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> Instead I think we need to collectively, as a society, be less sensitive to perceived insults and disagreeable opinions. Words are not violence. Disagreement

> Instead I think we need to collectively, as a society, be less sensitive to perceived insults and disagreeable opinions. Words are not violence. Disagreement is a natural, healthy consequence of a diverse society. Where do you draw the line between a disagreeable opinion v. something so abhorrent as to warrant cancelling someone's job, e.g. the use of racial slurs in spoken language? Not rhetorical. Genuinely wondering.

keiferski 6y ago
The concept of civility and politeness once existed, but unfortunately has been almost entirely thrown away. This is easy to see if you look up old debates on YouTube; it was normal and expected for people of diametrically-opposite worldviews to engage and debate with each other in a polite, mostly-calm manner. Compare that to the shouting-match of today’s media landscape and you’ll see what we’ve lost.
- eganist 6y ago
  > The concept of civility and politeness once existed, but unfortunately has been almost entirely thrown away. This is easy to see if you look up old debates on YouTube; it was normal and expected for people of diametrically-opposite worldviews to engage and debate with each other in a polite, mostly-calm manner. Compare that to the shouting-match of today’s media landscape and you’ll see what we’ve lost. Nobody's cancelling people over political disagreements; they're cancelling people for dehumanizing groups of people, regardless of the tone of voice. People may have had orderly disagreements more often back in the 50s, sure (although the violence against Black as well as Native Americans in the 50s is casually and commonly forgotten - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_racial_violence_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_racial_violence_in_the_Un...). The difference is that in the 50s, people weren't fired for casually employing the n- word against Black people. This is the difference between today v. the past. What you describe still feels like a regression.
  - keiferski 6y ago
    > Nobody's cancelling people over political disagreements; That seems to be exactly what is happening.
    - eganist 6y ago
      > That seems to be exactly what is happening. Please cite? Need more than one, notably cases where people have lost their jobs for "offensive" language other than dehumanizing groups of people.
      - keiferski 6y ago
        I said cancel culture, not people who have lost their jobs. There are plenty of examples of people who otherwise would have lost their jobs had they not already been wealthy, so many that it is so obvious that a topic like this can be posted to HN without any prior explanation. Goya Foods is a recent example and the list goes on. They don’t seem to have done anything other than show support for Trump. I despise Trump, didn’t vote for him, and think he has done significant damage to the office of the presidency and the country as a whole, but clearly expressing any sort of support for him will get you boycotted (I.e. canceled.) which falls under ‘unacceptable political opinions’ in my book. Otherwise, I’m really not sure what your definition of ‘dehumanizing’ is. Outright racism and hatred is condemned by nearly everyone.
        eganist 6y ago
        > Goya Foods is a recent example and the list goes on. They don’t seem to have done anything other than show support for Trump. Context around what you're describing: https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/07/10/goya-boycott-trump/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/07/10/goya-boycot... The boycott seems to be stemming from Trump's blatant use of bigotry against the Latinx community, so Goya is being blackballed by the Latinx community for endorsing racism. Just because Trump is a politician doesn't mean boycotting people for endorsing him is only political. Considering Trump's generally-known and blatant bigotry (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racial_views_of_Donald_Trump https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racial_views_of_Donald_Trump), it's no different than boycotting someone for endorsing David Duke (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Duke https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Duke)
- dgb23 6y ago
  This is the ideal we should strive for. But looking at history with at least a layman’s perspective it seems this was only ever done in small subcultures/circles and never the norm. Typically scholars of some kind and only within their group. So from a position of privilege: people who are well educated and have time to think. And given time to talk. The mainstream media and social media typically don’t respect/support the latter. Social media in particular is more inclusive. Everyone gets to speak as loudly as people ‚like‘, in a more protected manner. Also there are vast differences in basic values, which were almost always hotly debated, even by the most well spoken, such as religion, equality etc.
- blaser-waffle 6y ago
  > The concept of civility and politeness once existed When? Where? How? What old debates on youtube? I've seen people throw out this line since the W Bush administration and as far as I can tell it just means most of them have never actually delved into the media they think they're exposed to. US political officials used to fight each other, physically all the time -- senators bludgeoning each other into comas with canes, the VP of the US shooting and killing the head of the opposing political party in a dual. Andrew Jackson got shot something like 4 times. Dig up some of the terrible things Lincoln used to say about his political rivals -- The Great Emancapator used to spit fire at people. Before we had Rupert Murdoch we had Hearst, who literally caused a war, and is one of the inspirations for the term Yellow Journalism. There may have been 5 minutes where youtube wasn't complete garbage but I recall Newgrounds being big then and seeing more than a few blatantly pro-nazi vids then.
  - keiferski 6y ago
    Of course you can find specific obscure examples for or against the argument I'm making. I really don't find this sort of comment helpful or useful and it's rather tiresome when it inevitably appears. I'm speaking of general cultural trends, not isolated incidents. American culture is far less formal, polite, and respectful than it used to be even 30 years ago. This is reflected in language (vulgarity is far more acceptable today), clothing (far more casual), vocabulary level (far lower), and in countless other ways. Even the insults today are more base and direct than they used to be. If this is not obviously true to you, I'm not sure we can agree on anything. For a specific example on YouTube, watch some old episodes of Firing Line. Here's one where William F. Buckley (conservative) talks to Eldridge Cleaver of the Black Panthers (quite left-wing). For one, this sort of interaction would almost never happen in the modern media world, and if it did, it would be nowhere near as calm as the Firing Line episode is. Certainly Buckley is not a paragon of civility (see his arguments with Gore Vidal) but again, the overall culture was far more collected. Compare it to today, where every conversation is combative and the only non-hostile forum is something like Joe Rogan, who functions as more of a sounding board than an actual intellectual host. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5NPwk_Dbin8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5NPwk_Dbin8
elric 6y ago
Are you really suggesting that "racial slurs in spoken language" are "so abhorrent" that they "warrant cancelling someone's job"? That completely bypasses the ever important context of the situation, bypasses due process, etc etc etc. This mob justice is abhorrent. There are courts to deal with issues like racism. There are laws. Firing people because they say something you don't agree with is a very slippery slope indeed. Especially when it's not on company time. In my part of the world, it will likely result in the employer being taken to court.
- eganist 6y ago
  > Are you really suggesting that "racial slurs in spoken language" are "so abhorrent" that they "warrant cancelling someone's job"? Yes. > That completely bypasses the ever important context of the situation, bypasses due process, etc etc etc It really doesn't. If you're "using" a racial slur, you're leveraging the definition of the word, which requires mal-intent by definition. "Do not call me a ______" or "This word [written on the board] is a horrific hallmark of bigoted Americana that must be excluded from your vocabulary" is not the employment/use of a racial slur.
  - motorcycleman9 6y ago
    Using a slur does does not "require malintent by definition". Slurs can be used as terms of endearment, within jokes, etc.
  - zekrioca 6y ago
    > which requires mal-intent by definition Not always, and within these types of assumption lies the key problems. There are a lot of words which had their meaning changed or become less used with time to accommodate racial biases. Even in the software industry, where terms such as “black list” or “slaves” shouldn’t be used anymore.
    - eganist 6y ago
      > Not always, and within these types of assumption lies the key problems. With racial slurs, always. 100% of the time. It takes at least a generation of time for a word to evolve to that level of offense. You're describing terms which haven't evolved to that level of offense yet, words with which there's still a window of time to safely set the expectation that they shouldn't be used in a given manner. > Even in the software industry, where terms such as “black list” or “slaves” shouldn’t be used anymore. True, though it's worth noting that we should be seeking the opinion of the impacted population about this rather than assuming it to be true (Ex: https://twitter.com/marcusjcarey/status/1271624977805185024 https://twitter.com/marcusjcarey/status/1271624977805185024 - a fairly qualified opinion around which language in tech, or infosec specifically, should be revisited).
mlthoughts2018 6y ago
> “ something so abhorrent as to warrant cancelling someone's job” This is what laws around hate speech and discrimination are for. If some mob seeking social looting doesn’t like the laws and wants to cancel someone based on their mere preferences of what’s abhorrent, that’s just too bad. That’s not how protections of free speech work.

keiferski 6y ago

The concept of civility and politeness once existed, but unfortunately has been almost entirely thrown away. This is easy to see if you look up old debates on YouTube; it was normal and expected for people of diametrically-opposite worldviews to engage and debate with each other in a polite, mostly-calm manner. Compare that to the shouting-match of today’s media landscape and you’ll see what we’ve lost.

eganist 6y ago
> The concept of civility and politeness once existed, but unfortunately has been almost entirely thrown away. This is easy to see if you look up old debates on YouTube; it was normal and expected for people of diametrically-opposite worldviews to engage and debate with each other in a polite, mostly-calm manner. Compare that to the shouting-match of today’s media landscape and you’ll see what we’ve lost. Nobody's cancelling people over political disagreements; they're cancelling people for dehumanizing groups of people, regardless of the tone of voice. People may have had orderly disagreements more often back in the 50s, sure (although the violence against Black as well as Native Americans in the 50s is casually and commonly forgotten - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_racial_violence_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_racial_violence_in_the_Un...). The difference is that in the 50s, people weren't fired for casually employing the n- word against Black people. This is the difference between today v. the past. What you describe still feels like a regression.
- keiferski 6y ago
  > Nobody's cancelling people over political disagreements; That seems to be exactly what is happening.
  - eganist 6y ago
    > That seems to be exactly what is happening. Please cite? Need more than one, notably cases where people have lost their jobs for "offensive" language other than dehumanizing groups of people.
    - keiferski 6y ago
      I said cancel culture, not people who have lost their jobs. There are plenty of examples of people who otherwise would have lost their jobs had they not already been wealthy, so many that it is so obvious that a topic like this can be posted to HN without any prior explanation. Goya Foods is a recent example and the list goes on. They don’t seem to have done anything other than show support for Trump. I despise Trump, didn’t vote for him, and think he has done significant damage to the office of the presidency and the country as a whole, but clearly expressing any sort of support for him will get you boycotted (I.e. canceled.) which falls under ‘unacceptable political opinions’ in my book. Otherwise, I’m really not sure what your definition of ‘dehumanizing’ is. Outright racism and hatred is condemned by nearly everyone.
      - eganist 6y ago
        > Goya Foods is a recent example and the list goes on. They don’t seem to have done anything other than show support for Trump. Context around what you're describing: https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/07/10/goya-boycott-trump/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/07/10/goya-boycot... The boycott seems to be stemming from Trump's blatant use of bigotry against the Latinx community, so Goya is being blackballed by the Latinx community for endorsing racism. Just because Trump is a politician doesn't mean boycotting people for endorsing him is only political. Considering Trump's generally-known and blatant bigotry (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racial_views_of_Donald_Trump https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racial_views_of_Donald_Trump), it's no different than boycotting someone for endorsing David Duke (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Duke https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Duke)
dgb23 6y ago
This is the ideal we should strive for. But looking at history with at least a layman’s perspective it seems this was only ever done in small subcultures/circles and never the norm. Typically scholars of some kind and only within their group. So from a position of privilege: people who are well educated and have time to think. And given time to talk. The mainstream media and social media typically don’t respect/support the latter. Social media in particular is more inclusive. Everyone gets to speak as loudly as people ‚like‘, in a more protected manner. Also there are vast differences in basic values, which were almost always hotly debated, even by the most well spoken, such as religion, equality etc.
blaser-waffle 6y ago
> The concept of civility and politeness once existed When? Where? How? What old debates on youtube? I've seen people throw out this line since the W Bush administration and as far as I can tell it just means most of them have never actually delved into the media they think they're exposed to. US political officials used to fight each other, physically all the time -- senators bludgeoning each other into comas with canes, the VP of the US shooting and killing the head of the opposing political party in a dual. Andrew Jackson got shot something like 4 times. Dig up some of the terrible things Lincoln used to say about his political rivals -- The Great Emancapator used to spit fire at people. Before we had Rupert Murdoch we had Hearst, who literally caused a war, and is one of the inspirations for the term Yellow Journalism. There may have been 5 minutes where youtube wasn't complete garbage but I recall Newgrounds being big then and seeing more than a few blatantly pro-nazi vids then.
- keiferski 6y ago
  Of course you can find specific obscure examples for or against the argument I'm making. I really don't find this sort of comment helpful or useful and it's rather tiresome when it inevitably appears. I'm speaking of general cultural trends, not isolated incidents. American culture is far less formal, polite, and respectful than it used to be even 30 years ago. This is reflected in language (vulgarity is far more acceptable today), clothing (far more casual), vocabulary level (far lower), and in countless other ways. Even the insults today are more base and direct than they used to be. If this is not obviously true to you, I'm not sure we can agree on anything. For a specific example on YouTube, watch some old episodes of Firing Line. Here's one where William F. Buckley (conservative) talks to Eldridge Cleaver of the Black Panthers (quite left-wing). For one, this sort of interaction would almost never happen in the modern media world, and if it did, it would be nowhere near as calm as the Firing Line episode is. Certainly Buckley is not a paragon of civility (see his arguments with Gore Vidal) but again, the overall culture was far more collected. Compare it to today, where every conversation is combative and the only non-hostile forum is something like Joe Rogan, who functions as more of a sounding board than an actual intellectual host. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5NPwk_Dbin8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5NPwk_Dbin8

elric 6y ago

Are you really suggesting that "racial slurs in spoken language" are "so abhorrent" that they "warrant cancelling someone's job"? That completely bypasses the ever important context of the situation, bypasses due process, etc etc etc. This mob justice is abhorrent. There are courts to deal with issues like racism. There are laws. Firing people because they say something you don't agree with is a very slippery slope indeed. Especially when it's not on company time. In my part of the world, it will likely result in the employer being taken to court.

eganist 6y ago
> Are you really suggesting that "racial slurs in spoken language" are "so abhorrent" that they "warrant cancelling someone's job"? Yes. > That completely bypasses the ever important context of the situation, bypasses due process, etc etc etc It really doesn't. If you're "using" a racial slur, you're leveraging the definition of the word, which requires mal-intent by definition. "Do not call me a ______" or "This word [written on the board] is a horrific hallmark of bigoted Americana that must be excluded from your vocabulary" is not the employment/use of a racial slur.
- motorcycleman9 6y ago
  Using a slur does does not "require malintent by definition". Slurs can be used as terms of endearment, within jokes, etc.
- zekrioca 6y ago
  > which requires mal-intent by definition Not always, and within these types of assumption lies the key problems. There are a lot of words which had their meaning changed or become less used with time to accommodate racial biases. Even in the software industry, where terms such as “black list” or “slaves” shouldn’t be used anymore.
  - eganist 6y ago
    > Not always, and within these types of assumption lies the key problems. With racial slurs, always. 100% of the time. It takes at least a generation of time for a word to evolve to that level of offense. You're describing terms which haven't evolved to that level of offense yet, words with which there's still a window of time to safely set the expectation that they shouldn't be used in a given manner. > Even in the software industry, where terms such as “black list” or “slaves” shouldn’t be used anymore. True, though it's worth noting that we should be seeking the opinion of the impacted population about this rather than assuming it to be true (Ex: https://twitter.com/marcusjcarey/status/1271624977805185024 https://twitter.com/marcusjcarey/status/1271624977805185024 - a fairly qualified opinion around which language in tech, or infosec specifically, should be revisited).

mlthoughts2018 6y ago

> “ something so abhorrent as to warrant cancelling someone's job” This is what laws around hate speech and discrimination are for. If some mob seeking social looting doesn’t like the laws and wants to cancel someone based on their mere preferences of what’s abhorrent, that’s just too bad. That’s not how protections of free speech work.