5 ms·

The woke-left isn't going around arresting people, nor do they have much (if any) influence in high levels of government.

herbstein 6y ago
Remember when the government went around arresting and undermining anything and anyone that was even slightly left-wing? People in power being called out by groups on Twitter is definitely the exact same thing and absolutely not a false equivalence.
jimbokun 6y ago
They are getting low level employees fired from their jobs, though. They have a lot of power in educational institutes, media organizations and HR departments.
- GaryNumanVevo 6y ago
  > They are getting low level employees fired from their jobs This is an interesting intersection. It either implies that all employers are left-aligned (not true) and therefore willing to fire employees that hold right-leaning opinions, OR that low level employees are so expendable that it literally any reason can get them fired if enough people complain.
  - umeshunni 6y ago
    > OR that low level employees are so expendable that it literally any reason can get them fired if enough people complain. It's mostly this. When you're a small-medium business, the last thing you want is negative PR and people canceling or DDOSing you because one of your employees wrongthinked.
  - jimbokun 6y ago
    Maybe the left would pay more attention if this was phrased as a worker's rights issue. But I doubt they will care until a conservative employer fires someone for tweeting support for a progressive belief.
  - mancerayder 6y ago
    I think HR departments just want to offload risk and they'll take advantage of loose labor laws to offload an employee who got mobbed online. I don't ascribe a right or left bias to them. It's the mob that has the bias (perhaps because of age or ideology or certainty or something else) and the mob uses the technology and then the HR department responds by firing the employee.
    - dane-pgp 6y ago
      > the mob uses the technology and then the HR department responds by firing the employee. Do we need to coin the term "DDoE"? Distributed Denial of Employment. It's a hack against the socio-political system that targets find themselves in, not too dissimilar to Swatting.
    - GaryNumanVevo 6y ago
      Definitely, didn't mean to ascribe it to one side or the other. I mainly see posters on HN referencing instances of "the left" getting people fired. It has more to do with aggregate action, which has recently been made possible with platforms like Twitter, than with the particular ideological stances.
    - throwaway676789 6y ago
      > I don't ascribe a right or left bias to them. My personal experience is a lot of HR departments do have a left-of-center bias to them, especially at the lower-levels (but at times reaching all the way to the top). A few reasons: 1) HR departments tend to skew female, and women on average skew somewhat more left-of-center than men do 2) They often have special teams for "diversity & inclusion", which inevitably tend to be filled with people with left-of-center political views 3) They'll put requirements like "commitment to diversity & inclusion" in job descriptions, which can (ironically) act as a filter to remove political diversity. Those phrases can get copy-and-pasted into job descriptions in other departments too, but while for many in engineering/sales/etc it is just compliance boilerplate with little real significance to the hiring process, HR really means it. Of course this isn't universally true, I'm sure there are some HR departments out there full of Trump supporters. But most of the people here would not be working for those kinds of companies.
- orwin 6y ago
  I somehow the law could prevent the employer to fire without justification. That's what happen in my country.
alkibiades 6y ago
they are one election from influence. and they do have influence in state governments. like california, one of the worlds largest economies. see aca5
megaman821 6y ago
They are bullying and harassing people, and trying to lump that in with "criticism". To make it worse, when they get called out on it, the left goes to victim blaming. It is just gross, like when people point out what a girl was wearing in a sexual assault case. You can criticize, you can ignore and you can boycott. Instead too many people (look at the response to JK Rowling) are threatening death and rape. Or are harassing employers until they capitulate.
- achileas 6y ago
  Oh no, people are using their free speech to criticize the speech of others!
  - megaman821 6y ago
    What are you saying? You think, "I hope you get raped" is a critical response?
    - achileas 6y ago
      Do you think that's the extent of people's criticisms of Bari? But I'm sure such dogged defenders of free speech normally send other reporters after people to acccuse them of being anti-Semitic for a joke about them on Twitter: https://twitter.com/hels/status/1283092586392178695?s=20 https://twitter.com/hels/status/1283092586392178695?s=20
      - megaman821 6y ago
        I could care less about Bari's horrible writing. I am just saying that bullying her on Slack is not correct response.
- QuotedForTruth 6y ago
  The vast majority of the criticism Rowling has received was not death or rape threats. Why do you ascribe that behavior to the entire "woke-left" (I'm assuming thats who you meant by "they"). Do you not think that targets of the right ever receive rape or death threats? These are not characteristic of the left. There is not some "woke-left" governing body directing people and asking some to give cover so that others can issue rape threats. Why do you choose to focus on them exclusively?
koheripbal 6y ago
Arresting someone is not how intimidation works. If you arrest someone, your intimidate gets the light of the court. Leftist extremism is exactly avoiding the court system by applying pressure to rob people of their livelihood - a much more immediate, public, and potent method of intimidation - and an excellent way to set an example to others who might speak against the theocracy.
- archagon 6y ago
  That’s little different from a boycott, which has always been a tool available to the powerless.
  - mns 6y ago
    There was the case of the guy working for the company involved in the Obama campaign who published a paper based on a study of an african-american professor saying that historically speaking violent riots will lead to more right leaning people voting. He got called out a racist, made to apologise, got fired and ostracised in his research community. Would you say he got boycotted?
    - archagon 6y ago
      Maybe not, but I still see it in the same general category as a boycott, because: if nothing illegal is actually going on, then what can anyone do to stop it, except impose authoritarian restrictions on free speech? If the company/institution wants to ignore people, fine, but they’ll have to deal with the consequences. (If those consequences are personal, e.g. death threats, then those should be nipped in the bud. But my feeling is that they’re usually financial or reputational.)

herbstein 6y ago

Remember when the government went around arresting and undermining anything and anyone that was even slightly left-wing? People in power being called out by groups on Twitter is definitely the exact same thing and absolutely not a false equivalence.

jimbokun 6y ago

They are getting low level employees fired from their jobs, though. They have a lot of power in educational institutes, media organizations and HR departments.

GaryNumanVevo 6y ago
> They are getting low level employees fired from their jobs This is an interesting intersection. It either implies that all employers are left-aligned (not true) and therefore willing to fire employees that hold right-leaning opinions, OR that low level employees are so expendable that it literally any reason can get them fired if enough people complain.
- umeshunni 6y ago
  > OR that low level employees are so expendable that it literally any reason can get them fired if enough people complain. It's mostly this. When you're a small-medium business, the last thing you want is negative PR and people canceling or DDOSing you because one of your employees wrongthinked.
- jimbokun 6y ago
  Maybe the left would pay more attention if this was phrased as a worker's rights issue. But I doubt they will care until a conservative employer fires someone for tweeting support for a progressive belief.
- mancerayder 6y ago
  I think HR departments just want to offload risk and they'll take advantage of loose labor laws to offload an employee who got mobbed online. I don't ascribe a right or left bias to them. It's the mob that has the bias (perhaps because of age or ideology or certainty or something else) and the mob uses the technology and then the HR department responds by firing the employee.
  - dane-pgp 6y ago
    > the mob uses the technology and then the HR department responds by firing the employee. Do we need to coin the term "DDoE"? Distributed Denial of Employment. It's a hack against the socio-political system that targets find themselves in, not too dissimilar to Swatting.
  - GaryNumanVevo 6y ago
    Definitely, didn't mean to ascribe it to one side or the other. I mainly see posters on HN referencing instances of "the left" getting people fired. It has more to do with aggregate action, which has recently been made possible with platforms like Twitter, than with the particular ideological stances.
  - throwaway676789 6y ago
    > I don't ascribe a right or left bias to them. My personal experience is a lot of HR departments do have a left-of-center bias to them, especially at the lower-levels (but at times reaching all the way to the top). A few reasons: 1) HR departments tend to skew female, and women on average skew somewhat more left-of-center than men do 2) They often have special teams for "diversity & inclusion", which inevitably tend to be filled with people with left-of-center political views 3) They'll put requirements like "commitment to diversity & inclusion" in job descriptions, which can (ironically) act as a filter to remove political diversity. Those phrases can get copy-and-pasted into job descriptions in other departments too, but while for many in engineering/sales/etc it is just compliance boilerplate with little real significance to the hiring process, HR really means it. Of course this isn't universally true, I'm sure there are some HR departments out there full of Trump supporters. But most of the people here would not be working for those kinds of companies.
orwin 6y ago
I somehow the law could prevent the employer to fire without justification. That's what happen in my country.

alkibiades 6y ago

they are one election from influence. and they do have influence in state governments. like california, one of the worlds largest economies. see aca5

megaman821 6y ago

They are bullying and harassing people, and trying to lump that in with "criticism". To make it worse, when they get called out on it, the left goes to victim blaming. It is just gross, like when people point out what a girl was wearing in a sexual assault case. You can criticize, you can ignore and you can boycott. Instead too many people (look at the response to JK Rowling) are threatening death and rape. Or are harassing employers until they capitulate.

achileas 6y ago
Oh no, people are using their free speech to criticize the speech of others!
- megaman821 6y ago
  What are you saying? You think, "I hope you get raped" is a critical response?
  - achileas 6y ago
    Do you think that's the extent of people's criticisms of Bari? But I'm sure such dogged defenders of free speech normally send other reporters after people to acccuse them of being anti-Semitic for a joke about them on Twitter: https://twitter.com/hels/status/1283092586392178695?s=20 https://twitter.com/hels/status/1283092586392178695?s=20
    - megaman821 6y ago
      I could care less about Bari's horrible writing. I am just saying that bullying her on Slack is not correct response.
QuotedForTruth 6y ago
The vast majority of the criticism Rowling has received was not death or rape threats. Why do you ascribe that behavior to the entire "woke-left" (I'm assuming thats who you meant by "they"). Do you not think that targets of the right ever receive rape or death threats? These are not characteristic of the left. There is not some "woke-left" governing body directing people and asking some to give cover so that others can issue rape threats. Why do you choose to focus on them exclusively?

koheripbal 6y ago

Arresting someone is not how intimidation works. If you arrest someone, your intimidate gets the light of the court. Leftist extremism is exactly avoiding the court system by applying pressure to rob people of their livelihood - a much more immediate, public, and potent method of intimidation - and an excellent way to set an example to others who might speak against the theocracy.

archagon 6y ago
That’s little different from a boycott, which has always been a tool available to the powerless.
- mns 6y ago
  There was the case of the guy working for the company involved in the Obama campaign who published a paper based on a study of an african-american professor saying that historically speaking violent riots will lead to more right leaning people voting. He got called out a racist, made to apologise, got fired and ostracised in his research community. Would you say he got boycotted?
  - archagon 6y ago
    Maybe not, but I still see it in the same general category as a boycott, because: if nothing illegal is actually going on, then what can anyone do to stop it, except impose authoritarian restrictions on free speech? If the company/institution wants to ignore people, fine, but they’ll have to deal with the consequences. (If those consequences are personal, e.g. death threats, then those should be nipped in the bud. But my feeling is that they’re usually financial or reputational.)