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> It's a despicable thing to destroy someone over an idea, despite the contents of that idea. Well, if I find out anyone holds nazi ideologies I'm happy to soc

• monkeywork 9y ago
  That serves to do is cause those who have been destroyed to seek out others like themselves and create an echo chamber where they get more extreme, alternatively it gets others to simply go dark in regards to their thoughts -- they still have them (possibly even more re-enforced because now you have given them an enemy) and they will toe the line until they can get into a position to push back. You stamp this out instead by finding out how the people ended up with those views to begin with, by being able to engage with those who view the world different from you, and by not fueling their hate. Does this work for ever person - no, but it should be at least attempted. (fyi - this is more a general comment about social media slayings that are way too common, I'm not being sympathetic to anyone who considers themselves a nazi).
  • ncallaway 9y ago
    Right. I agree that social media shame parties can overreact to things and create social punishments that I would agree aren't "proportional" (again, for some arbitrary definition of proportional). My general views on this are derived largely from Popper and the paradox of tolerance (though, to be honest, I've more read about his writing that his work itself; it's next on my reading list). I don't think, as a society, we should tolerate intolerant behavior. Which means, again as a society†, I think we should aggressively refuse and reject those with nazi ideologies. As an extension of that, I think we should mildly reject and refuse those with mildly intolerant ideologies. In my utopia, those social consequences would be proportional to the degree of intolerance, and I think you're right and fair to note that social shaming can quickly out-escalate the level of intolerance. †not as a government; all consequences and punishments I'm speaking of should be social consequences and punishments. I'm fairly absolutist when it comes to 1A protections from the government
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• Consultant32452 9y ago
  >I agree that Damore probably should be "destroyed" for his ideas (for whatever a definition of "destroyed" is that obviously isn't literal destruction), but I don't see why being fired is problematic for the way he shared those ideas in the workplace. I'm the OP whose comment started this mini-firestorm of a discussion and I think you and I are probably very closely aligned. I'll try to state plainly how I feel about the whole situation. I'll start with a quote by Albert Maysles, "Tyranny is the deliberate removal of nuance." I can definitely see how a percentage of his memo can be interpreted as offensive. I don't know all the internal information about how everyone was behaving, but I'd like to think that if it were my company I would have treated this as a teachable moment and had a frank discussion with him in HR. That said, I fully support Google's right to fire him even if I take the most generous interpretations of the memo, because frankly I'm a huge supporter of at-will employment. The problem that I have is the way the national media and general public responded to this situation. Damore is a nobody with no power who might have some incorrect ideas about diversity policy. I should have never heard of him. And I definitely should have never heard of him under national front page headlines with titles about an "anti-diversity manifesto." This is a meek and mild super-nerd, not David Duke. Thrusting him into the national spotlight in this way was clearly going to destroy his career and was completely unnecessary.
  • ncallaway 9y ago
    Right. I agree that social media shame parties can overreact to things and create social punishments that I would agree aren't "proportional" (again, for some arbitrary definition of proportional). My general views on this are derived largely from Popper and the paradox of tolerance (though, to be honest, I've more read about his writing that his work itself; it's next on my reading list). I don't think, as a society, we should tolerate intolerant behavior. Which means, again as a society†, I think we should aggressively refuse and reject those with nazi ideologies. As an extension of that, I think we should mildly reject and refuse those with mildly intolerant ideologies. In my utopia, those social consequences would be proportional to the degree of intolerance, and I think you're right and fair to note that social shaming can quickly out-escalate the level of intolerance. †not as a government; all consequences and punishments I'm speaking of should be social consequences and punishments. I'm fairly absolutist when it comes to 1A protections from the government
• shard972 9y ago
  Lets make a distinction in socially destroy. If you found a nazi that worked for someone who knew he was a nazi and was fine with it, his wife was fine with it and all his friends were fine. In this case how would you socially destroy them beyond pointing out to those around them what they have been hiding?
  • ncallaway 9y ago
    In my post, I hinted that I don't really have a definition for "socially destroy". I don't really know what it means or how the OP intended by it. If I knew someone was a nazi, I would inform those around them. If their employer—for example—refused to terminate their employment, I would move "up the chain", and attempt to apply social consequences to that employer. How that works quickly becomes context dependent, but it expresses in things like boycotts, and other refusals to engage economically with those groups.