4 ms·

This is dangerously wrong. Earlier this year, I noticed something in China that really surprised me. I realized I felt more comfortable discussing controversi

This is dangerously wrong. Earlier this year, I noticed something in China that really surprised me. I realized I felt more comfortable discussing controversial ideas in Beijing than in San Francisco. I didn’t feel completely comfortable—this was China, after all—just more comfortable than at home. There are many more unsayable things in Beijing than San Francisco, and the penalties for saying them are much harsher (though of course not for Sam, as a very wealthy foreigner most rules simply don't apply). People are regularly beaten, harassed and murdered for reporting the truth about the government in China. Journalism is a very dangerous profession there in ways it is not in the US. http://edition.cnn.com/2017/12/14/asia/chinese-beat-korean-journalist-intl/index.html http://edition.cnn.com/2017/12/14/asia/chinese-beat-korean-j... https://cpj.org/2016/04/chinese-journalist-sentenced-to-nearly-5-years-for.php https://cpj.org/2016/04/chinese-journalist-sentenced-to-near... In contrast, the dangers Sam runs from being open are that people will be mean to him on the internet. I am less worried that letting some people on the internet say things like “gay people are evil” is going to convince reasonable people that such a statement is true This is a really odd statement of a non-problem which dismisses real world life-threatening problems a lot of marginalised people live with. First, reasonable people are not the problem, violent, irrational people who are influenced by bad ideas are. Second, this is not an academic debate over people with naughty ideas, real lives are ruined by the normalisation of bigotry and hatred (in ways that Sam in his privileged bubble has never and will never experience, and apparently can't even imagine). People are murdered, spat on and denigrated even at their funerals when hate like 'gay people are evil' is allowed to spread. Sometimes, to remain human, you have to choose a side. This is uncomfortable, but it’s possible we have to allow people to say disparaging things about gay people if we want them to be able to say novel things about physics. Why would those two things ever be related? Why can't we let people say novel things about physics, and call them out when they (for example) harass gay people, sexually assault people who work for them, or do other bad things. Why would we possibly want to excuse bad behaviour because someone comes up with novel physics ideas? What sort of confusion of ideas could lead to linking these two topics?

lr4444lr 9y ago
What if it were hypothesized on the basis of some controversial observations say in optics, not proven mind you, but supposed based on related work, that we might be able to hit melanin molecules with certain types of radiation to allow people to change their skin color to those indistinguishable from another racial group? Would physicists be allowed to discuss and publish proposals for this? I'm not even talking IRB issues of human experimentation, just pursuing the work in vitro.
- grey-area 9y ago
  You can buy cream for that already. To address what I hope is your point (not really about skin colour, I assume that was simply an example of a no-go zone for your imagined liberal interlocutor), there are not many areas of research out of bounds because of social mores - there are always some at any given point in time in any given society (for example cloning or using fetal tissue in the US), and there are valid discussions to be had about whether research is ethical or not (which shifts over time). Those hard ethical issues on the edge of science and what it means to be human are unrelated however to: novel physics ideas, almost all startup ideas, ideas for a new currency like bitcoin, spacex etc. Of course to have good ideas you need to preserve some innocence, ignore all the naysayers (of which the internet has plenty, a never-ending horde we all participate in at times), you may need to stand apart from your society (as in the case of bitcoin) or reject its tenets but that is entirely unrelated to tolerance for intolerance, to tolerance for hatred, to a happy ignorance of ethics or moral boundaries. The writer mixes up simple cynicism and societal pressure which he experiences (which are as old as the world and easy to ignore), and real hatred leading to violence and seems to think they are somehow equivalent. Those are different categories of objection, different qualities of harm. Paul Graham or Sam feeling bad because people are dismissive, petty and wrong about good ideas he has, is simply incomparable to the real harm caused by the normalisation of the ideas in this essay (e.g. a given class of people are evil and subhuman - be that gays, jews, rich white men or something else). By giving those ideas credence, he's lending a hand to evil in the world. In short, you don't need to allow hatred of [insert your hated group here] to allow good science.

lr4444lr 9y ago

What if it were hypothesized on the basis of some controversial observations say in optics, not proven mind you, but supposed based on related work, that we might be able to hit melanin molecules with certain types of radiation to allow people to change their skin color to those indistinguishable from another racial group? Would physicists be allowed to discuss and publish proposals for this? I'm not even talking IRB issues of human experimentation, just pursuing the work in vitro.

grey-area 9y ago
You can buy cream for that already. To address what I hope is your point (not really about skin colour, I assume that was simply an example of a no-go zone for your imagined liberal interlocutor), there are not many areas of research out of bounds because of social mores - there are always some at any given point in time in any given society (for example cloning or using fetal tissue in the US), and there are valid discussions to be had about whether research is ethical or not (which shifts over time). Those hard ethical issues on the edge of science and what it means to be human are unrelated however to: novel physics ideas, almost all startup ideas, ideas for a new currency like bitcoin, spacex etc. Of course to have good ideas you need to preserve some innocence, ignore all the naysayers (of which the internet has plenty, a never-ending horde we all participate in at times), you may need to stand apart from your society (as in the case of bitcoin) or reject its tenets but that is entirely unrelated to tolerance for intolerance, to tolerance for hatred, to a happy ignorance of ethics or moral boundaries. The writer mixes up simple cynicism and societal pressure which he experiences (which are as old as the world and easy to ignore), and real hatred leading to violence and seems to think they are somehow equivalent. Those are different categories of objection, different qualities of harm. Paul Graham or Sam feeling bad because people are dismissive, petty and wrong about good ideas he has, is simply incomparable to the real harm caused by the normalisation of the ideas in this essay (e.g. a given class of people are evil and subhuman - be that gays, jews, rich white men or something else). By giving those ideas credence, he's lending a hand to evil in the world. In short, you don't need to allow hatred of [insert your hated group here] to allow good science.