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Social progress involves making-acceptable things that were previously offensive and outrageous to the majority. Things that were considered harmful to society.

Social progress involves making-acceptable things that were previously offensive and outrageous to the majority. Things that were considered harmful to society. Things like equal rights for women, minorities, different sexualities. For progress to be possible, people must be able to say offensive things that others find unpleasant. You might say, but it’s not those kinds of “harmful” views we want to stop, only the genuinely harmful ones. But who gets to decide which views are harmful? On a different note, I think that, for creativity, it’s important to be able to think and express yourself without always needing to second guess yourself. And I think we’re creating a society where everyone has to always second guess everything they think and say in case they accidentally say something that may bring in the outrage mob, either now or at some point anywhere potentially years later.

glangdale 7y ago
I've finding it hard to understand what sort of progress is reached by, say, enabling weird dudes to constantly and inappropriately hit on women. Suppose there is some future society that has decided that weird stinky dudes that make inappropriate remarks, stare at women's tits and compulsively hit on attractive women who are just trying to exist in a professional setting are actually A-OK. Why is that society's alleged values superior to our own? If we are trending towards a direction that makes what we now regard as sexual harassment ok (again) then I would say we're going in the wrong way, and there's no more reason to regard that hypothetical futures' values as better than ours, any more than we regard the 1950s values better now. This doesn't remotely analogize to "gay rights" or racial tolerance, etc. Being enraged/uncomfortable about, say, interracial marriage or consensual gay relationships was always a matter of people becoming involved in things that were none of their damn business (e.g. "I'm angry about what those gays are doing behind closed doors") or denying them to right to participate in society as equals. Not liking stuff like sexual harassment is something we do because of its effect on the person involved (e.g. "it's hard to be taken seriously as a professional and feel that I have dignity when Stallman makes remarks about my virginity and stares at my tits") or others like them. IMO second guessing what you think (?) and say is hardly all that difficult. People could go a long way by (a) being kind and (b) acting (shock horror) professional in a professional context and not trying to use the workplace to get dates or get laid, and (c) shutting the hell up once in a while rather than treating us to their opinions about Every Goddamn Thing. Honestly, the sheer egomania of Stallman deciding the whole world needed to hear his thoughts on underage sex is pretty wild.
- jamesrcole 7y ago
  > I've finding it hard to understand what sort of progress is reached by, say, enabling weird dudes to constantly and inappropriately hit on women. I was reponding to these statements "there is a benefit to radical thinking and nonconformity, but "do it without hurting others" is a reasonable line to draw. ... I still believe ... that it's possible to maintain not-normal opinions without causing pain to the people around you.". This is clearly talking about all cases where there's potential for causing hurt and pain, not the one specific case you're talking about. You didn't address one of the main points in my comment: who gets to decide which views are harmful? And when I talked about social progress, I didn't just mean that which has already occurred. There are things which are today considered offensive and harmful, that in the future will be considered just and good. This has always been the case, for any moment in time. If we decide it's important to shut down all offensive speech, it makes it much harder for society to evolve and improve.
  - glangdale 7y ago
    You're looking for a neutral principle that doesn't exist. Why is the trajectory of society towards "evolving and improving" assumed here? Why is someone's view of what is "just and good" in the future automatically better? What if we wind up in a dystopia and reintroduce slavery? Is that automatically "better" because it's out there in the future? At this point people usually go looking for a get out of jail free card where they can conjure up a neutral principle and say "no, I meant progress towards good things", which of course "begs the question" in the classic sense.
    - jamesrcole 7y ago
      The principle I'm arguing for does not involve any specific view of what "better" is. A norm of shutting down someone whenever a number of people consider that person's views or actions to be offensive or harmful will stifle change. It will stifle all change and evolution of norms and beliefs. It's an authoritarian impulse that will only ratchet up restrictions on what can be said and done. If such a norm had been in place in the last few hundred years, it would have severely hampered all the past changes that are now widely agreed to have been good things.
solidasparagus 7y ago
> for creativity, it’s important to be able to think and express yourself without always needing to second guess yourself. And I think we’re creating a society where everyone has to always second guess everything they think and say in case they accidentally say something that may bring in the outrage mob It's funny you should say this. This is one of the defining traits of Stallman in my memory. He would go out of his way to get loudly outraged about relatively trivial things that others would do. Email out asking for responses to a survey and reward people with Amazon gift cards? He would attack you for supporting the evil corporation Amazon, often derailing the original thread. Share an interesting article/webpage/project? He would attack you for not offering a javascript-free option. Set up a video-based experiment in the lab? Better make sure Stallman doesn't see that camera and disable it/make a huge scene about his privacy being infringed upon. You reap what you sow I guess.
- noobermin 7y ago
  This makes him an annoying true believer. This doesn't make him "harmful" in the sense that they seemed to mean.
  - solidasparagus 7y ago
    I was really only replying to that comment's last paragraph - the outrage culture that Stallman embraced has come back to bite him.
widowlark 7y ago
If it was the government censoring you from saying those "harmful" things I would agree with you. Who gets to decide is society, and it's responding loud and clear to this issue.
- jamesrcole 7y ago
  A view being the (supposedly) dominant one doesn’t therefore make it the correct or better one, as history clearly shows.

glangdale 7y ago

I've finding it hard to understand what sort of progress is reached by, say, enabling weird dudes to constantly and inappropriately hit on women. Suppose there is some future society that has decided that weird stinky dudes that make inappropriate remarks, stare at women's tits and compulsively hit on attractive women who are just trying to exist in a professional setting are actually A-OK. Why is that society's alleged values superior to our own? If we are trending towards a direction that makes what we now regard as sexual harassment ok (again) then I would say we're going in the wrong way, and there's no more reason to regard that hypothetical futures' values as better than ours, any more than we regard the 1950s values better now. This doesn't remotely analogize to "gay rights" or racial tolerance, etc. Being enraged/uncomfortable about, say, interracial marriage or consensual gay relationships was always a matter of people becoming involved in things that were none of their damn business (e.g. "I'm angry about what those gays are doing behind closed doors") or denying them to right to participate in society as equals. Not liking stuff like sexual harassment is something we do because of its effect on the person involved (e.g. "it's hard to be taken seriously as a professional and feel that I have dignity when Stallman makes remarks about my virginity and stares at my tits") or others like them. IMO second guessing what you think (?) and say is hardly all that difficult. People could go a long way by (a) being kind and (b) acting (shock horror) professional in a professional context and not trying to use the workplace to get dates or get laid, and (c) shutting the hell up once in a while rather than treating us to their opinions about Every Goddamn Thing. Honestly, the sheer egomania of Stallman deciding the whole world needed to hear his thoughts on underage sex is pretty wild.

jamesrcole 7y ago
> I've finding it hard to understand what sort of progress is reached by, say, enabling weird dudes to constantly and inappropriately hit on women. I was reponding to these statements "there is a benefit to radical thinking and nonconformity, but "do it without hurting others" is a reasonable line to draw. ... I still believe ... that it's possible to maintain not-normal opinions without causing pain to the people around you.". This is clearly talking about all cases where there's potential for causing hurt and pain, not the one specific case you're talking about. You didn't address one of the main points in my comment: who gets to decide which views are harmful? And when I talked about social progress, I didn't just mean that which has already occurred. There are things which are today considered offensive and harmful, that in the future will be considered just and good. This has always been the case, for any moment in time. If we decide it's important to shut down all offensive speech, it makes it much harder for society to evolve and improve.
- glangdale 7y ago
  You're looking for a neutral principle that doesn't exist. Why is the trajectory of society towards "evolving and improving" assumed here? Why is someone's view of what is "just and good" in the future automatically better? What if we wind up in a dystopia and reintroduce slavery? Is that automatically "better" because it's out there in the future? At this point people usually go looking for a get out of jail free card where they can conjure up a neutral principle and say "no, I meant progress towards good things", which of course "begs the question" in the classic sense.
  - jamesrcole 7y ago
    The principle I'm arguing for does not involve any specific view of what "better" is. A norm of shutting down someone whenever a number of people consider that person's views or actions to be offensive or harmful will stifle change. It will stifle all change and evolution of norms and beliefs. It's an authoritarian impulse that will only ratchet up restrictions on what can be said and done. If such a norm had been in place in the last few hundred years, it would have severely hampered all the past changes that are now widely agreed to have been good things.

solidasparagus 7y ago

> for creativity, it’s important to be able to think and express yourself without always needing to second guess yourself. And I think we’re creating a society where everyone has to always second guess everything they think and say in case they accidentally say something that may bring in the outrage mob It's funny you should say this. This is one of the defining traits of Stallman in my memory. He would go out of his way to get loudly outraged about relatively trivial things that others would do. Email out asking for responses to a survey and reward people with Amazon gift cards? He would attack you for supporting the evil corporation Amazon, often derailing the original thread. Share an interesting article/webpage/project? He would attack you for not offering a javascript-free option. Set up a video-based experiment in the lab? Better make sure Stallman doesn't see that camera and disable it/make a huge scene about his privacy being infringed upon. You reap what you sow I guess.

noobermin 7y ago
This makes him an annoying true believer. This doesn't make him "harmful" in the sense that they seemed to mean.
- solidasparagus 7y ago
  I was really only replying to that comment's last paragraph - the outrage culture that Stallman embraced has come back to bite him.

widowlark 7y ago

If it was the government censoring you from saying those "harmful" things I would agree with you. Who gets to decide is society, and it's responding loud and clear to this issue.

jamesrcole 7y ago
A view being the (supposedly) dominant one doesn’t therefore make it the correct or better one, as history clearly shows.