4 ms·

I’m getting to the point of just switching off. Whatever your opinion, there will be many others who deeply and vehemently disagree with you and do so with pas

I’m getting to the point of just switching off. Whatever your opinion, there will be many others who deeply and vehemently disagree with you and do so with passionate, fiery, certain-to-be-correct righteous indignation. Carry your true opinions in your head and share them with no one.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
thisiszilff 6y ago
Yet laying out your thoughts, your reasons for them, and your evidence and having someone else rummage through them is often the best way to deepen your views and come to a more accurate, nuanced understanding of the world. I'm afraid if our exteriors are not accurate reflections of the truths we believe in, our worldview may cease to develop and remain too simplistic. Maybe a necessary defense, but still, saddening.
DenisM 6y ago
It’s all well and good until your colleagues start shaming you on Twitter that you failed to denounce xyz. And that’s one of the better situation, too.
- chowderhead 6y ago
  So, is this a real thing that happens? Just curious. If someone shamed me for something like this, I would tell them to get a fucking life and to mind their own business. Maybe that's why I don't get pestered... I'm pretty blunt about not putting up with bullshit. I agree with the article, these left ideologies are absurd. Coming from an independent moderate. Obligatory wake up sheeple etc etc.
  - rootusrootus 6y ago
    > So, is this a real thing that happens? Just curious. It's a reference to a FB employee who got fired recently for doing exactly that. Publicly shaming a colleague who had elected not to become politically involved.
ThrowawayR2 6y ago
> "Carry your true opinions in your head and share them with no one." While I don't disagree, I would add that all of us need to share our true opinions at least in one place: the voting booth. We are led by those whom we choose and we must start choosing more wisely if we want a better future.
tlear 6y ago
Failed to take a knee or prostate yourself in front of whatever? Fired, cancelled etc Having grown up during perestroika. I remember saluting the red banner and blood soaked monster Lenin portet while reading Archipelago Gulag at home. Never though US will get here
- Daishiman 6y ago
  Seriously? Kids in the US would get in all kinds of trouble for not respecting the Pledge of Allegiance back in the... 90s, not the 70s. It's only been in the past decade that anything that's not complete and vehement agreement with the "support the troops" mantra has been tolerated by the mainstream. It's things like these that make me very skeptical of the intentions of the article. The idea of the American public being tolerant of ideas outside the norm is a new conservative narrative that has no correspondence with reality. People were __pissed off__ when the Simpsons began to air. Openly admitting to doing drugs was (and still is, to a much lesser degree) a way to be fired an ostracised in many middle class circles. I am really not seeing anything new.
  - tlear 6y ago
    Did they purge Tankies, Maoists, Trotskyist etc from universities? Because when O went to Uni half of social science department was some sort of -ist in the 90s See how fast you get fired if you don’t take a knee when department head tells you to for BLM.
    - Daishiman 6y ago
      McCarthy certainly did, I don't know if you're being facetious but that's exactly what happened. These sectors of the left didn't come to dominate some sectors of academia; they were driven out of everywhere else and that's the only area where their radical ideas were tolerated. Meanwhile the rest of society has been tolerating everything else in mainstream public institutions: the racist and regressive corporate bosses, the Evangelicals who considered anything that's not in agreement with their doctrine to be an affront to God, the gun nuts who consider walking around in public with an assault weapon to be a perfectly valid expression, and on it goes. American society is dramatically more tolerant of these extremist right wing positions, and that Overton window shift has always existed in the US. It is only because of the inflammatory discourse of Trump and his allies that people have decided that the fringe left is dramatically less dangerous and tolerant than these literal fascists.
cmdshiftf4 6y ago
>I’m getting to the point of just switching off. I recognized how overcome I was feeling by it all and switched off a while ago, and life has felt a lot easier since. I've a couple of subscriptions for print media and now defer checking the news, avoiding Twitter etc. and just catching up with the weekly editions over the weekend. HN is the only site I really look at daily due to its mix of interesting content, suppression of political battles and quality of moderation. Even then I'll often Pocket articles and defer them until later. Recognize that you're being manipulated, that you've no influence over any of it and step away. I promise, after the initial come-down effect it entails, you'll feel a lot better for it.
jkingsbery 6y ago
I would mostly agree with this. Be kind to others, do something useful for the world, don't be a jerk, but otherwise, debating opinions is generally a waste of time. What happens though when one group says (as they recently have) that silence is insufficient, not just on agreeing with not being a racist, but the wisdom of their proposed solution to the problem? I've seen the claim that silence is violence... what do we do then?

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

thisiszilff 6y ago

Yet laying out your thoughts, your reasons for them, and your evidence and having someone else rummage through them is often the best way to deepen your views and come to a more accurate, nuanced understanding of the world. I'm afraid if our exteriors are not accurate reflections of the truths we believe in, our worldview may cease to develop and remain too simplistic. Maybe a necessary defense, but still, saddening.

DenisM 6y ago

It’s all well and good until your colleagues start shaming you on Twitter that you failed to denounce xyz. And that’s one of the better situation, too.

chowderhead 6y ago
So, is this a real thing that happens? Just curious. If someone shamed me for something like this, I would tell them to get a fucking life and to mind their own business. Maybe that's why I don't get pestered... I'm pretty blunt about not putting up with bullshit. I agree with the article, these left ideologies are absurd. Coming from an independent moderate. Obligatory wake up sheeple etc etc.
- rootusrootus 6y ago
  > So, is this a real thing that happens? Just curious. It's a reference to a FB employee who got fired recently for doing exactly that. Publicly shaming a colleague who had elected not to become politically involved.

ThrowawayR2 6y ago

> "Carry your true opinions in your head and share them with no one." While I don't disagree, I would add that all of us need to share our true opinions at least in one place: the voting booth. We are led by those whom we choose and we must start choosing more wisely if we want a better future.

tlear 6y ago

Failed to take a knee or prostate yourself in front of whatever? Fired, cancelled etc Having grown up during perestroika. I remember saluting the red banner and blood soaked monster Lenin portet while reading Archipelago Gulag at home. Never though US will get here

Daishiman 6y ago
Seriously? Kids in the US would get in all kinds of trouble for not respecting the Pledge of Allegiance back in the... 90s, not the 70s. It's only been in the past decade that anything that's not complete and vehement agreement with the "support the troops" mantra has been tolerated by the mainstream. It's things like these that make me very skeptical of the intentions of the article. The idea of the American public being tolerant of ideas outside the norm is a new conservative narrative that has no correspondence with reality. People were __pissed off__ when the Simpsons began to air. Openly admitting to doing drugs was (and still is, to a much lesser degree) a way to be fired an ostracised in many middle class circles. I am really not seeing anything new.
- tlear 6y ago
  Did they purge Tankies, Maoists, Trotskyist etc from universities? Because when O went to Uni half of social science department was some sort of -ist in the 90s See how fast you get fired if you don’t take a knee when department head tells you to for BLM.
  - Daishiman 6y ago
    McCarthy certainly did, I don't know if you're being facetious but that's exactly what happened. These sectors of the left didn't come to dominate some sectors of academia; they were driven out of everywhere else and that's the only area where their radical ideas were tolerated. Meanwhile the rest of society has been tolerating everything else in mainstream public institutions: the racist and regressive corporate bosses, the Evangelicals who considered anything that's not in agreement with their doctrine to be an affront to God, the gun nuts who consider walking around in public with an assault weapon to be a perfectly valid expression, and on it goes. American society is dramatically more tolerant of these extremist right wing positions, and that Overton window shift has always existed in the US. It is only because of the inflammatory discourse of Trump and his allies that people have decided that the fringe left is dramatically less dangerous and tolerant than these literal fascists.

cmdshiftf4 6y ago

>I’m getting to the point of just switching off. I recognized how overcome I was feeling by it all and switched off a while ago, and life has felt a lot easier since. I've a couple of subscriptions for print media and now defer checking the news, avoiding Twitter etc. and just catching up with the weekly editions over the weekend. HN is the only site I really look at daily due to its mix of interesting content, suppression of political battles and quality of moderation. Even then I'll often Pocket articles and defer them until later. Recognize that you're being manipulated, that you've no influence over any of it and step away. I promise, after the initial come-down effect it entails, you'll feel a lot better for it.

jkingsbery 6y ago

I would mostly agree with this. Be kind to others, do something useful for the world, don't be a jerk, but otherwise, debating opinions is generally a waste of time. What happens though when one group says (as they recently have) that silence is insufficient, not just on agreeing with not being a racist, but the wisdom of their proposed solution to the problem? I've seen the claim that silence is violence... what do we do then?