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It’s fine. You just have to make sure you never say anything that could ever possibly be misinterpreted or used against you by anyone ever for the rest of your

It’s fine. You just have to make sure you never say anything that could ever possibly be misinterpreted or used against you by anyone ever for the rest of your or your children’s lives. How hard could that be?

reaperducer 7y ago
or your children’s lives That's the even scarier part. There was a NASCAR driver a couple of years ago who lost his sponsorship because of something his father said before the driver was even born.
- gregknicholson 7y ago
  The sponsors are a business out to make money, not to make sound ethical decisions. The way capitalism is supposed to work is that consumers (the capitalist synonym for “people”) avoid companies they don't like for whatever reason. The problem is this assumes consumers are reasonable. The sponsor has little to gain by doing the ethically correct but publicly outrageous thing and standing by the innocent person, because there are more people in the angry mob than there are who would reward the sponsor for their sound ethics.
  - dragonwriter 7y ago
    > The way capitalism is supposed to work is that consumers (the capitalist synonym for “people”) “Consumer” isn't a synonym for people in capitalism, it's an economic role that all people assume in capitalism, but not in all interactions. (“Laborer” and “capitalist” are similar, though slightly less universal, roles; because they are less universal, the degree to which one tends to assume them also define economic classes in capitalism.)
- somecontext 7y ago
  > There was a NASCAR driver a couple of years ago who lost his sponsorship because of something his father said before the driver was even born. In case anyone was curious, this appears to be referring to Conor Daly, as described in the following article: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/24/sports/autoracing/conor-daly-nascar-racial-slur.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/24/sports/autoracing/conor-d...
el_dev_hell 7y ago
I read this as /s but it looks like: a) I'm wrong and this is literal b) The crowd is wrong
- journalctl 7y ago
  I was being mildly sarcastic to make a point, which is: telling people to police their speech and to make sure they don’t say anything they might regret isn’t a workable solution, because it’s impossible to predict the future. And in the court of public opinion, it doesn’t matter if you’ve since changed your mind five, ten, 20, 30+ years later, people will still judge you for the tiniest sin. "Be careful what you say" is a lazy cop-out, honestly.
  - 4ec0755f5522 7y ago
    Also, laws change, governments change, social mores change. What is safe or acceptable to say today may not be so years from now.
9nGQluzmnq3M 7y ago
If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him. - Cardinal Richelieu (supposedly)
JohnFen 7y ago
> How hard could that be? I do three things that make it pretty easy: I avoid nearly all social media in the first place; when I do interact online (such as here), I always use a pseudonym; and if any company or governmental body asks for my social media credentials, I tell them I don't have any (which happens to be 99% true).

reaperducer 7y ago

or your children’s lives That's the even scarier part. There was a NASCAR driver a couple of years ago who lost his sponsorship because of something his father said before the driver was even born.

gregknicholson 7y ago
The sponsors are a business out to make money, not to make sound ethical decisions. The way capitalism is supposed to work is that consumers (the capitalist synonym for “people”) avoid companies they don't like for whatever reason. The problem is this assumes consumers are reasonable. The sponsor has little to gain by doing the ethically correct but publicly outrageous thing and standing by the innocent person, because there are more people in the angry mob than there are who would reward the sponsor for their sound ethics.
- dragonwriter 7y ago
  > The way capitalism is supposed to work is that consumers (the capitalist synonym for “people”) “Consumer” isn't a synonym for people in capitalism, it's an economic role that all people assume in capitalism, but not in all interactions. (“Laborer” and “capitalist” are similar, though slightly less universal, roles; because they are less universal, the degree to which one tends to assume them also define economic classes in capitalism.)
somecontext 7y ago
> There was a NASCAR driver a couple of years ago who lost his sponsorship because of something his father said before the driver was even born. In case anyone was curious, this appears to be referring to Conor Daly, as described in the following article: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/24/sports/autoracing/conor-daly-nascar-racial-slur.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/24/sports/autoracing/conor-d...

el_dev_hell 7y ago

I read this as /s but it looks like: a) I'm wrong and this is literal b) The crowd is wrong

journalctl 7y ago
I was being mildly sarcastic to make a point, which is: telling people to police their speech and to make sure they don’t say anything they might regret isn’t a workable solution, because it’s impossible to predict the future. And in the court of public opinion, it doesn’t matter if you’ve since changed your mind five, ten, 20, 30+ years later, people will still judge you for the tiniest sin. "Be careful what you say" is a lazy cop-out, honestly.
- 4ec0755f5522 7y ago
  Also, laws change, governments change, social mores change. What is safe or acceptable to say today may not be so years from now.

9nGQluzmnq3M 7y ago

If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him. - Cardinal Richelieu (supposedly)

JohnFen 7y ago

> How hard could that be? I do three things that make it pretty easy: I avoid nearly all social media in the first place; when I do interact online (such as here), I always use a pseudonym; and if any company or governmental body asks for my social media credentials, I tell them I don't have any (which happens to be 99% true).