4 ms·

> I can assure you that there are no shortage of people on the receiving end of non-Western boycott threats for making comments deemed to offend, say, religious

• notahacker 6y ago
  > The best defense that can be mustered is that the worst authoritarian and theocratic dictatorships of the world do the same thing so it's no big deal? To be fair to you I guess the truth of the matter is that really is the best defense. It just happens to be terrible. It's not a 'defence' but a simple refutation of your claim that companies coming under pressure from some quarters to fire employees for sentiments they have expressed is a uniquely Western thing (Bit of a stretch to suggest India has been amongst the 'worst authoritarian and theocratic dictatorships' since its independence too...). Just because local populations in much of the world are seldom bothered by comments perceived as insulting to black or gay people doesn't mean they all extend the same tolerance towards people they perceive as insulting their national pride, family values, religion, behavioural norms, officials they need to curry favour with etc. > It's just a coincidence that what we actually hear month in and month out year after year is professional offense taking victims out to collect scalps on behalf of their cancerous idiotic ideology, right? For someone who claims to be averse to 'professional offence taking', you're trying remarkably hard to find an angle sufficiently obtuse for you to drag my bland statement that companies think all sorts of different behaviour outside working hours gives them cause to fire people into your culture war...
  • etherael 6y ago
    > It's not a 'defence' but a simple refutation of your claim that companies coming under pressure from some quarters to fire employees for sentiments they have expressed is a uniquely Western thing And it's not a refutation at all, because the examples you cite are themselves restricted to particular jurisdictions (and I'm sure of this because I spent the past ten years travelling the entire world and never saw anything of the magnitude I've seen coming from the west during that period), and the incidents are far more excessive breaches of the local cultural etiquette in incidents where they do end up causing outrage, whereas in the west you can be legally hounded by professional victims for not using their pretend pronouns, and people make art forms out of misinterpreting things to be as offended as possible for no reason at all obviously because it gives them power whilst those who would like to pretend it's not the fatal problem it clearly is choose to continuously ignore or minimise it, even while cadres of the discussed movements in question are out burning down cities, looting, and other typical obvious indicators that things have gone seriously wrong, this discussion itself being a perfect case in point. > (Bit of a stretch to suggest India has been amongst the 'worst authoritarian and theocratic dictatorships' since its independence too...). Pointing out that the worst authoritarian and theocratic dictatorships are the nearest analogs to the "me-too"-ism you cite doesn't imply that applies to India in particular, my reference to theocratic dictatorships was mostly regarding middle eastern jurisdictions at any rate. > you're trying remarkably hard to find an angle sufficiently obtuse for you to drag my bland statement that companies think all sorts of different behaviour outside working hours gives them cause to fire people into your culture war... Not at all, I'm not even disagreeing with that statement. I'm simply pointing out it's symptomatic of a disease rather than a positive or neutral thing that should just be accepted.
    • notahacker 6y ago
      > And it's not a refutation at all, because the examples you cite are themselves restricted to particular jurisdictions (and I'm sure of this because I spent the past ten years travelling the entire world and never saw anything of the magnitude I've seen coming from the west during that period), and the incidents are far more excessive breaches of the local cultural etiquette in incidents where they do end up causing outrage I've travelled the world too, but with my eyes open :) In that time I've visited countries where literal lynch mobs hunt people accused of participating in the beef trade or having sex before marriage, countries where the mildest of perceived criticisms of royalty will earn you a minimum three year jail term in addition to the lasting enmity of locals, and countries with excruciatingly forced politeness and elaborate systems of honorifics which are a lot harder to grasp than she/her. Those are the nominal democracies, not the ones with supreme leaders or religious absolutists. And there's still well over a quarter of the world where homosexuality isn't merely grounds for firing and shaming your family, but also a criminal offence. Perhaps you believe these cultural norms are more intrinsically worth defending than politeness towards transpeople, but it's safe to say that culture warriors who've been no-platformed by the side of the 'trans debate' they want to silence are raking in donations rather than languishing in jails. So I'm afraid I find it laughable to hear that people who espouse illiberal views on minorities in the West are unique in the magnitude of their victimhood because they might attract so much attention their book becomes a bestseller or they become elected President of the United States. One of the consequences of greater levels of free speech is greater exposure to criticism, justified and otherwise.