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pg has (for a long time) asserted that he has opinions that would get him pilloried in the public square. He's advocated that one shouldn't share those opinions

by neilk 6y ago

pg has (for a long time) asserted that he has opinions that would get him pilloried in the public square. He's advocated that one shouldn't share those opinions. And he's continued to frequently allude to their existence. Having already dismissed the common people's ability to process unorthodox beliefs, he then goes on to complain that people shouldn't speculate or make assumptions about those beliefs that he keeps alluding to? He further asserts that people who advocate open discussion must be dullards, whose minds are only filled with the opinions of others? I don't agree. What should a rational, Bayesian person conclude about someone who keeps alluding to beliefs they can't say? What's the most frequent such belief? Conservative: I have been censored for my conservative views Me: Holy shit! You were censored for wanting lower taxes? Con: LOL no...no not those views Me: So....deregulation? Con: Haha no not those views either Me: Which views, exactly? Con: Oh, you know the ones -- https://twitter.com/ndrew_lawrence/status/1050391663552671744 https://twitter.com/ndrew_lawrence/status/105039166355267174... Caveats: I'm not saying that pg holds any particular views, racist or otherwise. I don't know what it's like to be someone in his position. I expect there are a lot of people who are eager to take his statements out of context and that can be wearying. And although the above tweet is a pithy illustration, I don't think pg qualifies as a conservative either. But I'm pretty sure that pg is not hiding a belief like "Amazon should be broken up", or "recycling is mostly a sham" or "actually nuclear power is green" or even "I oppose reparations for slavery". The beliefs at issue these days on social media tend to be about _personhood_ - acceptance of trans people, the acceptance of certain identities as oppressed, and so on. Someone popping up in the discussion and saying that he holds beliefs he can't say - well, what am I supposed to think? And if I was being generous and assuming they were constructive views that were inexpressible right now, what am I supposed to do? What action does pg want us to take to fix that? I don't even know what direction pg wants the discussion to go in.

luckylion 6y ago
This comment sounds a bit like you feel attacked by the idea he lays out and are going for an offense. "I'm not saying that pg holds any particular views, racist or otherwise" while quoting a tweet implying just that does smell a little bit. I don't know whether he holds any problematic opinions. Those essays sounded more like PSAs to me, essentially "hey, Robespierre, before you start going after those people, remember that you might not be right on everything, so having an opinion that differs from your own doesn't really mean that somebody is an evil agent of the reactionary forces".
- neilk 6y ago
  Contexts matter, and this is I guess what we're all concerned with. In my own experience, since the mid-2010s or so there's a steady undercurrent of elitism and fascism in techland that I had not been expecting at all. There are some nerds who want us to be "rational" about it, that we should be willing to debate everything, up to and including the basic humanity or worth of people who are... just not white techies. I've been shocked to discover some of my colleagues and friends have fallen into these tendencies of thought. Fascism is less of a viewpoint and more of a viral strategy for smothering tolerance under the guise of allowing debate. Like, from my perspective, there's a hint of that elitism even in what pg was saying, as he dismisses his critics as simply less-nimble thinkers who don't have original ideas. So yes, I'm skeptical when I see people saying, "I have all these wonderful ideas, that you're unworthy of because you just won't be tolerant of them." I've been down that road a few times with a few colleagues and it always ended in something like a grand theory of why the West is at war with Islam. But I also acknowledge there are other contexts, where one might feel under attack by the impersonal forces of social media outrage, for totally different reasons. And (as I've revised this comment many times) I've also expressed, in public, that cancel culture is a real thing, and it does stifle some viewpoints and can be exploited by nefarious people. I wish I had a tidy bow to wrap this up with, but I don't.

by neilk 6y ago

luckylion 6y ago

This comment sounds a bit like you feel attacked by the idea he lays out and are going for an offense. "I'm not saying that pg holds any particular views, racist or otherwise" while quoting a tweet implying just that does smell a little bit. I don't know whether he holds any problematic opinions. Those essays sounded more like PSAs to me, essentially "hey, Robespierre, before you start going after those people, remember that you might not be right on everything, so having an opinion that differs from your own doesn't really mean that somebody is an evil agent of the reactionary forces".

neilk 6y ago
Contexts matter, and this is I guess what we're all concerned with. In my own experience, since the mid-2010s or so there's a steady undercurrent of elitism and fascism in techland that I had not been expecting at all. There are some nerds who want us to be "rational" about it, that we should be willing to debate everything, up to and including the basic humanity or worth of people who are... just not white techies. I've been shocked to discover some of my colleagues and friends have fallen into these tendencies of thought. Fascism is less of a viewpoint and more of a viral strategy for smothering tolerance under the guise of allowing debate. Like, from my perspective, there's a hint of that elitism even in what pg was saying, as he dismisses his critics as simply less-nimble thinkers who don't have original ideas. So yes, I'm skeptical when I see people saying, "I have all these wonderful ideas, that you're unworthy of because you just won't be tolerant of them." I've been down that road a few times with a few colleagues and it always ended in something like a grand theory of why the West is at war with Islam. But I also acknowledge there are other contexts, where one might feel under attack by the impersonal forces of social media outrage, for totally different reasons. And (as I've revised this comment many times) I've also expressed, in public, that cancel culture is a real thing, and it does stifle some viewpoints and can be exploited by nefarious people. I wish I had a tidy bow to wrap this up with, but I don't.