5 ms·

The "orthodoxy" the author writes about is real. I am a skeptic and cynic by nature. In my experience "common wisdom" is usually anything but. In software and

by eric_b 6y ago

The "orthodoxy" the author writes about is real. I am a skeptic and cynic by nature. In my experience "common wisdom" is usually anything but. In software and technology I've found when you eschew dogma and "best practices" you more often than not get better results. But, in 2020 you cannot question or be skeptical of the "progressive" agenda. Merely hinting that you are not fully bought in will get you labeled as a racist, or even worse these days, a "Conservative". The group of folks that screamed to high heaven about the rise of "facism" in 2016 have become the very people they purportedly despised. Using the media as a political propaganda outlet, being intolerant of other viewpoints, using shame and ostracism to control the population etc. Here's something I don't understand: Jeff Bezos, maybe the ultimate robber baron of our time, and no fan "of the people", is the owner of the Washington Post. Since his purchase, it has moved so far left as to become almost a caricature of a "news" paper. A skeptical person would ask - what reason could he have for pushing a major media outlet to write so much - what can only reasonably be called - propaganda? A critical thinker would be very concerned indeed about buying too far in to said agenda based on who's pushing it.

thephyber 6y ago
> Merely hinting that you are not fully bought in will get you labeled as a racist, or even worse these days, a "Conservative". > The group of folks that screamed to high heaven about the rise of "facism" in 2016 have become the very people they purportedly despised. Painting with a broad brush based on small sample sizes (exactly what you are doing) is exactly what you are complaining about. There are tons of people who call Trump's words and actions "fascist" despite not being "progressive"/"liberal". There are people on the "political right" who have been complaining about the "liberal agenda" the same way conspiracy theorists talk about the "jewish agenda". I'm not accusing you of it, but it frequently sounds the same in the tiny bites of content that exist in social media. I, personally, think the biggest problems with the human mind on social media involve: - an assumption of bad faith when another commenter fails to be precise about "there exists" and "for every" - trolling works because we humans frequently can't disable our ego when it is attacked (rightfully or otherwise)
tinco 6y ago
I don't read the WP nor the NYT, do you have an example of an article in either of them that is a caricature of leftist news? My main news source (besides HN) is the Dutch public news, which is described as left-wing, but to me it feels very objective. I find it hard to judge if that means I'm just leftist and don't see what they're leaving out, or that the right is in an alternative reality.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- tinco 6y ago
  Someone responded with a quite compelling example of sensationalized news that touched racism, but then deleted their post. Most notable was that first the story emphasised races of some perpetrators harassing a black girl. But then later when the story turned out not to be true the NYT published a rectification in which race was not mentioned at all. I can see how that works to slant the readers view of the world. I'll be careful of this, though there is little overly sensationalized news in my feed.
orwin 6y ago
> But, in 2020 you cannot question or be skeptical of the "progressive" agenda. Merely hinting that you are not fully bought in will get you labeled as a racist, or even worse these days, a "Conservative". Is it really the case? Or is it a perception you have? I've become less and less liberal the past three months, for multiple reasons, and at least in my liberal bubble, i did not face any backlash.
- RonanTheGrey 6y ago
  I guard my opinions very carefully, to the point one would be hard pressed to identify what political ideology I identify with (largely because I don't identify with any of them). The other day on Twitter when the couple pointing guns at the protesters in Kentucky issue was trending, someone posited "I wonder what happens to people who don't have guns". So I posted a video of a couple who were dragged out of their shop and beaten, on video, and their shop destroyed. I posted no words, no commentary, simply linked the video that is a real example of the answer to that question - and got called a racist in response. People are actively seeking reasons to hate, these days, and for someone like me for whom the entire exercise seems silly, all I can do is sit back and stop participating.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
- pas 6y ago
  Could you explain what becoming less liberal means for those who have no firm grasp on the US liberal label? As to who gets labeled what for which action is a big mess, but the direction seems to be that people are very quick to call everyone else bad if they are not as far-whatever as they are. (Anyone trying to gather and assess data about anything like "race", police brutality, homicides, guns, socioeconomic status is instantly suspect. But also it's very clear that a lot of people just post incoherent unfounded stuff on twitter which happens to have citations and graphs and even some structure resembling a paper -- and of course discussing it on twitter is neigh impossible, but almost always an exercise in mental self-harm.) Sadly the real internet hate machine is not 4chan's /b/, but serious platform like facebook and twitter, where real people grind their ideas on each other until they just become sharp sticks and slurs to poke others with.
archagon 6y ago
> The group of folks that screamed to high heaven about the rise of "facism" in 2016 have become the very people they purportedly despised. I find this downright angering to read given the recent shenanigans with SDNY and the Stone commutation (plus everything else that has happened... oh... once a day over the past few years). And you have the gall that the left are the real fascists?
nootropicat 6y ago
>A skeptical person would ask - what reason could he have for pushing a major media outlet to write so much - what can only reasonably be called - propaganda Not a secret, Amazon considers lack of diversity a risk factor for unionization. "Whole Foods' heat map says lower rates of racial diversity increase unionization risks" https://archive.is/1khJw https://archive.is/1khJw It's all one big social engineering scheme designed to ensure absolute corporate hegemony by redirecting social tension it generates into racial and sex/gender identity conflicts. Extremely successful.
PaulDavisThe1st 6y ago
>merely hinting that you are not fully bought in will get you labeled as a racist, or even worse these days, a "Conservative". oh my god. the HORROR. People call you names! > [the WP ] has moved so far left as to become almost a caricature of a "news" paper maybe you should get out a bit more. there are other traditions of journalism (notably in the UK) that do not cling to this "noble ideal" of "objectivity". when you buy a newspaper in the UK, you (should) know what you're getting. nobody pretends that the guardian is "objective" - its a left-center paper and it wears its heart on its sleeve, while still doing lots and lots of fact-based reporting. nobody pretends that the london times is "objective" - it's a right-center paper that defends the status quo and the ruling classes of the UK, and doesn't do much else. and so on and so forth. IMO it is a good thing that US journalism is awakening from this delusion of "objectivity", 30+ years after David Byrne sang "facts all come with points of view".
- rukittenme 6y ago
  > oh my god. the HORROR. People call you names! It is a horror when a private political opinion can get you fired, de-platformed, and removed from society.
  - badrequest 6y ago
    If your political opinion is private, how does it ever surface in a way that leaves you vulnerable to these consequences?
    - tux1968 6y ago
      Because our political opinions inform our life choices and overt public actions. They can be deduced without us posting our personal manifesto.
    - rukittenme 6y ago
      In the same way a gay person can be outed without ever explicitly coming out to their peers. There are social queues that people can pick up on. To enumerate a few: 1. Lack of participation in political events. "Silence is violence". Having a private opinion is suspicious. 2. Participating in activities which are a-political but have political consequences. For example, going to a church or a gun range isn't a political statement but it can be interpreted as one (with all the baggage that comes with it). 3. A lack of "tribal knowledge". Political tribes have their own set of facts and theories which influences their view of the world. Acknowledging facts from other tribes (political or not) can out you (either as an outsider or as non-committal). 4. And, of course, racial, social, or sexual characteristics can be used to make inferences about your beliefs. My sister, for example, was spit on at a protest at her university. Partially, because she didn't participate but also because she was a "white bitch". This was said by a (presumably) white woman. This happened three years ago.

by eric_b 6y ago

thephyber 6y ago

> Merely hinting that you are not fully bought in will get you labeled as a racist, or even worse these days, a "Conservative". > The group of folks that screamed to high heaven about the rise of "facism" in 2016 have become the very people they purportedly despised. Painting with a broad brush based on small sample sizes (exactly what you are doing) is exactly what you are complaining about. There are tons of people who call Trump's words and actions "fascist" despite not being "progressive"/"liberal". There are people on the "political right" who have been complaining about the "liberal agenda" the same way conspiracy theorists talk about the "jewish agenda". I'm not accusing you of it, but it frequently sounds the same in the tiny bites of content that exist in social media. I, personally, think the biggest problems with the human mind on social media involve: - an assumption of bad faith when another commenter fails to be precise about "there exists" and "for every" - trolling works because we humans frequently can't disable our ego when it is attacked (rightfully or otherwise)

tinco 6y ago

I don't read the WP nor the NYT, do you have an example of an article in either of them that is a caricature of leftist news? My main news source (besides HN) is the Dutch public news, which is described as left-wing, but to me it feels very objective. I find it hard to judge if that means I'm just leftist and don't see what they're leaving out, or that the right is in an alternative reality.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
tinco 6y ago
Someone responded with a quite compelling example of sensationalized news that touched racism, but then deleted their post. Most notable was that first the story emphasised races of some perpetrators harassing a black girl. But then later when the story turned out not to be true the NYT published a rectification in which race was not mentioned at all. I can see how that works to slant the readers view of the world. I'll be careful of this, though there is little overly sensationalized news in my feed.

orwin 6y ago

> But, in 2020 you cannot question or be skeptical of the "progressive" agenda. Merely hinting that you are not fully bought in will get you labeled as a racist, or even worse these days, a "Conservative". Is it really the case? Or is it a perception you have? I've become less and less liberal the past three months, for multiple reasons, and at least in my liberal bubble, i did not face any backlash.

RonanTheGrey 6y ago
I guard my opinions very carefully, to the point one would be hard pressed to identify what political ideology I identify with (largely because I don't identify with any of them). The other day on Twitter when the couple pointing guns at the protesters in Kentucky issue was trending, someone posited "I wonder what happens to people who don't have guns". So I posted a video of a couple who were dragged out of their shop and beaten, on video, and their shop destroyed. I posted no words, no commentary, simply linked the video that is a real example of the answer to that question - and got called a racist in response. People are actively seeking reasons to hate, these days, and for someone like me for whom the entire exercise seems silly, all I can do is sit back and stop participating.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
pas 6y ago
Could you explain what becoming less liberal means for those who have no firm grasp on the US liberal label? As to who gets labeled what for which action is a big mess, but the direction seems to be that people are very quick to call everyone else bad if they are not as far-whatever as they are. (Anyone trying to gather and assess data about anything like "race", police brutality, homicides, guns, socioeconomic status is instantly suspect. But also it's very clear that a lot of people just post incoherent unfounded stuff on twitter which happens to have citations and graphs and even some structure resembling a paper -- and of course discussing it on twitter is neigh impossible, but almost always an exercise in mental self-harm.) Sadly the real internet hate machine is not 4chan's /b/, but serious platform like facebook and twitter, where real people grind their ideas on each other until they just become sharp sticks and slurs to poke others with.

archagon 6y ago

> The group of folks that screamed to high heaven about the rise of "facism" in 2016 have become the very people they purportedly despised. I find this downright angering to read given the recent shenanigans with SDNY and the Stone commutation (plus everything else that has happened... oh... once a day over the past few years). And you have the gall that the left are the real fascists?

nootropicat 6y ago

>A skeptical person would ask - what reason could he have for pushing a major media outlet to write so much - what can only reasonably be called - propaganda Not a secret, Amazon considers lack of diversity a risk factor for unionization. "Whole Foods' heat map says lower rates of racial diversity increase unionization risks" https://archive.is/1khJw https://archive.is/1khJw It's all one big social engineering scheme designed to ensure absolute corporate hegemony by redirecting social tension it generates into racial and sex/gender identity conflicts. Extremely successful.

PaulDavisThe1st 6y ago

>merely hinting that you are not fully bought in will get you labeled as a racist, or even worse these days, a "Conservative". oh my god. the HORROR. People call you names! > [the WP ] has moved so far left as to become almost a caricature of a "news" paper maybe you should get out a bit more. there are other traditions of journalism (notably in the UK) that do not cling to this "noble ideal" of "objectivity". when you buy a newspaper in the UK, you (should) know what you're getting. nobody pretends that the guardian is "objective" - its a left-center paper and it wears its heart on its sleeve, while still doing lots and lots of fact-based reporting. nobody pretends that the london times is "objective" - it's a right-center paper that defends the status quo and the ruling classes of the UK, and doesn't do much else. and so on and so forth. IMO it is a good thing that US journalism is awakening from this delusion of "objectivity", 30+ years after David Byrne sang "facts all come with points of view".

rukittenme 6y ago
> oh my god. the HORROR. People call you names! It is a horror when a private political opinion can get you fired, de-platformed, and removed from society.
- badrequest 6y ago
  If your political opinion is private, how does it ever surface in a way that leaves you vulnerable to these consequences?
  - tux1968 6y ago
    Because our political opinions inform our life choices and overt public actions. They can be deduced without us posting our personal manifesto.
  - rukittenme 6y ago
    In the same way a gay person can be outed without ever explicitly coming out to their peers. There are social queues that people can pick up on. To enumerate a few: 1. Lack of participation in political events. "Silence is violence". Having a private opinion is suspicious. 2. Participating in activities which are a-political but have political consequences. For example, going to a church or a gun range isn't a political statement but it can be interpreted as one (with all the baggage that comes with it). 3. A lack of "tribal knowledge". Political tribes have their own set of facts and theories which influences their view of the world. Acknowledging facts from other tribes (political or not) can out you (either as an outsider or as non-committal). 4. And, of course, racial, social, or sexual characteristics can be used to make inferences about your beliefs. My sister, for example, was spit on at a protest at her university. Partially, because she didn't participate but also because she was a "white bitch". This was said by a (presumably) white woman. This happened three years ago.