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> Why should someone interact with something that the author doesn't throw his/her/their name into? We currently live in a "there is only one correct opinion,

> Why should someone interact with something that the author doesn't throw his/her/their name into? We currently live in a "there is only one correct opinion, all others must be canceled" culture. They've already come for anyone who showed even the faintest trace of dissent from the mindlessly woke mob's narrative. Next they'll come for those who have stayed silent. Failure to project virtue signaling will soon be used to deny employment and participation in other aspects of society. Just you wait. Anonymity is a risk mitigation technique that speaks to the very real desire to keep speech free. If speech has consequences that are administered outside the law, then it's not really free.

dijit 6y ago
I’m not sure if you’re aware or not. But you just proved a point I made.
- jcims 6y ago
  I read it as supporting your point.
- insickness 6y ago
  Because you started your comment with a question asking why, people thought you were genuinely asking a question rather than trying to make a point.
Jaruzel 6y ago
> We currently live in a "there is only one correct opinion, all others must be canceled" culture. I fully blame twitter (and the medias obsession with it) for this.
- pydry 6y ago
  This is a problem that probably existed before writing itself, never mind Twitter.
  - teddyh 6y ago
    Cf. The Scarlet Letter from 1850: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Scarlet_Letter https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Scarlet_Letter
  - dandellion 6y ago
    It's not new. It was huge when religion was more prevalent, for example, but it was becoming less of a problem as society became more educated and secular. Now there's a new wave riding on top of social media like Twitter, and as it gains more popularity it's becoming more about flaming vs virtue signalling than making actual progress.
    - roenxi 6y ago
      > but it was becoming less of a problem as society became more educated and secular The last generation of control freaks had figured out how to use religion as a medium for their desires. They were caught flat-footed by new internet media like everyone else. The next generation have now learned how to use twitter. The basic tactics probably haven't changed that much but the details of the message are new. I doubt education was a driving issue as this is more an issue of personality types.
      - dandellion 6y ago
        We all can get caught up in to some degree. Some of the change is great, but the snowballing effect of social media leads to some mistakes that get easily out of hand. Education hasn't been able to adapt fast enough to technology and has left people unprepared for this sort of thing. It's not that it's a driving issue but it hasn't been of help when ideally it would have.
    - efa 6y ago
      Yeah, it's getting hard to tell what are real accounts. So many pose as a left/right wing person and spout a little too ridiculously.
    - throwaway894345 6y ago
ralphstodomingo 6y ago
Anonymity solves the issue for the individual, and for the most part I believe it works. The problem is, this current culture of irrational, non-engaging echo-chamber woke cancellations is further propelled to the forefront when those unwilling to partake in the culture are either shamed or silenced. Platforms like Twitter and Facebook don't make for constructive debate, discussions. There is an option to shore up support through likes, but not much the other way around. I think this explains the diaspora from the latter to the former, and says a lot about the future of Twitter itself (hint: people will move on.) I do believe one day people will be more rational in handling beliefs and opinions positioned against them, and there are a multitude of valid reasons for one to assume anonymity, but we'd all benefit if we confronted the deeper problem instead, I feel.
newacct583 6y ago
Good grief. What happened to "Democrats are coming for your guns"? At least that one sorta made sense. Can you name three significant ideas whose debate has been suppressed online? Because I'll bet that for each of those I can find a 200+ comment flame war on this very site. > They've already come for anyone who showed even the faintest trace of dissent from the mindlessly woke mob's narrative They did? Who won?
- kabouseng 6y ago
  James Damore certainly lost.
  - newacct583 6y ago
    No, he was fired because he very loudly and publicly contradicted his employers' stated policies[1]. His ideas didn't "lose", not in the free speech sense everyone is yelling about. There's not a poster here who doesn't know what he said (we spent A LOT more than 200 comments on that one!). Nor was he suppressed: he's still speaking, on the same subject! Hell, he's surely making more now as a right wing martyr than he ever was as a low level hacker for Google. [1] I mean, people get fired for this all the time, like those folks Amazon canned a few months back for union organizing with employer resources. You only care about this one guy because he happens to play for Your Team.
    - dx87 6y ago
      What he posted was on an internal message board specifically for employees to discuss controversial subjects. It was only public because another google employee got upset and made it public.
      - newacct583 6y ago
        I probably should have said "broadly", I guess. But I still don't see how that differs from the union folks, who used an internal messaging system to notify other employees about their rights. Again, I can't help but think what you people really want is the inalienable right, not to "free speech", but to be Offensive Without Consequence. And again, Damore is a genuine celebrity now, he's a very bad example of the kind of repressive woke hegemony you're invoking.
epx 6y ago
And you have very active extremists in both sides, so it is guaranteed you are always wrong and always in danger of being cancelled.
tw04 6y ago
Freedom of speech isn't freedom from consequences of that speech. What planet do you live on that you think everyone else should have to both listen to what you say, and then not "punish" you for it? If you tell your wife she looks fat, she's probably not having sex with you that evening. If you call someone a racial slur, they're probably both going to tell everyone they know about what you said, and refuse to interact with you unless forced to. What you're talking about isn't freedom of speech, it's freedom FROM responsibility. I don't think you're going to find very many people that want to sign up for: HNThrowaway262 can do whatever he wants and you just have to take it. That's a dictatorship or a monarchy, you might want to live in that society but I don't. Your words and actions have consequences and SHOULD.
- zimablue 6y ago
  "Freedom of speech isn't freedom from consequences of that speech" That's not true, it doesn't even really make sense. Freedom of anything is freedom from consequences for it. If I say I believe in freedom to have an abortion, noone would reasonably be said to agree if they said they also believe in freedom to have an abortion, and then immediate execution by the state afterwards. Freedom of speech in the constitution is freedom from reprisal by the government Freedom of speech as used idiomatically in speech generally means a certain level of freedom of reprisals from employers and society. Directed racial slurs is a straw man, almost noone believes in absolutist freedom of speech when it comes to directed harrassment, they normally believe in freedom to discuss topics in the abstract. It's not a monarchy if someone has the freedom to speak, that doesn't make them a king just a citizen. I've noticed a trend with the woke side of the debate to get into like high-school level semantics - redefining words or misinterpreting statements in a nakedly disingenuous way - does anyone understand why this seems to be a trend?
  - tw04 6y ago
    >almost noone believes in absolutist freedom of speech when it comes to directed harrassment Not a true statement at all. 30 seconds over at r/the_donald (yes, I'm aware it's gone) makes it pretty clear there's a large swath of trolls that believe directed harassment and racism is perfectly acceptable. >It's not a monarchy if someone has the freedom to speak, that doesn't make them a king just a citizen. Forcing society to accept your speech is absolutely a monarchy, sorry. Your right to speech stops at my front door, up to and including terminating your employment at my company. Why is it the racists always devolve to high-school level semantics and claim freedom of speech means they're free from any consequences for their speech?
dang 6y ago
We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23789853 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23789853.

dijit 6y ago

I’m not sure if you’re aware or not. But you just proved a point I made.

jcims 6y ago
I read it as supporting your point.
insickness 6y ago
Because you started your comment with a question asking why, people thought you were genuinely asking a question rather than trying to make a point.

Jaruzel 6y ago

> We currently live in a "there is only one correct opinion, all others must be canceled" culture. I fully blame twitter (and the medias obsession with it) for this.

pydry 6y ago
This is a problem that probably existed before writing itself, never mind Twitter.
- teddyh 6y ago
  Cf. The Scarlet Letter from 1850: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Scarlet_Letter https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Scarlet_Letter
- dandellion 6y ago
  It's not new. It was huge when religion was more prevalent, for example, but it was becoming less of a problem as society became more educated and secular. Now there's a new wave riding on top of social media like Twitter, and as it gains more popularity it's becoming more about flaming vs virtue signalling than making actual progress.
  - roenxi 6y ago
    > but it was becoming less of a problem as society became more educated and secular The last generation of control freaks had figured out how to use religion as a medium for their desires. They were caught flat-footed by new internet media like everyone else. The next generation have now learned how to use twitter. The basic tactics probably haven't changed that much but the details of the message are new. I doubt education was a driving issue as this is more an issue of personality types.
    - dandellion 6y ago
      We all can get caught up in to some degree. Some of the change is great, but the snowballing effect of social media leads to some mistakes that get easily out of hand. Education hasn't been able to adapt fast enough to technology and has left people unprepared for this sort of thing. It's not that it's a driving issue but it hasn't been of help when ideally it would have.
  - efa 6y ago
    Yeah, it's getting hard to tell what are real accounts. So many pose as a left/right wing person and spout a little too ridiculously.
  - throwaway894345 6y ago

ralphstodomingo 6y ago

Anonymity solves the issue for the individual, and for the most part I believe it works. The problem is, this current culture of irrational, non-engaging echo-chamber woke cancellations is further propelled to the forefront when those unwilling to partake in the culture are either shamed or silenced. Platforms like Twitter and Facebook don't make for constructive debate, discussions. There is an option to shore up support through likes, but not much the other way around. I think this explains the diaspora from the latter to the former, and says a lot about the future of Twitter itself (hint: people will move on.) I do believe one day people will be more rational in handling beliefs and opinions positioned against them, and there are a multitude of valid reasons for one to assume anonymity, but we'd all benefit if we confronted the deeper problem instead, I feel.

newacct583 6y ago

Good grief. What happened to "Democrats are coming for your guns"? At least that one sorta made sense. Can you name three significant ideas whose debate has been suppressed online? Because I'll bet that for each of those I can find a 200+ comment flame war on this very site. > They've already come for anyone who showed even the faintest trace of dissent from the mindlessly woke mob's narrative They did? Who won?

kabouseng 6y ago
James Damore certainly lost.
- newacct583 6y ago
  No, he was fired because he very loudly and publicly contradicted his employers' stated policies[1]. His ideas didn't "lose", not in the free speech sense everyone is yelling about. There's not a poster here who doesn't know what he said (we spent A LOT more than 200 comments on that one!). Nor was he suppressed: he's still speaking, on the same subject! Hell, he's surely making more now as a right wing martyr than he ever was as a low level hacker for Google. [1] I mean, people get fired for this all the time, like those folks Amazon canned a few months back for union organizing with employer resources. You only care about this one guy because he happens to play for Your Team.
  - dx87 6y ago
    What he posted was on an internal message board specifically for employees to discuss controversial subjects. It was only public because another google employee got upset and made it public.
    - newacct583 6y ago
      I probably should have said "broadly", I guess. But I still don't see how that differs from the union folks, who used an internal messaging system to notify other employees about their rights. Again, I can't help but think what you people really want is the inalienable right, not to "free speech", but to be Offensive Without Consequence. And again, Damore is a genuine celebrity now, he's a very bad example of the kind of repressive woke hegemony you're invoking.

epx 6y ago

And you have very active extremists in both sides, so it is guaranteed you are always wrong and always in danger of being cancelled.

tw04 6y ago

Freedom of speech isn't freedom from consequences of that speech. What planet do you live on that you think everyone else should have to both listen to what you say, and then not "punish" you for it? If you tell your wife she looks fat, she's probably not having sex with you that evening. If you call someone a racial slur, they're probably both going to tell everyone they know about what you said, and refuse to interact with you unless forced to. What you're talking about isn't freedom of speech, it's freedom FROM responsibility. I don't think you're going to find very many people that want to sign up for: HNThrowaway262 can do whatever he wants and you just have to take it. That's a dictatorship or a monarchy, you might want to live in that society but I don't. Your words and actions have consequences and SHOULD.

zimablue 6y ago
"Freedom of speech isn't freedom from consequences of that speech" That's not true, it doesn't even really make sense. Freedom of anything is freedom from consequences for it. If I say I believe in freedom to have an abortion, noone would reasonably be said to agree if they said they also believe in freedom to have an abortion, and then immediate execution by the state afterwards. Freedom of speech in the constitution is freedom from reprisal by the government Freedom of speech as used idiomatically in speech generally means a certain level of freedom of reprisals from employers and society. Directed racial slurs is a straw man, almost noone believes in absolutist freedom of speech when it comes to directed harrassment, they normally believe in freedom to discuss topics in the abstract. It's not a monarchy if someone has the freedom to speak, that doesn't make them a king just a citizen. I've noticed a trend with the woke side of the debate to get into like high-school level semantics - redefining words or misinterpreting statements in a nakedly disingenuous way - does anyone understand why this seems to be a trend?
- tw04 6y ago
  >almost noone believes in absolutist freedom of speech when it comes to directed harrassment Not a true statement at all. 30 seconds over at r/the_donald (yes, I'm aware it's gone) makes it pretty clear there's a large swath of trolls that believe directed harassment and racism is perfectly acceptable. >It's not a monarchy if someone has the freedom to speak, that doesn't make them a king just a citizen. Forcing society to accept your speech is absolutely a monarchy, sorry. Your right to speech stops at my front door, up to and including terminating your employment at my company. Why is it the racists always devolve to high-school level semantics and claim freedom of speech means they're free from any consequences for their speech?

dang 6y ago

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23789853 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23789853.