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What You Can't Say (2004)
- clamprecht 9y agoIt's interesting how an upvote is "invisible" but can say so much.
- redthrowaway 9y agoAnd telling how quickly this post got flagged off the front page.
- to3m 9y agoGod, I hope people get over this shit soon!
- gizmo686 9y ago(2004) Prior Posts: https://hn.algolia.com/?query=what%20you%20cant%20say&sort=byPopularity&prefix&page=0&dateRange=all&type=story https://hn.algolia.com/?query=what%20you%20cant%20say&sort=b... This one has 291 comments: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7443420 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7443420 Follow-up: http://www.paulgraham.com/resay.html http://www.paulgraham.com/resay.html Follow-up thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=956884 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=956884
- nsxwolf 9y agoYes... things were different back then, weren't they?
- hasenj 9y ago> So another way to figure out which of our taboos future generations will laugh at is to start with the labels. Take a label—"sexist", for example—and try to think of some ideas that would be called that. Then for each ask, might this be true? Might it be true that women are just naturally much less attracted to STEM than men? For the record, I think even among men, being attracted to STEM or even good at it is rather rare. It's probably even rarer among women. EDIT: I wonder if the downvotes are because I'm going offtopic or because I can't say that?
- jubalfh 9y agoIt's because it's bullshit.
- Arcsech 9y ago> Might it be true that women are just naturally much less attracted to STEM than men? No. In India in 2015, 45% of CS undergrads were women[0]. In the US, in 1984, it was 37%[1], as opposed to 18% in 2010. The downvotes are because you can tell the answer to your question in about 5 minutes of Googling. [0]: http://www.hcixb.org/papers_2017/hcixb17-final-37.pdf http://www.hcixb.org/papers_2017/hcixb17-final-37.pdf [1]: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/what-happened-all-women-computer-science-1-180953111/ http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/what-happened-all-w...
- hasenj 9y agoI've noticed in third world countries more women go to STEM than in the west. It's probably because of economic or social pressure. There's also no culture of "following your passion"; instead people follow what they think will give them a good career. There's less economic or social pressure in the west so people tend to choose more to their liking and "follow their passion".
- dreamfactor 9y ago> people tend to choose more to their liking and "follow their passion" Not to have a go at you personally but this is revealing of a highly middle class bubble that a lot of people are trying to reason from within (including that silly kid at google). It's like a moral and socio-political version of the Blub paradox. It's the same reason that it isn't possible to be racist against whites (in the West) or sexist against men, and why that is hard to understand if you are white or a man (you don't know you are in the privilege bubble and it seems inequitable).
- hasenj 9y agoNot having a go at you personally, but saying it's not possible to be racist against whites is an obvious tell that you want to make policies that discriminate against whites, and therefore you are probably racist. (I'm not even white).
- jubalfh 9y agoA fine proof that Paul Graham was a terrible human being even back in 2004.
- Qworg 9y agoYou can say whatever you want. You can be as loathsome or virtuous as you'd like on your own time and dime. But the moment what you say goes contrary to the shared expectations of the company you belong to or negatively impacts how business is done, you're finished. Is this a difficult or arguable point?
- redthrowaway 9y agoIt's neither difficult nor arguable, but it's a bit of a cop-out. Google is, of course, well within their legal rights to fire the employee. The 1A applies only to government restrictions on speech. But the larger question, of whether it is good that a particular political ideology, adhered to by a small minority of the country, should hold such sway over public discourse that to challenge any of its dogmas is to commit career suicide, remains. This is a trend that is only accelerating, and it's going nowhere good.
- Qworg 9y agoIf he held his opinion purely in the public sphere, I'd agree with you - but he posted it in an internal companywide manner that directly impacts how he'll be able to work with his coworkers. Being divisive at work isn't good for business.
- redthrowaway 9y agoYou're right, that's an important difference. However, it doesn't alter the core point about the chilling effect this particular ideology is having. Could you honestly say that someone expressing an equally divisive statement that was in agreement with progressive dogma would be fired? If someone argued in favour of refraining from hiring straight white men until sufficient diversity had been achieved, do you think Google would have fired them?
- Qworg 9y agoIf they were serious about it (and not in a Jonathan Swift kind of way), perhaps. That said, it is difficult to see how it is equally harmful given how normal straight white men are in society.
- hkmurakami 9y agoCloset conservatives (and other moral minorities) across the Valley are now virtually guaranteed to shut their closet doors even tighter. Post election, I recall my timelines erupt with emotion -- outrage, despair, betrayal -- then subdue to reflection. Some called for the need to truly reach out to those across the aisle and to listen and understand, earnestly lending an ear even to views that we strongly oppose. Recent events will be a step back in such relations, as dissent has been dismissed demonstrably without such considerations. When the people we must understand in order to reach bipartisanship go into hiding for fear of being outed, broadening our perspective becomes difficult.
- jubalfh 9y agoYes, we should compassionately comfort those, who think their peers are actually inferior to them. Or else.
- hkmurakami 9y agoDo you think this person will change his beliefs in light of what has happened? I would expect him to be defensive of his views and to even double down on his convictions. If we truly believe that our own positions are correct and we truly want progress, we must understand how others could become misguided and persuade them away from their errant ways. We get there by reaching out, listening, and understanding.
- jubalfh 9y agoFrankly, I don't care. What I actually do care about are the people who suffered because one pompous twat thought he has right to put slatestarcodex-style blathering on an internal message board.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- meri_dian 9y agoThe problem is that reasonable political opinions motivated by nothing resembling hatred are being targeted as indicative of hateful thought. A perfect example is the stand one may take that 'Sanctuary Cities' are bad. Voicing opposition to sanctuary cities can get you labelled as a racist, which is ridiculous.
- codybrown 9y agoWho is voting this off the front page?
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- jnwatson 9y agoSo much comes to mind: * hate crime laws are institutionalized double jeopardy. * much of kitchen hygiene are just rituals. * early infanticide isn't so bad. (Avoiding gender stuff because that's been done to death)
- gizmo686 9y agoIn his follow-up, he makes the point that producing this sort of list gives a false sense of comfort as (almost by definition) you produce controversial opinions that are nevertheless acceptable to say. I personally have views that are far more controversial than those, and which I am absolutly not willing to post publicly (even pseudo-anonymously). Having said that (and falling into the de-railing track): >hate crime laws are institutionalized double jeopardy. How so? I am not an expert (and only have any knowledge of the US system), but aren't hate crimes considered enhancers to existing crimes. That is, to be found guilty of a hate crime, you must also be found guilty of an underlying crime; if you are found not-guilty of the actual crime, then you can not be tried for the hate crime. Being found guilty of a hate crime only serves to increase the severity of punishment for a normal crime that you have been convicted of.
- jnwatson 9y agoThe enhancement aspect is jurisdiction-specific. I should have added "federal" in front. Most often when we hear about hate crimes, it is regarding a separate federal case, prosecuted independently from the local or state case.
- gizmo686 9y agoAh, that makes sense. Still, this is a more general issue that hate crimes. Each state (and the federal government) are considered separate entities, which means that double jeopardy does not prohibit being tried for the same crime multiple times, so long as you are being tried by different states (or the federal government). It is not nessasary to have a hate crime for this principle to be invoked. It is also not unreasonable by modern standards to disagree with this; it is just an odditiy of the American legal system that most people never think about.
- dreamfactor 9y agoThe irony of this post when you will get reported and hellbanned for questioning libertarianism on HN. As for "political correctness" it was a term that was first popularised by the right to attack college activism and shut down people challenging the status quo. I'd wager good money I'm a lot closer to that Conrad character than the author will ever be and from where I'm sitting it's pretty clear that tech culture has started becoming completely toxic. The article reads as if written by a psychopath (and one begins to wonder whether Evgeny Morozov has a point about SV's movers and shakers). Putting aside the shallow and barely informed notions about fashion and art themselves, dismissing morality as no more than a seasonal fad or craze is itself an unwitting confession of a deep-seated amorality.
- gizmo686 9y ago>The irony of this post when you will get reported and hellbanned for questioning libertarianism on HN. When has this happened? >As for "political correctness" it was a term that was first popularised by the right to attack college activism and shut down people challenging the status quo. Actually, it was a term first popularized by the socialists, to attack the communists.
- abecedarius 9y agoI had the impression it started as a kind of joke among progressives in the 70s or so, a ha-ha-only-serious one. Later their opponents appropriated it, in the 80s when I started paying attention.
- dreamfactor 9y ago> When has this happened? Happened to me a few months back. > Actually, it was a term first popularized by the socialists, to attack the communists. I'm talking about it becoming popularised in contemporary politics. We can all google that it was rebirthed in 87. The reason I know this though is that I remember seeing it coming into common currency after it was repeatedly being used as a hot button term by the GH Bush election campaign team in 88. This was talked about in the broadsheets at the time.
- 9y ago
- ritchiea 9y agoI suspect this getting up-voted is about the Google engineer's diversity essay. How about instead of framing it in terms of what you can't say politically, let's rephrase it another way: Imagine you make a post inside your company Slack complaining all your colleagues are stupid and unqualified. You'd probably be reprimanded right? Didn't that guy basically just do that but only about his female and minority colleagues (and future female and minority colleagues)? Don't we all monitor our words at least a bit at work for the sake of the day going smoothly? And if he's so correct about Google's diversity initiatives being a problem and/or failure why doesn't he start a company that only hires men to take advantage of the market inefficiency in hiring (if you say hiring laws would get in the way, when is the last time a company paid a serious price for failing to have diverse hires)? The most upvoted HN comments on threads about the diversity manifesto reek of protecting the status of the people already at the top. And are as flimsy and irrational as they claim the liberal values they decry are. White men have traditionally been in power in this country and suppressed the rights of women & minorities to vote, educate themselves & work for years. How can we know that another group wouldn't be historically more powerful without a control group study where each group is allowed to be a historical oppressor for an equal amount of time?
- hasenj 9y ago> Didn't that guy basically just do that but only about his female and minority colleagues No, actually quite the opposite. When a company/university/country enshrines diversity quotas, they are basically telling minorities that they are by default stupider than average. Also, enforcing these diversity quotas will create a (probably valid) impression that minority members who make it anywhere did not do so on their own merit. As a minority I would much rather know there are no diversity programs so that I know that where ever I get, it's based on my merit, not some charity. Even if I was the only one in the room from my ethnic origin (which is actually often the case).
- ritchiea 9y agoI've never interpreted diversity programs as telling minorities we are stupider. Universities are a great example, wealthier people with more money can afford better educations and test prep for their children. If the "merit" you refer to is manufactured by circumstance, and the circumstances are weighted in favor of the already powerful, why should we accept the status quo & pretend the admissions standard are an objective measurement? Quotas are a crude tool but I'd rather see something like that than simply accept a world with a cycle of the powerful remaining powerful in large part due to the less powerful never having opportunity.
- amai 9y agoWhat you can't say: True democracy doesn't have elections. In fact already the ancient greek knew: “It is accepted as democratic when public offices are allocated by lot; and as oligarchic when they are filled by election” (Aristotle, Politics), see also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sortition https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sortition)