7 ms·

On the flip side, a lot of the more abhorrent things to come out of the current President's mouth are things that were clearly not politically-correct, that a l

On the flip side, a lot of the more abhorrent things to come out of the current President's mouth are things that were clearly not politically-correct, that a lot of America has been holding back, that are now back in the open. I'm not sure what the solution is. On one hand, it was there all along, and political-correctness did not help it. On the other hand, racists everywhere have been empowered once again, and all manner of groups have to face stereotypes they've fought so hard over the years. I don't think the U.S. will really get its house in order until it becomes an issue of survival, and of geopolitical importance.

FriendlyNormie 6y ago
Faggot fucking redditor. I’d love to watch you bleed to death.
kbenson 6y ago
> On the flip side, a lot of the more abhorrent things to come out of the current President's mouth are things that were clearly not politically-correct, that a lot of America has been holding back, that are now back in the open. It's not hard to see his initial popularity as linked to this. That is, the vilification of having views that are not the same as the majority leading people to feel repressed, and them supporting someone that's unwilling to bend to that, even if they don't support every decision he makes or view he takes. I don't want racists and white supremacists spreading their rhetoric, but I also don't want our society so constrained by mob mentality that having merely unpopular opinions have dire consequences. If we take it as a given that mob mentality (to this degree) is an emergent phenomenon because of our hyper connected world, and that too much mob mentality is causing the problem, how do you mitigate emerging phenomena when you can't really alter what it emerges from? I'd also be happy if someone could convincingly refute that it's an emergent phenomena, or that mob mentality is the problem, since those seem intractable to me.
- bb88 6y ago
  > I don't want racists and white supremacists spreading their rhetoric, but I also don't want our society so constrained by mob mentality that having merely unpopular opinions have dire consequences. Either you're in favor of free speech or you're not. Republicans, Democrats, and, yes, Hacker News all participate in cancel culture in one way or another. Sure there are bots, provocateurs, and anonymous trolls who have no intent on changing their beliefs. But, please, let the American people have enough credit to make decisions for themselves and see racists for who they truly are.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - bb88 6y ago
    I normally don't reply to my own posts, but I think this is worthy for consideration. There was someone with a throwaway account that replied with the argument that "Free speech need not be absolute", and then started getting voted down. What's truly ironic I feel is that in my world view, his speech would just sit there as an alternative viewpoint, read and disagreed with. But in his world his viewpoint could made illegal (or in the HN world downvoted), based upon what might be perceived as the popular rhetoric of the day.
    - krapp 6y ago
      Unfortunately, in your world, the racists and white supremacists take over because the only thing anyone is allowed to do to stop them is to politely and civilly debate them, which doesn't work because hate, fear and lies can circle the world twice before the truth even has its boots on and sources organized. I'm actually fine with such views not being made illegal though - but I'm not fine with the premise that there should never be any social consequences at all for any ideology or viewpoint regardless of its nature or intent to do harm. Nor do I believe that the right to free speech means everyone must be forced to hear, seriously consider, host or publish that speech.
      - bb88 6y ago
        > the racists and white supremacists take over because the only thing anyone is allowed to do to stop them is to politely and civilly debate them. There are 300,000,000 million Americans each with his or her own free will and ability to determine right from wrong. So you're saying they are just sheep and do things blindly? The real changes, the ones that lasted generations, the things that made America truly great, were done because free speech convinced people to change their minds.
        krapp 6y ago
        >So you're saying they are just sheep and do things blindly? No. Not only did I not say that, there's no reasonable way to infer that from my comment, and your doing so demonstrates an unwillingness on your part to argue in good faith. That people are influenced by more than purely logical, didactic arguments should be self evident, nor does that fact make people sheep, it's simply human nature. We're not compilers, after all, we're primates with countless irrational biases hard wired into our brains. Anti-vaxxers, COVID-denialists, flat-earthers, conspiracy theorists of all stripes, the resurgence of discredited white supremacist and anti-semitic ideology under the politically correct guise of "racial realism" and the phenomenon of fake news spread by social media should be enough to demonstrate that falsehood can be more compelling than fact, and that facts alone are not sufficient to dissuade such people from their false beliefs, or stop their influence. >The real changes, the ones that lasted generations, the things that made America truly great, were done because free speech convinced people to change their minds. No they weren't. They were accomplished with speech and consequence, often long, violent, ugly protests and frequently civil unrest. America has only ever granted its inalienable rights to white Christian men by default - everyone else has had to fight tooth and nail for their seat at the table and for every scrap of human dignity they could take from the cornucopia of American liberty. Women's suffrage was earned with speech and blood. African American rights were earned with speech and blood. LGBT rights were earned with speech and blood. Even recently, few outside of the black community really cared about systemic racist violence among the police, despite the black community speaking at length about it for years until they also started taking to the streets and burning shit down... then suddenly everyone else noticed and started listening. Speech without the force of consequence is as useless as a toothless guard dog.
- joe_the_user 6y ago
  That is, the vilification of having views that are not the same as the majority leading people to feel repressed, and them supporting someone that's unwilling to bend to that, even if they don't support every decision he makes or view he takes. We gotta break this stuff into more detail. If you look at say, the start of #metoo, you see Harvey Weinstein, a man so powerful that the ordinary justice system could not touch him until essentially a Twitter mob took him down. Now, public accusation is a crappy way to settle bad behavior, it's easy to channel this stuff in any direction a manipulator might choose. But people choose that rout of desperation, when the ordinary justice and more broadly ordinary government processes fail. If we look at the Minneapolis Police Department in particular, we see a department with such a long history of corruption and even murder that the entire group should be fired. And moreover, all of Minneapolis civic government out side the police would like to do that - but are in fact powerless to do that through a web of laws the police have protecting their interests. And this is the thing. You have powerful, unaccountable men and women whose acts provoke anger in many parts of the population. Then you have an angry mob which actually can't impose any significant change and once they get going can inflict collateral damage themselves - and maybe get met by a counter-mob. But after the upsurge, any reform is thin and the stage is set for the next event. So, I'd say mobs and counter-mobs are problematic but the root is permanent unaccountable powers that can ignore whatever material grievances different groups have.
  - kbenson 6y ago
    > So, I'd say mobs and counter-mobs are problematic but the root is permanent unaccountable powers that can ignore whatever material grievances different groups have. I don't think it's a foregone conclusion that the current mob mentality only came about because of unaccountable powers, or even if it did, that it will necessarily dissipate if those powers become and are held accountable. Some things are self-sustaining. I don't think we can just look the other way because the negative behavior is caused by a feeling of rage and impotency. Should we try to fix the injustices that cause the feeling of rage and impotency? Yes. That doesn't mean we should also ignore the negative effects that rage and impotency results in, otherwise we'll be following a chain back forever.
    - 6y ago
- benmmurphy 6y ago
  the problem with censorship is that it only capable of censoring unpopular ideas and unpopular ideas are generally not a problem. the problem ideas are the popular memeplexes that propagate the meme that all opposing ideas should be censored.
  - krapp 6y ago
    >The problem ideas are the popular memeplexes that propagate the meme that all opposing ideas should be censored. No one is arguing this. This is a strawman position no one actually holds.
    - ryathal 6y ago
      The celebration in banning Stormfront, Alex Jones, or The_Donald would indicate otherwise to me.
      - JAlexoid 6y ago
        The issue with all of those instances is that the people behind the services - could not stay associated with these elements. Enforced tolerance is the only thing that is keeping really bad people comfortable at expressing their badness. (Suprisingly - the anti-discrimination applied to private businesses is the reason why people like Alex Jones can safely say whatever he wants and then get a free upgrade at Ramada)
- TomSwirly 6y ago
  > the vilification of having views that are not the same as the majority leading people to feel repressed The fact that most of these "views" are things that are false to the fact - like "climate change is a Chinese hoax" or "vaccines are bad" or "Obama is a Muslim married to a transsexual" - this doesn't bother you even a little? What this demographic wants is to be able to have false, hateful, destructive beliefs, and suffer no consequences from their abhorrent ideas. Sorry. The First Amendment guarantees people only the right to spew ignorant hateful shit, it doesn't guarantee that we have to take that hateful ignorant shit seriously.
  - kbenson 6y ago
    I think maybe you shouldn't have stopped reading at the first paragraph, as your comment is a non sequitur if you read beyond the small bit you commented.
- cycomanic 6y ago
  But that's the thing things have changed, the majority of people now disagree with racial segregation, blaming women for being raped etc. and that is a good thing. The thing is people voted for Trump because they want the old times back where "a n* knew their place". There is a reason why the majority of his supporters are significantly over 50. However, it is an illusion that people were not feeling consequences for expressing certain views (or even being suspected of it), just think of Mccarthy or the outrage on Fox if somebody criticises "our troops". The only thing that changed is that now it's also so called "conservatives" (I would call many of the right wing activists) who face this, together with the amplification allowed by social media and peoples (on all sides of the spectrum) desire to somehow feel like a victim.
JungleGymSam 6y ago
I'm not going to try to convince you of this but I have to let you know that everything you said is untrue.
tomcam 6y ago
What racists have been empowered, and by whom? What has the president said that was racist? When has he ever endorsed racism? How is it that he has a 40% approval rating among black voters? Are they stupid?
- ShamelessC 6y ago
  "Gallup averages show Trump with a 10% approval rating among blacks in 2017, 11% in 2018 and 10% so far in 2019." https://news.gallup.com/opinion/polling-matters/268517/analyzing-black-support-president-trump.aspx https://news.gallup.com/opinion/polling-matters/268517/analy...

FriendlyNormie 6y ago

Faggot fucking redditor. I’d love to watch you bleed to death.

kbenson 6y ago

> On the flip side, a lot of the more abhorrent things to come out of the current President's mouth are things that were clearly not politically-correct, that a lot of America has been holding back, that are now back in the open. It's not hard to see his initial popularity as linked to this. That is, the vilification of having views that are not the same as the majority leading people to feel repressed, and them supporting someone that's unwilling to bend to that, even if they don't support every decision he makes or view he takes. I don't want racists and white supremacists spreading their rhetoric, but I also don't want our society so constrained by mob mentality that having merely unpopular opinions have dire consequences. If we take it as a given that mob mentality (to this degree) is an emergent phenomenon because of our hyper connected world, and that too much mob mentality is causing the problem, how do you mitigate emerging phenomena when you can't really alter what it emerges from? I'd also be happy if someone could convincingly refute that it's an emergent phenomena, or that mob mentality is the problem, since those seem intractable to me.

bb88 6y ago
> I don't want racists and white supremacists spreading their rhetoric, but I also don't want our society so constrained by mob mentality that having merely unpopular opinions have dire consequences. Either you're in favor of free speech or you're not. Republicans, Democrats, and, yes, Hacker News all participate in cancel culture in one way or another. Sure there are bots, provocateurs, and anonymous trolls who have no intent on changing their beliefs. But, please, let the American people have enough credit to make decisions for themselves and see racists for who they truly are.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- bb88 6y ago
  I normally don't reply to my own posts, but I think this is worthy for consideration. There was someone with a throwaway account that replied with the argument that "Free speech need not be absolute", and then started getting voted down. What's truly ironic I feel is that in my world view, his speech would just sit there as an alternative viewpoint, read and disagreed with. But in his world his viewpoint could made illegal (or in the HN world downvoted), based upon what might be perceived as the popular rhetoric of the day.
  - krapp 6y ago
    Unfortunately, in your world, the racists and white supremacists take over because the only thing anyone is allowed to do to stop them is to politely and civilly debate them, which doesn't work because hate, fear and lies can circle the world twice before the truth even has its boots on and sources organized. I'm actually fine with such views not being made illegal though - but I'm not fine with the premise that there should never be any social consequences at all for any ideology or viewpoint regardless of its nature or intent to do harm. Nor do I believe that the right to free speech means everyone must be forced to hear, seriously consider, host or publish that speech.
    - bb88 6y ago
      > the racists and white supremacists take over because the only thing anyone is allowed to do to stop them is to politely and civilly debate them. There are 300,000,000 million Americans each with his or her own free will and ability to determine right from wrong. So you're saying they are just sheep and do things blindly? The real changes, the ones that lasted generations, the things that made America truly great, were done because free speech convinced people to change their minds.
      - krapp 6y ago
        >So you're saying they are just sheep and do things blindly? No. Not only did I not say that, there's no reasonable way to infer that from my comment, and your doing so demonstrates an unwillingness on your part to argue in good faith. That people are influenced by more than purely logical, didactic arguments should be self evident, nor does that fact make people sheep, it's simply human nature. We're not compilers, after all, we're primates with countless irrational biases hard wired into our brains. Anti-vaxxers, COVID-denialists, flat-earthers, conspiracy theorists of all stripes, the resurgence of discredited white supremacist and anti-semitic ideology under the politically correct guise of "racial realism" and the phenomenon of fake news spread by social media should be enough to demonstrate that falsehood can be more compelling than fact, and that facts alone are not sufficient to dissuade such people from their false beliefs, or stop their influence. >The real changes, the ones that lasted generations, the things that made America truly great, were done because free speech convinced people to change their minds. No they weren't. They were accomplished with speech and consequence, often long, violent, ugly protests and frequently civil unrest. America has only ever granted its inalienable rights to white Christian men by default - everyone else has had to fight tooth and nail for their seat at the table and for every scrap of human dignity they could take from the cornucopia of American liberty. Women's suffrage was earned with speech and blood. African American rights were earned with speech and blood. LGBT rights were earned with speech and blood. Even recently, few outside of the black community really cared about systemic racist violence among the police, despite the black community speaking at length about it for years until they also started taking to the streets and burning shit down... then suddenly everyone else noticed and started listening. Speech without the force of consequence is as useless as a toothless guard dog.
joe_the_user 6y ago
That is, the vilification of having views that are not the same as the majority leading people to feel repressed, and them supporting someone that's unwilling to bend to that, even if they don't support every decision he makes or view he takes. We gotta break this stuff into more detail. If you look at say, the start of #metoo, you see Harvey Weinstein, a man so powerful that the ordinary justice system could not touch him until essentially a Twitter mob took him down. Now, public accusation is a crappy way to settle bad behavior, it's easy to channel this stuff in any direction a manipulator might choose. But people choose that rout of desperation, when the ordinary justice and more broadly ordinary government processes fail. If we look at the Minneapolis Police Department in particular, we see a department with such a long history of corruption and even murder that the entire group should be fired. And moreover, all of Minneapolis civic government out side the police would like to do that - but are in fact powerless to do that through a web of laws the police have protecting their interests. And this is the thing. You have powerful, unaccountable men and women whose acts provoke anger in many parts of the population. Then you have an angry mob which actually can't impose any significant change and once they get going can inflict collateral damage themselves - and maybe get met by a counter-mob. But after the upsurge, any reform is thin and the stage is set for the next event. So, I'd say mobs and counter-mobs are problematic but the root is permanent unaccountable powers that can ignore whatever material grievances different groups have.
- kbenson 6y ago
  > So, I'd say mobs and counter-mobs are problematic but the root is permanent unaccountable powers that can ignore whatever material grievances different groups have. I don't think it's a foregone conclusion that the current mob mentality only came about because of unaccountable powers, or even if it did, that it will necessarily dissipate if those powers become and are held accountable. Some things are self-sustaining. I don't think we can just look the other way because the negative behavior is caused by a feeling of rage and impotency. Should we try to fix the injustices that cause the feeling of rage and impotency? Yes. That doesn't mean we should also ignore the negative effects that rage and impotency results in, otherwise we'll be following a chain back forever.
  - 6y ago
benmmurphy 6y ago
the problem with censorship is that it only capable of censoring unpopular ideas and unpopular ideas are generally not a problem. the problem ideas are the popular memeplexes that propagate the meme that all opposing ideas should be censored.
- krapp 6y ago
  >The problem ideas are the popular memeplexes that propagate the meme that all opposing ideas should be censored. No one is arguing this. This is a strawman position no one actually holds.
  - ryathal 6y ago
    The celebration in banning Stormfront, Alex Jones, or The_Donald would indicate otherwise to me.
    - JAlexoid 6y ago
      The issue with all of those instances is that the people behind the services - could not stay associated with these elements. Enforced tolerance is the only thing that is keeping really bad people comfortable at expressing their badness. (Suprisingly - the anti-discrimination applied to private businesses is the reason why people like Alex Jones can safely say whatever he wants and then get a free upgrade at Ramada)
TomSwirly 6y ago
> the vilification of having views that are not the same as the majority leading people to feel repressed The fact that most of these "views" are things that are false to the fact - like "climate change is a Chinese hoax" or "vaccines are bad" or "Obama is a Muslim married to a transsexual" - this doesn't bother you even a little? What this demographic wants is to be able to have false, hateful, destructive beliefs, and suffer no consequences from their abhorrent ideas. Sorry. The First Amendment guarantees people only the right to spew ignorant hateful shit, it doesn't guarantee that we have to take that hateful ignorant shit seriously.
- kbenson 6y ago
  I think maybe you shouldn't have stopped reading at the first paragraph, as your comment is a non sequitur if you read beyond the small bit you commented.
cycomanic 6y ago
But that's the thing things have changed, the majority of people now disagree with racial segregation, blaming women for being raped etc. and that is a good thing. The thing is people voted for Trump because they want the old times back where "a n* knew their place". There is a reason why the majority of his supporters are significantly over 50. However, it is an illusion that people were not feeling consequences for expressing certain views (or even being suspected of it), just think of Mccarthy or the outrage on Fox if somebody criticises "our troops". The only thing that changed is that now it's also so called "conservatives" (I would call many of the right wing activists) who face this, together with the amplification allowed by social media and peoples (on all sides of the spectrum) desire to somehow feel like a victim.

JungleGymSam 6y ago

I'm not going to try to convince you of this but I have to let you know that everything you said is untrue.

tomcam 6y ago

What racists have been empowered, and by whom? What has the president said that was racist? When has he ever endorsed racism? How is it that he has a 40% approval rating among black voters? Are they stupid?

ShamelessC 6y ago
"Gallup averages show Trump with a 10% approval rating among blacks in 2017, 11% in 2018 and 10% so far in 2019." https://news.gallup.com/opinion/polling-matters/268517/analyzing-black-support-president-trump.aspx https://news.gallup.com/opinion/polling-matters/268517/analy...