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Yes? Is it surprising to you that words can have consequences up to and including your employers no longer wanting to employ you?

booleandilemma 7y ago
The problem with your line of thinking is that it discourages people from expressing their opinions if they deviate from the opinion of the majority. If people need to be concerned about having their lives ruined over what they write in an email, or an online forum, can’t you see what kind of chilling effect this has?
- CathedralBorrow 7y ago
  I mean of course words have consequences. Denying it is just absurd. If an employee of yours regularly expresses his opinion that your children are sexy and he'd like to have sex with them, what would you do about it that does not in any way discourage him from expressing his opinion? Surely you can't reprimand him or fire him. Or an employee that regularly talks publicly about how horrible your company is and that no one should work there. Can't discourage any expression of opinion, so what can you do?
  - streb-lo 7y ago
    Don't even bother. I think most of the people defending Stallman in this thread aren't contributing members of society or are at least clueless in how the world operates.
virgilp 7y ago
How about "looks". Is it surprising to you that physical aspect can have consequences up to and including your employers no longer wanting to employ you? Because what you said is such a broad generalization, that it feels "obviously true". But if you object to a person not being hired because she's black (although that's personally reasonable in some very limited circumstances) - then maybe you should object too for a person being dismissed on words completely unrelated to the work he was supposed to perform.
- CathedralBorrow 7y ago
  If you ran a company, would you make sure that none of your employees ever face consequences for expressing their opinions outside of work?
  - doubleunplussed 7y ago
    I would try. It would be almost impossible in the current climate though, so I would be unlikely to succeed given that I myself could be removed over my position as soon as someone says something distasteful and I'm accused of either supporting it or creating a hostile environment for other employees. But the world I want to live in is one where employers take no action whatsoever for opinions expressed off the clock.
    - CathedralBorrow 7y ago
      So ideally you'd have no qualms with a preschool teacher who blogs about how sex with children is perfectly fine in their spare time? Or an employee who regularly publishes manifestos on why people of certain skin colors should be murdered and exterminated? These are extreme examples of course, but you are saying that ideally no one should experience any consequences for expressing any opinion outside of work.
      - doubleunplussed 7y ago
        Ideally, yes. It's not that they should face no consequences - they should face consequences in the circles in which they express those views, ideally in the form of people disagreeing with them, but possibly also wanting to dissociate with them. If they try to keep those views out of the classroom, I don't have a problem with it. In the classroom, you are the instrument of a consensus view. You must do your job. If you do it well, that's great. Your views outside the classroom should be irrelevant, and I can't help but notice that a lot of the time when people get in trouble for their views outside of work, it's because someone de-anonymised them. We cannot have a world where people's actual opinions are forced to be equal to those their employers would be comfortable with. Your extreme examples are extreme indeed, but there are many examples, particularly in authoritarian regimes, where the extreme view is the correct one. So extreme-ness is not a good metric for whether views should be allowed or not. I think the solution for everyone is to stay silent, and to discuss their views anonymously online. Their views will still have force at the ballot box - as they did at the last election (as much as I did not like the outcome, it was evidence that social shaming has limited power at changing how people vote). We should be suspicious of attempts to de-anonymise the internet. Basically, dissent is important. So important that it is worth tolerating bad views to ensure dissent is not suppressed when it is needed. Everyone who pictures the cancel-culture norms resulting in some sort of paradise where everyone believes nice things are delusional, they are simply ceding power to those who will use it for personal gain, and giving the currently powerful the tools to to cement that power.
cambalache 7y ago
So would you agree if your employer fires you because of this chain of posts?
- CathedralBorrow 7y ago
  No, but I'd understand if I had been publicly saying that sometimes there's nothing wrong with having sex with children. When I say that words can have consequences, it matters which words you use.

booleandilemma 7y ago

The problem with your line of thinking is that it discourages people from expressing their opinions if they deviate from the opinion of the majority. If people need to be concerned about having their lives ruined over what they write in an email, or an online forum, can’t you see what kind of chilling effect this has?

CathedralBorrow 7y ago
I mean of course words have consequences. Denying it is just absurd. If an employee of yours regularly expresses his opinion that your children are sexy and he'd like to have sex with them, what would you do about it that does not in any way discourage him from expressing his opinion? Surely you can't reprimand him or fire him. Or an employee that regularly talks publicly about how horrible your company is and that no one should work there. Can't discourage any expression of opinion, so what can you do?
- streb-lo 7y ago
  Don't even bother. I think most of the people defending Stallman in this thread aren't contributing members of society or are at least clueless in how the world operates.

virgilp 7y ago

How about "looks". Is it surprising to you that physical aspect can have consequences up to and including your employers no longer wanting to employ you? Because what you said is such a broad generalization, that it feels "obviously true". But if you object to a person not being hired because she's black (although that's personally reasonable in some very limited circumstances) - then maybe you should object too for a person being dismissed on words completely unrelated to the work he was supposed to perform.

CathedralBorrow 7y ago
If you ran a company, would you make sure that none of your employees ever face consequences for expressing their opinions outside of work?
- doubleunplussed 7y ago
  I would try. It would be almost impossible in the current climate though, so I would be unlikely to succeed given that I myself could be removed over my position as soon as someone says something distasteful and I'm accused of either supporting it or creating a hostile environment for other employees. But the world I want to live in is one where employers take no action whatsoever for opinions expressed off the clock.
  - CathedralBorrow 7y ago
    So ideally you'd have no qualms with a preschool teacher who blogs about how sex with children is perfectly fine in their spare time? Or an employee who regularly publishes manifestos on why people of certain skin colors should be murdered and exterminated? These are extreme examples of course, but you are saying that ideally no one should experience any consequences for expressing any opinion outside of work.
    - doubleunplussed 7y ago
      Ideally, yes. It's not that they should face no consequences - they should face consequences in the circles in which they express those views, ideally in the form of people disagreeing with them, but possibly also wanting to dissociate with them. If they try to keep those views out of the classroom, I don't have a problem with it. In the classroom, you are the instrument of a consensus view. You must do your job. If you do it well, that's great. Your views outside the classroom should be irrelevant, and I can't help but notice that a lot of the time when people get in trouble for their views outside of work, it's because someone de-anonymised them. We cannot have a world where people's actual opinions are forced to be equal to those their employers would be comfortable with. Your extreme examples are extreme indeed, but there are many examples, particularly in authoritarian regimes, where the extreme view is the correct one. So extreme-ness is not a good metric for whether views should be allowed or not. I think the solution for everyone is to stay silent, and to discuss their views anonymously online. Their views will still have force at the ballot box - as they did at the last election (as much as I did not like the outcome, it was evidence that social shaming has limited power at changing how people vote). We should be suspicious of attempts to de-anonymise the internet. Basically, dissent is important. So important that it is worth tolerating bad views to ensure dissent is not suppressed when it is needed. Everyone who pictures the cancel-culture norms resulting in some sort of paradise where everyone believes nice things are delusional, they are simply ceding power to those who will use it for personal gain, and giving the currently powerful the tools to to cement that power.

cambalache 7y ago

So would you agree if your employer fires you because of this chain of posts?

CathedralBorrow 7y ago
No, but I'd understand if I had been publicly saying that sometimes there's nothing wrong with having sex with children. When I say that words can have consequences, it matters which words you use.