specific incitements to violence seem to be one.

The point is: that line you're drawing is arbitrary. You can define it narrowly and precisely, and I think that's what you tried to do here, but at the end of the day you chose where to draw it.

It doesn’t feel arbitrary, but I might be fooling myself.

Sounds like something that had a huge impact on a terrible system in the world that most people aren’t aware of.

If you feel comfortable, can you tell us a little bit about it here?

From there, they were transported to Egypt, where they were smuggled close to the border and "conditioned". Conditioning involves repeatedly forcing them to take strong drugs like heroin, so that they become chemically addicted. The drugs act as an effective restraint. If the girl escapes, she has no way to get a fix within 48 hours, and goes into withdrawal.

Eventually, they are smuggled into slave markets in various countries there, where they are auctioned off or sold via direct sale. Usually, an auto mechanic is involved - he will build the girl into a car for transport. She will be sewed into the seats in the back of the car, built into the dashboard just behind the engine - it's simply awful. Travel can take several days and many don't survive.

I can't say much about how we intervened, but we worked with the authorities to intercept them and repatriate them to their homes in Europe.

b. I'm sure there are people who would be offended by the term you used too. If everything is potentially offense, then at a certain point it becomes very hard to say anything, even if you're trying to stop slavery.

It comes down to your individual values, what you stand for and what your intentions are. If someone you don't know is attacking you, well that's probably not someone to listen to.

It saddens me to say this because it means we got to a place I never thought possible.

I don't understand your first sentence. Please re-iterate.

I really disagree with your defeatist attitude.

Otherwise, if I am ever rejected by a company in an interview it would be a clear violation of my free speech rights.

It wasn't violent. And I shouldnt be afraid to disclose my opinion that bubble sort is indeed the fastest sort algorithm under all conditions and scenarios.

Let the cry-babies cry and feel insulted.

https://www.thefreedictionary.com/Underground+market

Wikipedia also uses the phrase "underground market" seemingly interchangeably with "black market":

> Even when the underground market offers lower prices, consumers still have an incentive to buy on the legal market when possible, because:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_market

But you could also just say "illegal market" or just "slave market".

Underground markets, even when selling legal goods, exist to avoid taxes. They are inherently illegal.

Re raising awareness, there is no way to say "We're trying to stop slavery in the Middle East and shut down the human Black Markets" without offending someone.

Is there a reason can't you just call this a Slave Market ? I mean, wikipedia has a page entitled just that: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slave_market. If you wish to disambiguate from historical you could add 'modern', 'contemporary', 'underground', or 'secret' very easily.

As to the location, it might be the case that the middle east is where you were involved, but I rather suspect that a) not all the slaves sold remain in that area and b) this does not only happen in that area. Certainly I have read of modern slavery occurring here in the UK and elsewhere in Europe. I have certainly read of women from China, Nigeria and Eastern European countries for instance, being trafficked for prostitution in recent years and I'm pretty sure that this is not the whole story. You are doing great work[0] actively working against slavery, right? If your organisation were successful in the middle east, would it then simply close down?

[0] and thank you for that.

You really can't spend the 30 seconds needed to think about "hmm, maybe be a bit careful about the words I'm using here in case my message gets lost in criticism of my language"?

As others have said, finding a non-offensive synonym for "Black market" takes a single search, about 5 seconds. Is it really that time-critical? Where are you sending these messages that those 30 seconds are "life or death" yet they're spread widely enough to be potentially offensive?

"messing up" involves what, exactly? Because it seems to me that using a racist term is more likely to divert the attention from your message, not less.

If I had thought there was a situation where "every second counts" was actually true, it would be human trafficking. You seem to disagree.

> Because it seems to me that using a racist term is more likely to divert the attention from your message, not less.

"Black market" is definitely a "racist" term now? GP only gave it as a potential example, or at least that's how I read it. The point is that wording the message like that is not actually going to divert attention. Except for the few people trying to police speech at every turn—and who will try to harm him over it—even though the message itself did its job (a far more helpful job than the people trying to police speech would ever do, for that matter).

There is a difference in knowing the meaning of a word and knowing the myriad of ways a word can be perceived by your audience. One is very easy the other is a gargantuan task.

In other words, all words are given meaning by the listener, not the speaker. Your intentions when saying something are irrelevant (but are usually taken into consideration because no communication is perfect).

You, accidentally, hit the nail on the head. I'm pretty sure that the intended audience often gets the message just fine.

The mobs trying to police everyone else's speech are never the intended audience; they just butt in to try to control how everyone else talks regardless of how much they actually care about the topic, group or subject matter.

In this particular example, I highly doubt that anyone in the middle of working against slave trade cares about whether anyone used the words "black market". It's only later, if that ever were discussed on twitter or reddit, etc, that one would start finding people taking issue with that choice of words.

If the "mobs" are receiving a message not intended for them, the onus lies on the communicator to resolve this.

I also think it's really funny that you're assuming you know what people involved in fighting the slave trade want. Are you currently doing that?

That's just terrific: I joke around with my friends in private chat, there's a leak, a twitter mob gets ahold of the data and doesn't like my joke. They then try to get me at my job, ultimately getting me fired.

All of that was my fault... As said by you.

> Are you currently doing that?

... I don't know how to answer this. The very root comment you're currently arguing against was made by such a person. We're inside that comment thread...

Did you make the original statement? I'm confused. You said that people shouldn't be an armchair analyst in discussions. Then you proceeded to do it. I then called you out on it.

It matters if you choose your audience. I agree, if you make a statement in public, say on twitter, then you've chosen the audience. The world.

Choose your words wisely, listen, react, respond.

It says nothing about the intent of the listener. A listener can intentionally take a statement in good faith or bad faith. If your statement is taken in bad faith and weaponized against you it's hard to respond over the chorus of the angry mob waiting to skewer the new victim. People enjoy being outraged. Usually, once your side of the story comes out they have moved onto their next cause and could care less what you really meant.

So, as others have said, it's better to just say nothing.

You can't control other people's sensibilities. If you find that your actions don't return responses that you want, you should consider adjusting your actions.

What's the saying? Doing the same thing expecting different results is the definition of crazy?

Going full on, we could remove the word "black" from our vocabulary. So hex #000000 would now be "abuefho" (some random made-up word) until people conscript that for their own designs and use it pejoratively: "you 'abuefho' jerk!"...

and then round and round we go...

I am amused you don't know what it means but you made your mind it's wrong :)

It is not the most used term in the world. Why not try gimp, git, white/blacklist, etc?

> or want to pretend that slavery doesn't go on in the middle east

To be frank I was unaware that slavery was a thing in the middle east until I stumbled upon the GP's post so I presume that such a thought is not that rare. Are you sure that you just did not talk about the topic with your friends?

> I think that the idea that free speech is under attack is entirely a fabrication

This is probably due to your personal beliefs. I presume that you consider it free speech as long as your own beliefs are not being censored. Just in another post in this thread you talked about how firing that professor would be an ok thing to do https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23638867

As for examples of free speech being attacked. Check out the whole Stallman case from last year, or the Assange case, or the Damore case, or https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23635384 - there was even a case with a ruby github project not that long ago. I personally was accused of being a pedophile and there was a "petition" to ban me from a server that I dwelled on (by someone who was not even a member) because I dared to defend Stallman's right to speech.

> if anything leftist and social justice circles LOVE offensive content

As long as it is offensive against the people who they dislike, yes.

> there's a good reason ... see use of "retard" or "spastic", or the fact that "aspergers" is ...

It is not a fact of nature that there is a good reason to avoid these terms, rather, it is your personal opinion - accusing them of ignoring what you consider as a good reason when they do not consider it as such one is not logically inconsistent.

Note that GP mentions that they're involved in left wing/social justice circles. Many of those circles involve activism that extends beyond the US, so being aware of things like international sex trafficking, forms of slavery, etc. is probably more likely in those circles than in an average person.

> Just in another post in this thread you talked about how firing that professor would be an ok thing to do

I don't think GP said what you claim they said.

> As for examples of free speech being attacked. Check out the whole Stallman case from last year, or the Assange case, or the Damore case

Stallman wasn't about speech. He was a missing stair at best, and at worst someone who repeatedly abused his position to harass women. Are you going to argue that sexual harassment should be protected by the principle of speech?

I admit I'm not particularly informed about Assange, but as far as I can tell the charges against him are for soliciting espionage/hacking. In other words, requesting other people commit crimes for him (and in other cases for aiding in crimes). I don't think those things should be protected acts, even if you believe that Assange has been a force for good (which I don't). It's like trying to defend Snowden on free speech grounds. No, he committed crimes. Arguably the crimes he committed were done with a good moral purpose, but he violated multiple laws. Assange doesn't have the defenses Snowden did (whistleblowing).

As for Damore, as someone who spoke with Damore on his "document", I can say that from my personal interactions, HN gives him way too much credit. I formed my opinions on his document from my interactions with it and with him, prior to any media attention, and the martyrdom he is given is undeserved.

The UCLA professor is under investigation not for "reading the letter from a birmingham jail" but for refusing to self censor after multiple students requested that he do so (and he can't be fired anyway). It's more complicated than "he read a speech".

[0] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6148600/

>This commentary addresses the widespread use of racist language in discussions concerning predatory publishing. Examples include terminology such as blacklists, whitelists, and black sheep. The use of such terms does not merely reflect a racist culture, but also serves to legitimize and perpetuate it.