8 ms·

You can say any of those things in Silicon Valley. I mean, people might make some judgments about you. But that happens whenever you state any opinion, especia

You can say any of those things in Silicon Valley. I mean, people might make some judgments about you. But that happens whenever you state any opinion, especially if it isn't the mainstream. I think a lot of people are used to saying what's on their mind without consequence. They're used to other types of people remaining quiet on certain topics -- especially topics related to race, gender, and sexuality. And that's changing. So: For some people it's a shock and they suddenly feel attacked from all sides for opinions they've been vocal about for years. Feels weird. But in many cases what's actually happening is people who have historically been silent are suddenly speaking up and offering their own differing opinions. For example, it used to be acceptable to behave in certain ways towards women. Some men didn't see the problem because women wouldn't or couldn't speak up to make their opinions known. Now many women feel more empowered and it turns out many attitudes men have about women that seemed mainstream are in fact controversial (or, worse, actually destructive). And they always were. The opposing voices just hadn't been speaking. Now they are.

ajross 9y ago
> I think a lot of people are used to saying what's on their mind without consequence. No, it's simpler still. What is happening is that conservatives feel awkward and nervous being a minority (irony much?), so they look to strawman arguments to make themselves feel better. Obviously you can have those fights if you want. You just can't find many people to agree with you. This is like walking into a megachurch in Mississippi and complaining that no one wants to listen to your opinions on reproductive health care.
- T2_t2 9y ago
  I couldn't agree more. In a town like SV where almost everyone is liberal, the problem is conservatives. Oh, do I need to state that was sarcasm? > This is like walking into a megachurch in Mississippi and complaining that no one wants to listen to your opinions on reproductive health care. How can you not see the irony in this? Your example is a bad outcome. SV doing the reverse is bad. Not there are ideas that are OK and ideas that are bad, contextually, and alienating people is all good and fine, where my badness is OK if it is proportional and opposite to your badness. Intolerance ITSELF is the problem, fullstop, no matter the "rightness" of the idea. We live in a diverse world, and finding ways to get along is the key. How can we do that when any form of alienation is defended?
  - ajross 9y ago
    Argument isn't the same as "alienation" though. The post is a bunch of whining about how you "can't say" stuff because people won't like you if you do. Well, duh. What you and the poster say you want is Free Speech in some kind of abstract principled sense. What you actually want is a safe space where people won't argue with you for believing different things. Thus, strawman.
electrograv 9y ago
I 100% agree with your premise that “the more voices the better” (i.e. the fewer voices that are silenced, the better). What you describe certainly covers much of what’s happening, but something else is happening too: Voices are being silenced. And to respond to your opening sentence, I don’t mean anyone is silenced physically (who does that?), but rather psychologically, culturally, and socially. That’s not a good thing. Giving everyone a voice is good precisely because it facilitates debate, such that good ideas rise to the surface and bad ideas sink. Silencing voices opposed to your own views may serve you in the short term, but as a principle it’s incredibly dangerous and almost certainly harmful in the long run. Edit: P.S. This doesn’t mean that bad ideas shouldn’t float down to a point where their advocation questions ones’ rational credibility, nor does it mean we should be entitled to say anything we want (no matter how extreme) without consequence. For example, if you blurted out “The earth is flat - it’s all a conspiracy!”, most people would shake their heads in pity and keep walking away. But if someone presents evidence or ideas to a claim so extreme, the degree of our interest must be proportionate to the credibility of the evidence and the logical consistency of the argument — not the social stigma attached to the topic. This is a subtle distinction, but so important. Social stigma can serve perhaps as a caching mechanism of consensus, but it is a tool we must wield with extreme caution.
- ender7 9y ago
  On the contrary, silencing voices is a necessary thing. All societies have to determine what speech is allowed and what isn't. There are lots of things you can say in general American society that will get you censured. Claiming that black people are biologically inferior to white people, for example. Claiming that women are biologically inferior to men, though? Some still seem fond of that one. This all boils down to the fact one group is trying to add a number of new entries to the list of censurable topics. It's fine to disagree with that, but then you have to state a) what topics you think shouldn't be added to the list and b). why. When people walk around loudly complaining about how they can't say anything anymore without being specific as to what they want to say, it suggests that perhaps they know that those positions are not really defensible. [EDIT: To explain things a little more. Societies must limit some forms of speech because some speech limits who can be a member of a society. "We should murder all Asian people" is not compatible with a society that contains Asian people. And no, it is not fair to expect Asian people to have to constantly defend their humanity to others who have nothing to lose in the argument. Much as it's nice to think about abstractly entertaining every possible idea, when some of those ideas actively push out or dehumanize members, the society is forced to choose between accepting debate on the idea or excluding those members. So yes, if you want to complain about how SV society shuns people for not wanting to experiment on human embryos or whatever, go ahead. But assuming that all ideas should be up for debate is ignoring the fact that some ideas are incompatible with your fellow society members. And you get to choose between debating those ideas or having those people in your society as equals. You do have a choice, but you can't have both.]
orthoganol 9y ago
I think fact that you get fired if you bring up biology at your company's brown bag on diversity (a la Damore), means, just maybe, that you can't actually say some of those things.
- cycrutchfield 9y ago
  Freedom of speech is not freedom from consequences. Damore made some factual statements (this is OK), but then attempted to draw some non-factual conclusions from those statements that made his continued employment impossible (what if he was part of a promotion or hiring committee for a female employee? his prior statements would be pretty damning) Read Damore's treatise and replace every mention of gender with one of race, and see how it reads.
deleted 9y ago
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asabjorn 9y ago
I think the fact that this thread is already flagged says a lot. To keep silicon valley competitive we need to be open to diversity and also be inclusive to different ways of thinking, because in this way we are set up to learn and explore many different ideas.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

ajross 9y ago

> I think a lot of people are used to saying what's on their mind without consequence. No, it's simpler still. What is happening is that conservatives feel awkward and nervous being a minority (irony much?), so they look to strawman arguments to make themselves feel better. Obviously you can have those fights if you want. You just can't find many people to agree with you. This is like walking into a megachurch in Mississippi and complaining that no one wants to listen to your opinions on reproductive health care.

T2_t2 9y ago
I couldn't agree more. In a town like SV where almost everyone is liberal, the problem is conservatives. Oh, do I need to state that was sarcasm? > This is like walking into a megachurch in Mississippi and complaining that no one wants to listen to your opinions on reproductive health care. How can you not see the irony in this? Your example is a bad outcome. SV doing the reverse is bad. Not there are ideas that are OK and ideas that are bad, contextually, and alienating people is all good and fine, where my badness is OK if it is proportional and opposite to your badness. Intolerance ITSELF is the problem, fullstop, no matter the "rightness" of the idea. We live in a diverse world, and finding ways to get along is the key. How can we do that when any form of alienation is defended?
- ajross 9y ago
  Argument isn't the same as "alienation" though. The post is a bunch of whining about how you "can't say" stuff because people won't like you if you do. Well, duh. What you and the poster say you want is Free Speech in some kind of abstract principled sense. What you actually want is a safe space where people won't argue with you for believing different things. Thus, strawman.

electrograv 9y ago

I 100% agree with your premise that “the more voices the better” (i.e. the fewer voices that are silenced, the better). What you describe certainly covers much of what’s happening, but something else is happening too: Voices are being silenced. And to respond to your opening sentence, I don’t mean anyone is silenced physically (who does that?), but rather psychologically, culturally, and socially. That’s not a good thing. Giving everyone a voice is good precisely because it facilitates debate, such that good ideas rise to the surface and bad ideas sink. Silencing voices opposed to your own views may serve you in the short term, but as a principle it’s incredibly dangerous and almost certainly harmful in the long run. Edit: P.S. This doesn’t mean that bad ideas shouldn’t float down to a point where their advocation questions ones’ rational credibility, nor does it mean we should be entitled to say anything we want (no matter how extreme) without consequence. For example, if you blurted out “The earth is flat - it’s all a conspiracy!”, most people would shake their heads in pity and keep walking away. But if someone presents evidence or ideas to a claim so extreme, the degree of our interest must be proportionate to the credibility of the evidence and the logical consistency of the argument — not the social stigma attached to the topic. This is a subtle distinction, but so important. Social stigma can serve perhaps as a caching mechanism of consensus, but it is a tool we must wield with extreme caution.

ender7 9y ago
On the contrary, silencing voices is a necessary thing. All societies have to determine what speech is allowed and what isn't. There are lots of things you can say in general American society that will get you censured. Claiming that black people are biologically inferior to white people, for example. Claiming that women are biologically inferior to men, though? Some still seem fond of that one. This all boils down to the fact one group is trying to add a number of new entries to the list of censurable topics. It's fine to disagree with that, but then you have to state a) what topics you think shouldn't be added to the list and b). why. When people walk around loudly complaining about how they can't say anything anymore without being specific as to what they want to say, it suggests that perhaps they know that those positions are not really defensible. [EDIT: To explain things a little more. Societies must limit some forms of speech because some speech limits who can be a member of a society. "We should murder all Asian people" is not compatible with a society that contains Asian people. And no, it is not fair to expect Asian people to have to constantly defend their humanity to others who have nothing to lose in the argument. Much as it's nice to think about abstractly entertaining every possible idea, when some of those ideas actively push out or dehumanize members, the society is forced to choose between accepting debate on the idea or excluding those members. So yes, if you want to complain about how SV society shuns people for not wanting to experiment on human embryos or whatever, go ahead. But assuming that all ideas should be up for debate is ignoring the fact that some ideas are incompatible with your fellow society members. And you get to choose between debating those ideas or having those people in your society as equals. You do have a choice, but you can't have both.]

orthoganol 9y ago

I think fact that you get fired if you bring up biology at your company's brown bag on diversity (a la Damore), means, just maybe, that you can't actually say some of those things.

cycrutchfield 9y ago
Freedom of speech is not freedom from consequences. Damore made some factual statements (this is OK), but then attempted to draw some non-factual conclusions from those statements that made his continued employment impossible (what if he was part of a promotion or hiring committee for a female employee? his prior statements would be pretty damning) Read Damore's treatise and replace every mention of gender with one of race, and see how it reads.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

asabjorn 9y ago

I think the fact that this thread is already flagged says a lot. To keep silicon valley competitive we need to be open to diversity and also be inclusive to different ways of thinking, because in this way we are set up to learn and explore many different ideas.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]