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I don't think this article adequately captures the problem. I'll try to illustrate. I explained to my children about the 2 US candidates. I described both of t

I don't think this article adequately captures the problem. I'll try to illustrate. I explained to my children about the 2 US candidates. I described both of them as bullies and said they promote a culture of bullying. We discussed how they set a bad example for the broader community and how media condones this behaviour. I was picking up my children from school when one young boy called me by my first name in a mocking tone. I approached him and asked how his day was and took a moment to ask about him. When I now see this boy, he goes out of his way to say hello. I recently went to a computer club open day. The rules were "we will only allow the same number of boys in as girls". I looked around and saw about 20 boys and 1 girl. I went to this girl and her mother and said "good on you for giving it a go, a variety of experiences is essential to helping you find your true self". The mother went on a sexist rant about patriarchal societies (the usual politically correct thinking) and I said "why would you deny any child the opportunity? Why would you force the same numbers of girls and boys? What's gone wrong in such basic thinking?" She stopped the hardcore feminist routine and apologised. She was big enough to say "no one has ever put it like that, that really makes sense". The problem with hate is that the Internet has given it a collective voice of monumental proportions. Our community leaders have let us down by selectively promoting prejudice (eg. Emma Watson is glorified for hypocrisy) while aggressively condemning others, especially passive people like Matt Taylor. What's worse is that most people don't recognise hate and bullying when they see it, or they are apathetic to it. My simple rule: if someone promotes one group over another, they are as bad as someone who excludes or vilifies a group (especially politically correct people who are huge bullies). These people who marginalise are the true haters and bullies. The article really misses the breadth of hate and bullying. Thought for the day. Do a search on breast cancer websites. How many of these sites do you think alienate men who suffer from the condition? Why do you think many of these sites quote percentages of male victims?

plasticchris 10y ago
Just curious, how does this rule affect your stance on affirmative action and similar policies?
kingkawn 10y ago
So to combat all of this you're going around correcting people and dismissing their perspectives as, among other things, the usual PC culture? Do you not think your attitude will evolve in your children and theirs into the same mockery of kindness and it's own principles that has befallen everyone else?
- hosh 10y ago
  @kingpawn thank you for bringing this up. It's a good test, and something that my friends and I have been batting around privately for awhile. I have friends who see themselves as SJW activists as well as friends who see SJW as an obstacle for better communication. I clearly don't speak for @rustynails. However, I think he is establishing a genuine connection with people, exactly an application of what Kierkegaard was explaining. Rather than dismissing other people's concerns, in his examples, he is instead establishing their personhood. He makes it personal without make it personally insulting. There are probably other things I'm missing, but I'm eager to try them out. I notice similar breakdown in communication with my wife, but I think this would help a lot.
- coldtea 10y ago
  >So to combat all of this you're going around correcting people and dismissing their perspectives as, among other things, the usual PC culture? I think you've only got the correcting part right. The parent 's interventions, as explained, where not dismissing, and especially where not dismissive of anything and everything -- they were only answering hostile behavior or exclusion with more openness and understanding.
geofft 10y ago
Do you really think nobody had explained it to the girl's mother like that? It sounds like she was trying to end the conversation in the easiest way possible, and she knows how to do it because she's ended that conversation so many times before.
- coldtea 10y ago
  Seems that you know what she actually thought better than she that said it.
  - geofft 10y ago
    What reason do you have for believing she was honest in what she said?
    - coldtea 10y ago
      Mainly the fact that unless we're talking about a person that's known for being a liar -- or a situation where people mostly lie --, this should the default assumption. That is, the burden on proof is on the one saying she's lied.
agumonkey 10y ago
Last month a woman of arab origins went to speak with far (extreme~) right people at their party meeting. Reactions would be the usual rant about immigration, reflex anger. She didn't debate the arguments, mostly asked about them, calmly. 3 minutes later they were in an understanding discussion, almost friendly. My reaction was that we should find a way to handle social gathering, political parties. It's so easy to turn into an echo chamber based distortion field. There's something about our minds and how we interact that creates walls. We should approach things a bit like buddhism, with new eyes and not prejudice. And ability to amort people which are already walled up so they can climb it down themselves and go back to relaxed open minded, honest interactions.
- hosh 10y ago
  I practice mindfulness, and yet I find myself creating those very same walls with my wife. In the past two and a half years, some of our arguments have gotten intense. I could see it escalating, worse and worse. It's only in the past month or so that we are both figuring out better communication patterns. It's why I'm so arrested by this article and @rustynail's examples. I don't know what it is, but I feel like I'm on the verge of grokking something here.
hiddencost 10y ago
Yeah, you sound like the usual person who wants to sweep away a strong history of oppression by pretending that being equal is all that's necessary, and uses that as a tool to suppress dissent from populations experiencing significant active oppression that you don't see because of your privileged position. We say "black lives matter" not because white lives don't, but because it is a defacto truth of our system that black lives are treated as mattering much less. What you're doing is suppressing dissent in a way that maintains the status quo.
- coldtea 10y ago
  >We say "black lives matter" not because white lives don't, but because it is a defacto truth of our system that black lives are treated as mattering much less. And you really think that people protesting police shootings in general, and e.g. shouting "all lives matter", whether the victim is black, latino, asian, white or whatever would harm things? It's the NON PROTESTING that's the problem, not the change of angle from "black lives" to "all lives". If anything insisting on "black lives" is only just addressing a narrow part of the problem and alienates people from the more general cause to boot.
  - hiddencost 10y ago
    Here's the thing. -- police violence is unambiguously a racial issue [0] -- "white lives matter" contains implicit parallelism to "black lives matter" and cannot help but be viewed as responding to BLM. Its use in general has been to deny the racial aspects of police violence. -- if you wish to address police violence for all groups, then use language which does not function to deny or derail other movements. Choose a new catch phrase. BLM is necessary to address the particularly black aspects of police violence, and trying to turn it into a race-blind movement is to destroy a core part of the problems it is trying to address. Make a movement which is interested in the general problem of police violence, but recognize that you're not addressing the same types of problems as a movement like BLM and don't try to stop what BLM is doing. The claim that <a movement which addresses the particularly black aspects of police violence is alienating> is a condemnation of non-black culture, not a condemnation of BLM. Race exists and has strong effects on culture and treatment, and race-blindness' only function is to deny marginalized groups the opportunity to address the oppressions specific to them. [0] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2016/07/11/arent-more-white-people-than-black-people-killed-by-police-yes-but-no/?utm_term=.e1f8ce819ae7 https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2016/07/1...
gizmo 10y ago
Why do you think feminists like Emma Watson glorify prejudice? She does no such thing. To the contrary: she is painfully nice to everybody. Why do you equate the meanness of Trump and Clinton? In what world are their personal faults comparable? Donald Trump is petty and vindictive to an unusual degree. Clinton is a normal politician. You cannot change society without criticizing it. Social justice activists spend a lot of time pointing out injustice in society, in the hope to persuade people to become less discriminatory. This doesn't make them mean or bullies. The problem is that any time sexist, racist or otherwise nasty behavior is pointed out people tend to get angry, and they want to lash out at person who criticized their behavior instead of reflecting on the merits of the accusation. It's embarrassing to see your post at the top of this thread. And people wonder why there aren't more women and minorities in tech...
- whybroke 10y ago
  A conspicuous and large campaign contribution by a key figure associated with this site sure won't encourage women or minorities in tech either. But it sure seems to have attracted a flurry of disturbing posts (eg my grandparent and sibling post's)
- mafribe 10y ago
  Clinton is a normal politician. Isn't it problematic that being directly involved in the destruction of Irak, Libya, and probably Syria is considered normalcy?
  - gizmo 10y ago
    I would say so -- US foreign policy horrifies me time and time again.
  - atmosx 10y ago
    I'm not a US citizen but from what I understand, if Clinton was seen as mediocre politician, there would no Trump-danger. The only thing that makes this election somewhat interesting for outsiders like myself, is that she's the only candidate I could think of that has a real, although slim, change of losing. Given recent events in Europe, I will wait for election day, polls doesn't mean anything. Also, the fact that nearly all mainstream US media I read is extremely pro-Clinton might have an unexpected backlash a-la Brexit.
haberman 10y ago
> Emma Watson is glorified for hypocrisy That doesn't seem very charitable. From everything I've seen Emma Watson acts altruistically in good faith and makes a point of not making her advocacy adversarial.
hosh 10y ago
Those are fascinating examples. I'm looking forward to applying this in my communication patterns. Correct me if I'm wrong, what I'm seeing here is seeing the person as that person and interacting with them. That in turn, defuses the kind of, detached, bullying that takes place. Am I missing something? Have you found this to be effective online?

plasticchris 10y ago

Just curious, how does this rule affect your stance on affirmative action and similar policies?

kingkawn 10y ago

So to combat all of this you're going around correcting people and dismissing their perspectives as, among other things, the usual PC culture? Do you not think your attitude will evolve in your children and theirs into the same mockery of kindness and it's own principles that has befallen everyone else?

hosh 10y ago
@kingpawn thank you for bringing this up. It's a good test, and something that my friends and I have been batting around privately for awhile. I have friends who see themselves as SJW activists as well as friends who see SJW as an obstacle for better communication. I clearly don't speak for @rustynails. However, I think he is establishing a genuine connection with people, exactly an application of what Kierkegaard was explaining. Rather than dismissing other people's concerns, in his examples, he is instead establishing their personhood. He makes it personal without make it personally insulting. There are probably other things I'm missing, but I'm eager to try them out. I notice similar breakdown in communication with my wife, but I think this would help a lot.
coldtea 10y ago
>So to combat all of this you're going around correcting people and dismissing their perspectives as, among other things, the usual PC culture? I think you've only got the correcting part right. The parent 's interventions, as explained, where not dismissing, and especially where not dismissive of anything and everything -- they were only answering hostile behavior or exclusion with more openness and understanding.

geofft 10y ago

Do you really think nobody had explained it to the girl's mother like that? It sounds like she was trying to end the conversation in the easiest way possible, and she knows how to do it because she's ended that conversation so many times before.

coldtea 10y ago
Seems that you know what she actually thought better than she that said it.
- geofft 10y ago
  What reason do you have for believing she was honest in what she said?
  - coldtea 10y ago
    Mainly the fact that unless we're talking about a person that's known for being a liar -- or a situation where people mostly lie --, this should the default assumption. That is, the burden on proof is on the one saying she's lied.

agumonkey 10y ago

Last month a woman of arab origins went to speak with far (extreme~) right people at their party meeting. Reactions would be the usual rant about immigration, reflex anger. She didn't debate the arguments, mostly asked about them, calmly. 3 minutes later they were in an understanding discussion, almost friendly. My reaction was that we should find a way to handle social gathering, political parties. It's so easy to turn into an echo chamber based distortion field. There's something about our minds and how we interact that creates walls. We should approach things a bit like buddhism, with new eyes and not prejudice. And ability to amort people which are already walled up so they can climb it down themselves and go back to relaxed open minded, honest interactions.

hosh 10y ago
I practice mindfulness, and yet I find myself creating those very same walls with my wife. In the past two and a half years, some of our arguments have gotten intense. I could see it escalating, worse and worse. It's only in the past month or so that we are both figuring out better communication patterns. It's why I'm so arrested by this article and @rustynail's examples. I don't know what it is, but I feel like I'm on the verge of grokking something here.

hiddencost 10y ago

Yeah, you sound like the usual person who wants to sweep away a strong history of oppression by pretending that being equal is all that's necessary, and uses that as a tool to suppress dissent from populations experiencing significant active oppression that you don't see because of your privileged position. We say "black lives matter" not because white lives don't, but because it is a defacto truth of our system that black lives are treated as mattering much less. What you're doing is suppressing dissent in a way that maintains the status quo.

coldtea 10y ago
>We say "black lives matter" not because white lives don't, but because it is a defacto truth of our system that black lives are treated as mattering much less. And you really think that people protesting police shootings in general, and e.g. shouting "all lives matter", whether the victim is black, latino, asian, white or whatever would harm things? It's the NON PROTESTING that's the problem, not the change of angle from "black lives" to "all lives". If anything insisting on "black lives" is only just addressing a narrow part of the problem and alienates people from the more general cause to boot.
- hiddencost 10y ago
  Here's the thing. -- police violence is unambiguously a racial issue [0] -- "white lives matter" contains implicit parallelism to "black lives matter" and cannot help but be viewed as responding to BLM. Its use in general has been to deny the racial aspects of police violence. -- if you wish to address police violence for all groups, then use language which does not function to deny or derail other movements. Choose a new catch phrase. BLM is necessary to address the particularly black aspects of police violence, and trying to turn it into a race-blind movement is to destroy a core part of the problems it is trying to address. Make a movement which is interested in the general problem of police violence, but recognize that you're not addressing the same types of problems as a movement like BLM and don't try to stop what BLM is doing. The claim that <a movement which addresses the particularly black aspects of police violence is alienating> is a condemnation of non-black culture, not a condemnation of BLM. Race exists and has strong effects on culture and treatment, and race-blindness' only function is to deny marginalized groups the opportunity to address the oppressions specific to them. [0] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2016/07/11/arent-more-white-people-than-black-people-killed-by-police-yes-but-no/?utm_term=.e1f8ce819ae7 https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2016/07/1...

gizmo 10y ago

Why do you think feminists like Emma Watson glorify prejudice? She does no such thing. To the contrary: she is painfully nice to everybody. Why do you equate the meanness of Trump and Clinton? In what world are their personal faults comparable? Donald Trump is petty and vindictive to an unusual degree. Clinton is a normal politician. You cannot change society without criticizing it. Social justice activists spend a lot of time pointing out injustice in society, in the hope to persuade people to become less discriminatory. This doesn't make them mean or bullies. The problem is that any time sexist, racist or otherwise nasty behavior is pointed out people tend to get angry, and they want to lash out at person who criticized their behavior instead of reflecting on the merits of the accusation. It's embarrassing to see your post at the top of this thread. And people wonder why there aren't more women and minorities in tech...

whybroke 10y ago
A conspicuous and large campaign contribution by a key figure associated with this site sure won't encourage women or minorities in tech either. But it sure seems to have attracted a flurry of disturbing posts (eg my grandparent and sibling post's)
mafribe 10y ago
Clinton is a normal politician. Isn't it problematic that being directly involved in the destruction of Irak, Libya, and probably Syria is considered normalcy?
- gizmo 10y ago
  I would say so -- US foreign policy horrifies me time and time again.
- atmosx 10y ago
  I'm not a US citizen but from what I understand, if Clinton was seen as mediocre politician, there would no Trump-danger. The only thing that makes this election somewhat interesting for outsiders like myself, is that she's the only candidate I could think of that has a real, although slim, change of losing. Given recent events in Europe, I will wait for election day, polls doesn't mean anything. Also, the fact that nearly all mainstream US media I read is extremely pro-Clinton might have an unexpected backlash a-la Brexit.

haberman 10y ago

> Emma Watson is glorified for hypocrisy That doesn't seem very charitable. From everything I've seen Emma Watson acts altruistically in good faith and makes a point of not making her advocacy adversarial.

hosh 10y ago

Those are fascinating examples. I'm looking forward to applying this in my communication patterns. Correct me if I'm wrong, what I'm seeing here is seeing the person as that person and interacting with them. That in turn, defuses the kind of, detached, bullying that takes place. Am I missing something? Have you found this to be effective online?