You’re blurring away the gap between behavior and ideas. Sexual misconduct and “anti trans” views are as incommensurable as musical scales and baseball bats.

I understand there is a difference. I’m saying I think the ideas being cancelled are actually just the kind of garbage ideas that don’t have merit but do cause harm. Do you think that anti-trans beliefs are going to be a source of intellectual progress? Because i’d argue that the deconstruction of the gender binary IS the kind of transformative idea that some people in this thread are saying is being stifled. Is the group of young people refusing to buy jk rowling’s next work the ones crushing an idea to maintain social order, or are they the iconoclasts breaking down the old ways with radical ideas? I’d say the latter, but...

> Is the group of young people refusing to buy jk rowling’s next work the ones crushing an idea to maintain social order

This one.

The idea there is some sophisticated science and nuanced understanding behind the critique of JK Rowling's statements about trans people is completely laughable.

It consists of name calling and social signalling, almost exclusively.

> the deconstruction of the gender binary IS the kind of transformative idea that some people in this thread are saying is being stifled

You can't be serious.

There are countless studies showing real differences between men and women in physical and mental traits, and it is incredibly rare for the people deconstructing the gender binary to seriously engage with them. Again, it mostly devolves to name calling and insulting people who mention any evidence that might challenge their pre-established world view.

My general intuition agrees with your views on gender. But I don’t trust my general intuition blindly - nor do I think it should be the basis for social engineering.

MLK was hated by most and persecuted by the FBI as an evil communist because he spoke out against the war machine, and called for a radical revolution of values.

Semmelweis was locked in a mental prison and beaten to death for suggesting that doctors should wash their hands.

Socrates was sentenced to death for questioning the state.

Jesus was crucified for challenging the established religious order.

Giordano Bruno was burnt at the stake for suggesting that the stars in the night sky were just like our sun, with their own planets in orbit.

>Are any of these places where the next big leap in intellectual progress is going to come from?

Iconoclastic ideas, whether erroneous or true, are always deeply offensive to society at large, and humanity always viciously seeks to silence them with the popular approval of the status quo.

You gave five examples of state violence to maintain existing social order. “Cancel culture” is not being done by the state.

I agree, ideas can cause upheaval, and there will be resistance to those ideas. But have you considered that your resistance to the idea of holding people to account for their actions and words might be a resistance to a social change?

I’ve heard a lot about cancel culture, but most of it has been rich successful people being deprived of continuing to be successful for something they have said or done that was actually harmful. The few examples of miscarriages of justice have not amounted to much other than a few lost sales and some clapbacks on social media. It feels like we’re doing an actually pretty good job at judging when to all-out-destroy someone (harvey weinstein) and when to just be critical (almost everyone else)

>You gave five examples of state violence to maintain existing social order. “Cancel culture” is not being done by the state.

Isnt "the state", made up of people? To the person getting punished, why would they care who it is doing the punishing when the end result is the same?

Here's one example, directly from the current HN frontpage:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26306020

In that instance, the canceled person was one of the United States' top reporters on the COVID pandemic.