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I'm trying to take this article in good faith, and I find it difficult, for two reasons: 1. The author equivocates online critique and criticism with being 'si

by jmduke 10y ago

I'm trying to take this article in good faith, and I find it difficult, for two reasons: 1. The author equivocates online critique and criticism with being 'silenced'. 2. The author thinks it's too risky to share "insights about Silicon Valley" online, but does not think it's too risky to advocate for immunity from critique for the already powerful. I understand that the message of this post is to have the listener consider how online discourse tends to coalesce into witch hunts, which is totally valid. The thing is, when I share ideas or controversial takes with my few "trusted friends", I don't expect them to engage me on the surface level without critique or criticism. I expect them to call me out on my shit (and presumably Paul and Jessica have the same expectation). The people I trust the most are the people who can critique me most fairly and most accurately, in good faith. By reducing all critique of online 'powerful individuals' as attempts to target and silence them, the author I think misses the bigger issue: it's not the act of critiquing that's the problem with online discourse, it's the shape and manner in which it's conducted.

antirez 10y ago
I think your interpretation of the blog post is not what the author had in mind. The problem is that for politically correct matters and other "pre formed" ideas people tend to attack certain ideas solely on the basis that they are against, even if supported by facts, from what the society or the "good thinking" society thinks it is appropriate, auspicable, and so forth. So basically there are arguments for which it is not possible to get a real discussion on the table (or on the internet) but only insults because for certain topics the % of people overreacting is going to be over the signal/noise acceptable ratio. So I can't see any request for immunity here nor she is claiming to be silenced. She is just saying: it is not possible to share useful things because there is a percentage of people not ready to have discussions only using arguments and facts. I totally agree with her.
- xapata 10y ago
  I think the phrase "politically correct" has lost all meaning. It used to be used as a synonym for "polite" and now, in the US, it seems to be used as a synonym for "ignorant and obstinate".
  - antirez 10y ago
    Here my definition is: behaviors that start with a good goal and later turn into a set of taboos.
  - ConceptJunkie 10y ago
    I always took it to mean, "attempting to corrupt the language to force a certain point of view", similar to Orwell's Newspeak. Ignorance and obstinance are symptoms.
    - xapata 10y ago
      That's not what it meant back in the 90s. Certainly not like "war is peace". The phrase was most often used to explain what a person wanted to be described as, like, "Please call me handicapped, not retarded."
  - dragonwriter 10y ago
    It's never meant "polite", and the modern use stems from its use in the mid-20th Century as a pejorative for obstinate and ignorant adherence to dogma by American Socialists referring to American Communists who were seen as slavishly following Stalinist orthodoxy.
    - xapata 10y ago
      Strange, I remember people using the phrase in sentences where one would otherwise say "polite", like "that's not the polite term" or "that's not the politically correct term". For example, "Oriental is not the politically correct term, say Asian."
      - dragonwriter 10y ago
        That use does exist, but it's a (popular in the mid-90s, still occasionally encountered) ironic use that derives from the older (and particularly common by the American Right against the Left in the late 1980s and early 1990s, its peak before the current resurgence among the same political faction) use as a pejorative. So, the modern popularity of the older and original pejorative use isn't "losing meaning" from that use...
nulagrithom 10y ago
What a perfect example of the problem described in the post.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
sgift 10y ago
A post about not sharing your opinion because it can be (willfully) misinterpreted gets misinterpreted into "You should not critique people because that silences them, especially not if they're successful". Is this satire?
- losteverything 10y ago
  Or irony
philh 10y ago
"Not because the ideas are necessarily controversial in their own right, but because anyone could twist them to seem controversial if they were sufficiently motivated to." I don't know if you're doing it deliberately, but this is what you're doing. > The author equivocates online critique and criticism with being 'silenced'. She uses the word "silenced" exactly once. There is no indication that, for example, she considers "people aren't saying anything because they don't like the tone of their online criticism" to be the same problem as, for example, "people aren't saying anything because they're scared of getting arrested". If you think she's comparing two things that aren't alike, you need to be more explicit. > does not think it's too risky to advocate for immunity from critique for the already powerful She is not in any way doing this. "How do we solve this problem? I don't know, but I hope there is a solution." That is not the same as "clearly, we need to solve this problem by making people immune from criticism". > reducing all critique of online 'powerful individuals' as attempts to target and silence them She describes one type of criticism. She does not say that all criticism takes this form.
andrewbinstock 10y ago
>The author equivocates online critique and criticism with being 'silenced'. Others have addressed the substance of your remarks. Here, I just want to mention as a fellow commenter that equivocates means "to use equivocal language especially with intent to deceive; to avoid committing oneself in what one says." It does not mean to state that one thing is equivalent or leads to another.

by jmduke 10y ago

antirez 10y ago

I think your interpretation of the blog post is not what the author had in mind. The problem is that for politically correct matters and other "pre formed" ideas people tend to attack certain ideas solely on the basis that they are against, even if supported by facts, from what the society or the "good thinking" society thinks it is appropriate, auspicable, and so forth. So basically there are arguments for which it is not possible to get a real discussion on the table (or on the internet) but only insults because for certain topics the % of people overreacting is going to be over the signal/noise acceptable ratio. So I can't see any request for immunity here nor she is claiming to be silenced. She is just saying: it is not possible to share useful things because there is a percentage of people not ready to have discussions only using arguments and facts. I totally agree with her.

xapata 10y ago
I think the phrase "politically correct" has lost all meaning. It used to be used as a synonym for "polite" and now, in the US, it seems to be used as a synonym for "ignorant and obstinate".
- antirez 10y ago
  Here my definition is: behaviors that start with a good goal and later turn into a set of taboos.
- ConceptJunkie 10y ago
  I always took it to mean, "attempting to corrupt the language to force a certain point of view", similar to Orwell's Newspeak. Ignorance and obstinance are symptoms.
  - xapata 10y ago
    That's not what it meant back in the 90s. Certainly not like "war is peace". The phrase was most often used to explain what a person wanted to be described as, like, "Please call me handicapped, not retarded."
- dragonwriter 10y ago
  It's never meant "polite", and the modern use stems from its use in the mid-20th Century as a pejorative for obstinate and ignorant adherence to dogma by American Socialists referring to American Communists who were seen as slavishly following Stalinist orthodoxy.
  - xapata 10y ago
    Strange, I remember people using the phrase in sentences where one would otherwise say "polite", like "that's not the polite term" or "that's not the politically correct term". For example, "Oriental is not the politically correct term, say Asian."
    - dragonwriter 10y ago
      That use does exist, but it's a (popular in the mid-90s, still occasionally encountered) ironic use that derives from the older (and particularly common by the American Right against the Left in the late 1980s and early 1990s, its peak before the current resurgence among the same political faction) use as a pejorative. So, the modern popularity of the older and original pejorative use isn't "losing meaning" from that use...

nulagrithom 10y ago

What a perfect example of the problem described in the post.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

sgift 10y ago

A post about not sharing your opinion because it can be (willfully) misinterpreted gets misinterpreted into "You should not critique people because that silences them, especially not if they're successful". Is this satire?

losteverything 10y ago
Or irony

philh 10y ago

"Not because the ideas are necessarily controversial in their own right, but because anyone could twist them to seem controversial if they were sufficiently motivated to." I don't know if you're doing it deliberately, but this is what you're doing. > The author equivocates online critique and criticism with being 'silenced'. She uses the word "silenced" exactly once. There is no indication that, for example, she considers "people aren't saying anything because they don't like the tone of their online criticism" to be the same problem as, for example, "people aren't saying anything because they're scared of getting arrested". If you think she's comparing two things that aren't alike, you need to be more explicit. > does not think it's too risky to advocate for immunity from critique for the already powerful She is not in any way doing this. "How do we solve this problem? I don't know, but I hope there is a solution." That is not the same as "clearly, we need to solve this problem by making people immune from criticism". > reducing all critique of online 'powerful individuals' as attempts to target and silence them She describes one type of criticism. She does not say that all criticism takes this form.

andrewbinstock 10y ago

>The author equivocates online critique and criticism with being 'silenced'. Others have addressed the substance of your remarks. Here, I just want to mention as a fellow commenter that equivocates means "to use equivocal language especially with intent to deceive; to avoid committing oneself in what one says." It does not mean to state that one thing is equivalent or leads to another.