11 ms·

I agree with his stance on this, and I think Trump and his latest executive orders are awful, but I also think that at this point, "hatred," "bigotry," and "ra

I agree with his stance on this, and I think Trump and his latest executive orders are awful, but I also think that at this point, "hatred," "bigotry," and "racism" should be excised from public discourse. These are labels. No one really knows what "hate" means anymore, but because people are emotional, they see the word, recall what they think of Trump, and think, "yeah, that's hateful!" This is a problem for two reasons. First, while Fred is probably a smart, intellectually rigorous guy, many people aren't. Most people who shout "that's hateful" or "that's racist" don't actually have a repository of comprehensive thought behind it. This is partly why Trump won in the first place. People everywhere would say, "You support Trump! You're racist!" or "Trump has a position involving race! He's racist!" This is not an argument, but once you introduce this vitriolic adjective into the room, everyone worries about their ideas being placed into this odious category, and discussion becomes stifled. People become sick of this, and vote Trump just to fuck with everyone. The second reason is that using labels convinces no one who isn't already on your side. Fred knows this, and this post is targeted at those people. This is virtue signaling: taking a "brave stance" on a position that people already agree with you on. Some virtue signaling is necessary; leaders should speak out; but generally this type of lazy rhetoric, combined with the incentive of popularity over truth, divides us more than any policy. I'm glad he's donating money, but he writes that he's "done keeping his mouth shut," and for that to be a courageous act he has to (like everyone else) do more than hurl labels.

Jonnax 10y ago
Calling something/someone racist works on the principle that it's an undesired trait in society. However Trump's supporters either believe that other races/religions are inferior or believe their concerns are more important and ignore it. So what can someone do if they want to combat inequality/injustice/etc? It's not like their opponents are arguing with an open mind.
- hueving 10y ago
  Or they don't believe they are being racist? Closing borders to some Muslim dominated countries while leaving them open to the largest Muslim countries in the world does give the impression that maybe it's not about being Muslim and it's more about nations.
  - mjmsmith 10y ago
    Nations without Trump hotels.
    - kyrre 10y ago
      do you really believe this? honest question.
      - mjmsmith 10y ago
        Believe what? I stated an easily verifiable fact.
        ashark 10y ago
        It's also not very relevant since there's bound to be a strong relation between being relatively stable and prosperous (to say nothing of free, mind) and having trump hotels. I'm no fan of him, but I also don't like "my side" using weak attacks.
        mjmsmith 10y ago
        The notion that refugees from these seven countries represent a particularly grave threat is nonsense, so we're left to speculate on the real motives. Forty years ago, Jimmy Carter put his peanut farm into a blind trust. Trump still owns properties all over the world. Since he hasn't released his taxes, we have no idea how much money he owes and to whom. It's not at all unreasonable to assume that his decisions will at the very least be affected by his substantial holdings.
        ashark 10y ago
        Of course it's nonsense, and of course Trump's going to try to help (and avoid harming) his own fortune, and maybe this is even a case of that, it just happens that "discriminating against the same countries been bombing" doesn't require "discriminating against countries that contain Trump properties", so unless we get a leaked memo where he explicitly forbids doing anything to affect travel from those other countries, the conflict of interest case is pretty weak. Meanwhile, I think the move is motivated by 1) actual interests of people in his cabinet and advisory group (notably Bannon), and 2) populist pandering for re-election. I think that's sufficient motivation. I think the ham-fisted implementation of the policy is either arrogance meeting incompetence or an attempt to anchor expectations so low that Republican elected officials can later happily get on board with him when he's merely being very awful instead of incomprehensibly awful, saying he's "learned". I hope it's the former.
soneca 10y ago
"People become sick of this, and vote Trump just to fuck with everyone." This is extremely superficial, arrogant, even offensive to people who voted for Trump. And that is the reason why Trump won IMO. Opposition couldnt understand (not even recognize) the legitimate and valid thoughtful reasons people had to vote for Trump.
- dongslol 10y ago
  I'm talking here about the alt-right, e.g. Milo Yiannopoulos' crowd, who self-profess that this was partly why they voted for Trump. People for whom this election was largely cultural, and saw Trump as a "fuck you" to the safe-space, microaggression, language-policing left. I know they have real concerns, like economic pain, threats to their way of life, and concerns about mass immigration—concerns which, by the way, I argued in the grandparent that the left counters with labels. "Your concerns aren't real; you're just xenophobic." But I think the cultural stuff was a big part of it. I realize they don't represent all Trump supporters, and never said they did.
  - spangry 10y ago
    I hope (what I have come to term) 'the authoritarian left' realise that this is basically what the military might call 'blow-back'. If you're going to stage a cultural revolution you should at least get that there will be some form of counter-revolution at some point. And if your revolution is concerned with things that don't concern the the rest of the populace (and in fact sounds like complete gibberish to them), best of luck with that fight...
- josefresco 10y ago
  Anecdotally, the people I know personally who voted for Trump did so because they "didn't like Hillary" which I translate as "just to fuck with everyone". They knew who they were "supposed" to vote for, and rejected that. They didn't once repeat any of Trumps proposed policies or justify their choice based on public positions. They were given a choice between two flavors of politicians, and picked the one they liked (or the the one they didn't, not like)
emperorcezar 10y ago
This is a great way for one to stick their head in the sand and not have to fight the evil in the world. The Nazis weren't defeated by pussyfooting around, and the same applies this time around.
selllikesybok 10y ago
Labels are extemely useful and important. You do not cede ground on framing. Even if all you can do is fight to a standstill, it is better than not fighting. Call it what it is. Everywhere you see it.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- concinds 10y ago
  How many times will this need to be explained? Calling Trump racist or a Nazi isn't effective. It's preaching to the choir. You don't convince his supporters, and you alienate the moderates that believe Trump is moderate like them. This is deliberate. Trump deliberately made himself the motte-and-bailey candidate, so both moderates and extremists feel Trump is on their side. He's done that through double-messages and lying, so that the moderates came to believe that Trump was lying on his extreme proposals, and the extremists believed Trump was lying on his moderate proposals. Even his VP choice served that goal. By calling Trump names, you're setting yourself up to be seen as unfairly strawmanning him, therefore reducing your credibility among the people you most want to convince. You're also setting yourself up to be seen as slyly using words as emotional hand-grenades ("nazi! bigot!") to shut down discourse, rather than actually believing these labels. Through that, you cede the moral high ground, not because you're manipulative, but because your target audience believes you are. Hillary Clinton paid consultants millions to help her convince the public, and even that didn't work. Throwing around labels it hopeless. Regardless of whether you honestly believe those labels, they don't work anymore. Go on at your peril. I don't know what the solution is. Wider involvement in the political process, repeal of the Electoral College, and redistricting all seem like better ideas. And then, propose a positive vision, not just criticism of the other side. Edit: I'll be clearer: you're right. Do you want to be right, or do you want to win?
  - selllikesybok 10y ago
    So glad you spent the time policing me, rather than, perhaps, changing the mind of someone you disagree with.
akerro 10y ago
Completely agree, I would go even further, protesters like Antifa who made most mess in many cities and guys like those: http://www.dailywire.com/news/10664/video-trump-voter-dragged-his-car-and-beaten-gang-chase-stephens http://www.dailywire.com/news/10664/video-trump-voter-dragge... work hard for Trump to be reelected.
golemotron 10y ago
Human beings will never learn: we empower what we attempt to suppress.
mikeash 10y ago
While we're banning these other words, can we also ban "virtue signaling"? It basically means "you are being insincere" and is just as unproductive.
- tluyben2 10y ago
  Never heard about that as maybe not a native English speaker. What is it?
  - mikeash 10y ago
    The Wikipedia article seems good: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtue_signalling https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtue_signalling The short version is, it's when someone acts in a "moral" fashion not because they truly believe it, but because they want others to see them as virtuous. Imagine someone attending a protest purely so that their friends can see them protesting, or donating to charity just so they can tell everyone that they donated.
    - pluma 10y ago
      One minor nitpick: in social media the criticism generally applies mostly to mere statements, especially statements of support or outrage over any given emotionally loaded issue. Attending a protest or donating to charity is relatively risky and expensive in comparison to just feigning outrage, retweeting slogans or changing your avatar.
      - fpig 10y ago
        Yeah virtue signaling is mostly a Facebook/Twitter thing.
        pluma 10y ago
        YouTube too. Just pick any Sargon of Akkad video at random, it's almost guaranteed to be about either "virtue signalling", "moral busybodies" (i.e. the people mostly engaging in virtue signalling) or "cultural Marxism".
derrickdirge 10y ago
>Some virtue signaling is necessary; leaders should speak out; Surely Fred Wilson is considered a leader within certain communities.
CaptainZapp 10y ago
I agree with his stance on this, and I think Trump and his latest executive orders are awful, but I also think that at this point, "hatred," "bigotry," and "racism" should be excised from public discourse. I totally disagree. How else do you want to describe the contents (and spirit) of this executive order? I think getting into mealy mouthed wiesel words and euphemisms for something that's clearly hateful and bigoted and racist helps no one.
- jazzyk 10y ago
  You know that Obama de facto stopped - or at least severely limited - Iraqi immigration for 6 months in 2011. There was no outright ban, but the flow of Iraqis slowed significantly. Would you call it a hateful act as well?
  - yongjik 10y ago
    Using Obama's "Iraq refugees ban" to justify Trump's action was a weak argument anyway, but the time window for the argument's viability has passed hours ago. Now you will have to find out cases when Obama ordered government officers to ignore court order. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jan/29/customs-border-protection-agents-trump-muslim-country-travel-ban https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jan/29/customs-bord... > Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents defied the orders of federal judges regarding Donald Trump’s travel bans on Sunday, according to members of Congress and attorneys who rallied protests around the country in support of detained refugees and travellers from seven Muslim-majority countries.
    - jazzyk 10y ago
      "Using Obama's "Iraq refugees ban" to justify Trump's action was a weak argument anyway" Instead of providing supporting argument for your above statement, you conveniently change the subject to another, only loosely related matter. Whataboutism at its best :-)
      - yongjik 10y ago
762236 10y ago
He donated real money, so I think it a stretch to call virtue signaling.
- dongslol 10y ago
  Yeah, that was the part I later maybe wished I could retract. I do think saying "it's time to act, people" and then actually acting is underrated.
fridsun 10y ago
All nouns are labels. Labeling in an argument goes all the ways and there is no guarantee whatsoever the parties involved have the same recognition of the labels. That we even have enough common understanding to create a language is due to a special human ability to understand each other without precise language, thus labels. The problem is not using labels, but people who intentionally mess with said ability to understand and then plant the blame on labels.
sdenton4 10y ago
He is doing more than buying labels: he's giving 20k a month to the aclu, and apparently working on discontinuing Breitbart's access to his company's platform. I've been working for a while now on having concrete, one to one conversations about race with strangers. Some key principles in this work are to call people in, not out, focus on personal experiences, and build out from shared values. It's hard. But I grew up in St Louis, which is a deeply, deeply racist town, where I was told from a young age that we lived in a colorblind society, and that I should stay away from the black parts of town of I valued my life. Ignoring racism doesn't make it go away. Ignoring white nationalists, and giving them more acceptable labels doesn't make them go away, and doesn't make their hated any softer. These labels are still useful and relevant, and removing words useful for discussing the worst offenses, and providing a rock bottom which most people are happy to distance themselves from. White silence enables white violence.
trav4225 10y ago
Agreed. Words like "hate", "bigot", and "racist" have become little more than modern-day Newspeak. They are labels applied to people, not terms descriptive of them. Personally, when I read words like bigot/racist/etc., I instantly associate it with myself and my demographic, as a label that names us, not as a descriptor. I know that I personally meet none of the classical definitions of those words, but I also recognize that, in modern parlance, I "am" those things. It's pretty messed up.

Jonnax 10y ago

Calling something/someone racist works on the principle that it's an undesired trait in society. However Trump's supporters either believe that other races/religions are inferior or believe their concerns are more important and ignore it. So what can someone do if they want to combat inequality/injustice/etc? It's not like their opponents are arguing with an open mind.

hueving 10y ago
Or they don't believe they are being racist? Closing borders to some Muslim dominated countries while leaving them open to the largest Muslim countries in the world does give the impression that maybe it's not about being Muslim and it's more about nations.
- mjmsmith 10y ago
  Nations without Trump hotels.
  - kyrre 10y ago
    do you really believe this? honest question.
    - mjmsmith 10y ago
      Believe what? I stated an easily verifiable fact.
      - ashark 10y ago
        It's also not very relevant since there's bound to be a strong relation between being relatively stable and prosperous (to say nothing of free, mind) and having trump hotels. I'm no fan of him, but I also don't like "my side" using weak attacks.
        mjmsmith 10y ago
        The notion that refugees from these seven countries represent a particularly grave threat is nonsense, so we're left to speculate on the real motives. Forty years ago, Jimmy Carter put his peanut farm into a blind trust. Trump still owns properties all over the world. Since he hasn't released his taxes, we have no idea how much money he owes and to whom. It's not at all unreasonable to assume that his decisions will at the very least be affected by his substantial holdings.
        ashark 10y ago
        Of course it's nonsense, and of course Trump's going to try to help (and avoid harming) his own fortune, and maybe this is even a case of that, it just happens that "discriminating against the same countries been bombing" doesn't require "discriminating against countries that contain Trump properties", so unless we get a leaked memo where he explicitly forbids doing anything to affect travel from those other countries, the conflict of interest case is pretty weak. Meanwhile, I think the move is motivated by 1) actual interests of people in his cabinet and advisory group (notably Bannon), and 2) populist pandering for re-election. I think that's sufficient motivation. I think the ham-fisted implementation of the policy is either arrogance meeting incompetence or an attempt to anchor expectations so low that Republican elected officials can later happily get on board with him when he's merely being very awful instead of incomprehensibly awful, saying he's "learned". I hope it's the former.

soneca 10y ago

"People become sick of this, and vote Trump just to fuck with everyone." This is extremely superficial, arrogant, even offensive to people who voted for Trump. And that is the reason why Trump won IMO. Opposition couldnt understand (not even recognize) the legitimate and valid thoughtful reasons people had to vote for Trump.

dongslol 10y ago
I'm talking here about the alt-right, e.g. Milo Yiannopoulos' crowd, who self-profess that this was partly why they voted for Trump. People for whom this election was largely cultural, and saw Trump as a "fuck you" to the safe-space, microaggression, language-policing left. I know they have real concerns, like economic pain, threats to their way of life, and concerns about mass immigration—concerns which, by the way, I argued in the grandparent that the left counters with labels. "Your concerns aren't real; you're just xenophobic." But I think the cultural stuff was a big part of it. I realize they don't represent all Trump supporters, and never said they did.
- spangry 10y ago
  I hope (what I have come to term) 'the authoritarian left' realise that this is basically what the military might call 'blow-back'. If you're going to stage a cultural revolution you should at least get that there will be some form of counter-revolution at some point. And if your revolution is concerned with things that don't concern the the rest of the populace (and in fact sounds like complete gibberish to them), best of luck with that fight...
josefresco 10y ago
Anecdotally, the people I know personally who voted for Trump did so because they "didn't like Hillary" which I translate as "just to fuck with everyone". They knew who they were "supposed" to vote for, and rejected that. They didn't once repeat any of Trumps proposed policies or justify their choice based on public positions. They were given a choice between two flavors of politicians, and picked the one they liked (or the the one they didn't, not like)

emperorcezar 10y ago

This is a great way for one to stick their head in the sand and not have to fight the evil in the world. The Nazis weren't defeated by pussyfooting around, and the same applies this time around.

selllikesybok 10y ago

Labels are extemely useful and important. You do not cede ground on framing. Even if all you can do is fight to a standstill, it is better than not fighting. Call it what it is. Everywhere you see it.

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
concinds 10y ago
How many times will this need to be explained? Calling Trump racist or a Nazi isn't effective. It's preaching to the choir. You don't convince his supporters, and you alienate the moderates that believe Trump is moderate like them. This is deliberate. Trump deliberately made himself the motte-and-bailey candidate, so both moderates and extremists feel Trump is on their side. He's done that through double-messages and lying, so that the moderates came to believe that Trump was lying on his extreme proposals, and the extremists believed Trump was lying on his moderate proposals. Even his VP choice served that goal. By calling Trump names, you're setting yourself up to be seen as unfairly strawmanning him, therefore reducing your credibility among the people you most want to convince. You're also setting yourself up to be seen as slyly using words as emotional hand-grenades ("nazi! bigot!") to shut down discourse, rather than actually believing these labels. Through that, you cede the moral high ground, not because you're manipulative, but because your target audience believes you are. Hillary Clinton paid consultants millions to help her convince the public, and even that didn't work. Throwing around labels it hopeless. Regardless of whether you honestly believe those labels, they don't work anymore. Go on at your peril. I don't know what the solution is. Wider involvement in the political process, repeal of the Electoral College, and redistricting all seem like better ideas. And then, propose a positive vision, not just criticism of the other side. Edit: I'll be clearer: you're right. Do you want to be right, or do you want to win?
- selllikesybok 10y ago
  So glad you spent the time policing me, rather than, perhaps, changing the mind of someone you disagree with.

akerro 10y ago

Completely agree, I would go even further, protesters like Antifa who made most mess in many cities and guys like those: http://www.dailywire.com/news/10664/video-trump-voter-dragged-his-car-and-beaten-gang-chase-stephens http://www.dailywire.com/news/10664/video-trump-voter-dragge... work hard for Trump to be reelected.

golemotron 10y ago

Human beings will never learn: we empower what we attempt to suppress.

mikeash 10y ago

While we're banning these other words, can we also ban "virtue signaling"? It basically means "you are being insincere" and is just as unproductive.

tluyben2 10y ago
Never heard about that as maybe not a native English speaker. What is it?
- mikeash 10y ago
  The Wikipedia article seems good: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtue_signalling https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtue_signalling The short version is, it's when someone acts in a "moral" fashion not because they truly believe it, but because they want others to see them as virtuous. Imagine someone attending a protest purely so that their friends can see them protesting, or donating to charity just so they can tell everyone that they donated.
  - pluma 10y ago
    One minor nitpick: in social media the criticism generally applies mostly to mere statements, especially statements of support or outrage over any given emotionally loaded issue. Attending a protest or donating to charity is relatively risky and expensive in comparison to just feigning outrage, retweeting slogans or changing your avatar.
    - fpig 10y ago
      Yeah virtue signaling is mostly a Facebook/Twitter thing.
      - pluma 10y ago
        YouTube too. Just pick any Sargon of Akkad video at random, it's almost guaranteed to be about either "virtue signalling", "moral busybodies" (i.e. the people mostly engaging in virtue signalling) or "cultural Marxism".

derrickdirge 10y ago

>Some virtue signaling is necessary; leaders should speak out; Surely Fred Wilson is considered a leader within certain communities.

CaptainZapp 10y ago

I agree with his stance on this, and I think Trump and his latest executive orders are awful, but I also think that at this point, "hatred," "bigotry," and "racism" should be excised from public discourse. I totally disagree. How else do you want to describe the contents (and spirit) of this executive order? I think getting into mealy mouthed wiesel words and euphemisms for something that's clearly hateful and bigoted and racist helps no one.

jazzyk 10y ago
You know that Obama de facto stopped - or at least severely limited - Iraqi immigration for 6 months in 2011. There was no outright ban, but the flow of Iraqis slowed significantly. Would you call it a hateful act as well?
- yongjik 10y ago
  Using Obama's "Iraq refugees ban" to justify Trump's action was a weak argument anyway, but the time window for the argument's viability has passed hours ago. Now you will have to find out cases when Obama ordered government officers to ignore court order. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jan/29/customs-border-protection-agents-trump-muslim-country-travel-ban https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jan/29/customs-bord... > Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents defied the orders of federal judges regarding Donald Trump’s travel bans on Sunday, according to members of Congress and attorneys who rallied protests around the country in support of detained refugees and travellers from seven Muslim-majority countries.
  - jazzyk 10y ago
    "Using Obama's "Iraq refugees ban" to justify Trump's action was a weak argument anyway" Instead of providing supporting argument for your above statement, you conveniently change the subject to another, only loosely related matter. Whataboutism at its best :-)
    - yongjik 10y ago

762236 10y ago

He donated real money, so I think it a stretch to call virtue signaling.

dongslol 10y ago
Yeah, that was the part I later maybe wished I could retract. I do think saying "it's time to act, people" and then actually acting is underrated.

fridsun 10y ago

All nouns are labels. Labeling in an argument goes all the ways and there is no guarantee whatsoever the parties involved have the same recognition of the labels. That we even have enough common understanding to create a language is due to a special human ability to understand each other without precise language, thus labels. The problem is not using labels, but people who intentionally mess with said ability to understand and then plant the blame on labels.

sdenton4 10y ago

He is doing more than buying labels: he's giving 20k a month to the aclu, and apparently working on discontinuing Breitbart's access to his company's platform. I've been working for a while now on having concrete, one to one conversations about race with strangers. Some key principles in this work are to call people in, not out, focus on personal experiences, and build out from shared values. It's hard. But I grew up in St Louis, which is a deeply, deeply racist town, where I was told from a young age that we lived in a colorblind society, and that I should stay away from the black parts of town of I valued my life. Ignoring racism doesn't make it go away. Ignoring white nationalists, and giving them more acceptable labels doesn't make them go away, and doesn't make their hated any softer. These labels are still useful and relevant, and removing words useful for discussing the worst offenses, and providing a rock bottom which most people are happy to distance themselves from. White silence enables white violence.

trav4225 10y ago

Agreed. Words like "hate", "bigot", and "racist" have become little more than modern-day Newspeak. They are labels applied to people, not terms descriptive of them. Personally, when I read words like bigot/racist/etc., I instantly associate it with myself and my demographic, as a label that names us, not as a descriptor. I know that I personally meet none of the classical definitions of those words, but I also recognize that, in modern parlance, I "am" those things. It's pretty messed up.