You are both correct. Richard Stallmann was always treated a bit like a conspiracy theorist.

However, there was no conspiracy. This is just the result of human greed at a massive scale.

Can he be both?

He seems like a fucking odd guy, but he's not stupid in any way.

"Doublethink means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them."

- George Orwell, "1984"

Stallman, like most of us (and nearly all prominent historical figures) can posses both positive and negative traits simultaneously. The good isn't always outweighed by the bad, and vice versa.

Nuance is a difficult thing sometimes...

I think this isn't doublethink at all. I agree on the latter point.

In some contexts you do have to consider both, i.e. there are some loonies in every corner but the actual philosophy behind cancel-culture isn't necessarily a bad one of it wasn't the focal point of an extremely violent culture war and being aggressively pumped by social media not designed to encourage introspection or even basic humanity in its participants.

This isn't doublethink, because "he's weird and unpleasant" and "he has insightful ideas" aren't "two contradictory beliefs".

One can simultaneously be a genius and a misogynist. To some people, the former is unacceptable so long as the latter exists.

To understand an individual can indeed be both is the doublethink.

Richard Feynman probably fits the former description at least for some parts of his life.

Misogyny was just an example. All great people (and arguably all people) have good and bad traits - particularly if you go looking for the bad.

I think it’s more likely emergent behavior born of individual executives making decisions that benefit their image and career, rather than some conspiracy. Having a diverse team looks good and deflects the political eye of Sauron from the largely white male upper management types, who are de-facto racists/sexists/etc in the pop culture lens. Who knows, maybe some of them genuinely believe that preferential hiring of diverse candidates is actually morally righteous.

> I think it’s more likely emergent behavior born of individual executives making decisions that benefit their image and career, rather than some conspiracy.

https://archive.fo/1khJw#selection-1877.0-1877.86

Thanks for sharing this, I had no idea there was evidence of this being real.

As a (very!) low level manager, I’ve been espousing that diversity prevents groupthink for years. If we have too much groupthink, we risk driving off a cliff, high-fiving each other the whole way down.

> diversity prevents groupthink

Ideological diversity prevents group think. The modern "diversity and inclusion" movement actually strictly enforced a procrustean ideological homogeneity, ironically. It's probably the biggest modern example of group think.

Every time my company does a push for diversity, they hire the same kind of people - middle to upper middle class, college educated, comfortable to well-off suburban upbringing.

Diversity of what prevents group think?

I agree it’s emergent behavior; that’s not inconsistent with my comment.

The unionization risk thing isn’t made up. Amazon’s warehouse unionization risk rubric includes racial diversity as an anti-union measure.

> racial diversity as an anti-union measure

Could you elaborate?

The effect is measured to exist, but any attempt at explanation is just conjecture. That said, it seems pretty clear to me that racially homogenous groups tend to have closer social ties and are therefore more likely to unionize.

Generally speaking, regardless of race and sex, upper management types tend to be sociopaths who are actually racist/sexist (see all the scandals about this every time an executive sexually harrasses someone). Embracing the idea of a "diverse workforce" is a great deflection tactic.

The mega corps are driving the wedge between the blue collar working class and the white collar working class. Should the two groups ever unite they would tear the mega corps back into a pile of tiny toothless startups, and that’s against all moneyed interests.

Not only that but this "diversity over meritocracy" doesn't apply to Asian Americans, especially in academia, medical, law professions, entertainment etc.

It's like there is two classes of minorities: Asians vs Non-Asians and the diversity narrative and standards differ radically for both groups.

In fact, studies have shown that this ideological drive that pushes "diversity over meritocracy" only antagonize racial relations between the groups that find themselves on both ends of "punching up".

Correct; “diversity” is shorthand for “racial Leninism”. It’s primarily about paying people off with status subsidies. Asians don’t need status subsidies so they don’t benefit from this system

I don't really see any political reason for this type of discrimination. It's just racism that nobody talks about because it's Asians who are seemingly well off economically when in reality the wealth disparity in this demographic is one of the widest.

People see fu er dai students driving Lamborghini and think thats how all Asians live when in fact Asia is not even a country.

For instance, its socially acceptable to make fun of Asian accents or other racially insensitive remarks but other minority groups are a no go.

I recall when Justin Kan moved into his new home he was welcomed with a vandalized garage door with racial slurs. This supposedly the "most socio progressive and liberal state".

It's the latter self titled label is an excuse to be even more blatantly racist while patting themselves on the back for having X number of friends from X ethnic group therefore I can't be a racist, not even realizing Asia isn't even a group of its own, its literally describing half of the lands on earth.

Again you are grossly generalizing. Wealth disparity gap is one of the widest compared to other demographics.

Basing your model on stereotypes and statistics is exactly why we have the issues I spoke about earlier.

> If you’re confused about any of this, your model is broken. All you need to know is that East Asians are high IQ (within 0.3stddev of anglo or Germanic whites). This predicts everything else, including economic outcomes.

wait wait wait. So you think IQ and race are correlated. So Africans are poor because they have low IQ is what you are saying.

> Slurs against Asians are less offensive because the connotation of being Asian is bad.

wow. I can't believe I just read this on HN. "Its okay to be a little racist to Asians because nobody thinks its offensive". Who are you?

Sounds like you have a really skewed view of Asians (who are we even talking about? East Asians? South Asians? South East Asians?

> Slurs like “kraut” or “nip” don’t really have any weight because they’re basically complements.

WTF??? Who are you to gatekeep what is offensive and what isnt'?

I just read you trying to justify racism against Asians. HN has truly fallen far from grace.

> So you think IQ and race are correlated.

Of course - we have several decades of twin and sibling studies confirming this effect.

> I can't believe I just read this on HN

Sorry, I dropped a word from my comment - I meant "the connotation of being Asian is not bad". That is, no one really has a problem with Asians or thinks it's bad to have them around.

> Who are you to gatekeep what is offensive and what isnt

I'm making an observation, not "gatekeeping". There are definitely slurs that are more offensive than others.