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I honestly don't understand this perspective which seems central to a lot of pgs writing lately: "the customs protecting free inquiry have been weakened" Can a

I honestly don't understand this perspective which seems central to a lot of pgs writing lately: "the customs protecting free inquiry have been weakened" Can anyone explain it? We are, right now, posting on the most expansive and weakly moderated communications platform humanity has ever had. You can find almost anyone opinion imaginable out there with a brief Google search and forums on which to argue every side of it with. In what way is free inquiry meaningfully weakened? By any absolute measure it seems like it can only be the strongest it has ever been.

etrautmann 6y ago
I think the larger point is that it doesn't matter how easy it is to make works public if the consequences prevent you from doing so: if you can easily get fired, pushed out of a tenured position at a university, or otherwise lose your voice for making unpopular opinions public.
- __alexs 6y ago
  I don't buy this. There are millions of anonymous Twitter accounts and forum posters. Literal children have figured out opsec well enough to save themselves them embarrassment of having to share their love of anime with the wrong friends. I'm sure a tenured professor is smart enough to use a different email address and profile picture when signing up to radical life extension forums if what they want to discuss is really that edgy. We have more tools and venues to test out and refine new ideas today than we have ever before. Use them.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
M2Ys4U 6y ago
It means people like him are being scrutinised like never before (absent an actual revolution) and he doesn't like it.
jimbokun 6y ago
> You can find almost anyone opinion imaginable out there with a brief Google search and forums on which to argue every side of it with. And you can quickly get someone fired or their business boycotted or doxxed or swatted if they express an opinion you don't like.
- __alexs 6y ago
  Yes the world is scary, people speaking up have always put themselves at risk but we have better tools to protect ourselves and find like minded people now. This isn't new and at worst doesn't seem that much different to how people have always acted. The argument is that things have got worse, but they just seem to be the same.
oramit 6y ago
Yes, this narrative about not being free to talk about "dangerous" ideas is always left intentionally vague. We have so much free inquiry going on right now that I can't even keep track of it. If free inquiry is being eroded, one of the central claims in this essay, then that means we are coming down from a greater high. When was that high and would you prefer to go back to that time?
- marvin 6y ago
  I'll hazard a guess: PG went out on a limb a few years ago, and actually published a long essay on one of the ideas that are very controversial in the sense implied in this essay. Namely, how tech tools as a primary driver for increasing wealth inequality will likely grow in importance, leading to increased wealth inequality, and that this is in itself not a problem. This was after years of pointing out that it's not necessarily a good idea to specifically discuss controversial topics, if you want to spend your time thinking and learning instead of arguing (and, implied, deleting hate mail and death threats, etc). This essay was met with an incredible amount of backlash that missed its point entirely, and if I was in PG's shoes, I'd probably have soured on taking that sort of discussion outside my closest circle. A big but very understandable loss. I believe that discussing the phenomenon, rather than specific instances of it, still has great value. This points out tools that can be used to discover and handle the censorship of valuable heresy. I'd love it even more if I had intimate access to a group of very intelligent and open-minded folks to actually discuss the heresies of today, as this is both super fascinating and a great mental stretching exercise. Sadly, doesn't look like public forums on the Internet are the most fertile arena for that kind of thing. It happens rarely, when I happen to stumble across a community that hits something like this by chance, or where one of my real-life acquaintances happens to stray outside the box in exactly the right way.
  - NoodleIncident 6y ago
    Do you have examples of the backlash to this essay? Were there any actual consequences to expressing his opinion, or did people just express their own opinions about his?
  - 6y ago
neonate 6y ago
It's because the pendulum has taken a noticeable swing in the reverse direction, with online mobs getting people fired because of opinions they've expressed. Extreme labels like "white supremacist" and "Nazi" are being put on people for views that deviate from approved ideology. This is creating a climate of fear in which each case of someone getting fired is enough to cow thousands if not millions of observers, who fear to lose their own jobs if they speak out or even slip up. Bogus arguments like "it doesn't count unless the government does it" are being used to dismiss free speech concerns about this. To me it seems obvious that from a free speech point of view it's fine for people to respond to each other with criticism, even if they're mean and mischaracterize each other, but getting people fired crosses an obvious line into non-speech and physical harm. It's not as harmful as physical violence or putting someone in prison for what they say, but it's on the same spectrum, and the psychology of the zealots who want to see people punished in this way is unmistakeable. That's where the comparisons to the Soviet Union, China, and so on, come in. Anyone who is familiar with the history knows the type, even if so far they are unable to do more than exert power over employment. There's also deplatforming, which falls in between pure speech (such as criticism/debate) and physical harm (such as firing).
- pvg 6y ago
  'Firing' is not a physical harm unless you mean it literally.
  - neonate 6y ago
    It directly impacts livelihood. It's physical in the sense that it's a real world, tangible harm. This is not at all the same thing as somebody merely saying something critical on Twitter. There's a clear distinction here.
    - pvg 6y ago
      There is a distinction but it's not the one you were originally making. Which seems important in a discussion about kinds of harms. Firing someone is not assault.
BurningFrog 6y ago
> Can anyone explain it? One clue is that almost everyone here posts anonymously. Under people's own names, many would be much more careful and conformist.

etrautmann 6y ago

I think the larger point is that it doesn't matter how easy it is to make works public if the consequences prevent you from doing so: if you can easily get fired, pushed out of a tenured position at a university, or otherwise lose your voice for making unpopular opinions public.

__alexs 6y ago
I don't buy this. There are millions of anonymous Twitter accounts and forum posters. Literal children have figured out opsec well enough to save themselves them embarrassment of having to share their love of anime with the wrong friends. I'm sure a tenured professor is smart enough to use a different email address and profile picture when signing up to radical life extension forums if what they want to discuss is really that edgy. We have more tools and venues to test out and refine new ideas today than we have ever before. Use them.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]

M2Ys4U 6y ago

It means people like him are being scrutinised like never before (absent an actual revolution) and he doesn't like it.

jimbokun 6y ago

> You can find almost anyone opinion imaginable out there with a brief Google search and forums on which to argue every side of it with. And you can quickly get someone fired or their business boycotted or doxxed or swatted if they express an opinion you don't like.

__alexs 6y ago
Yes the world is scary, people speaking up have always put themselves at risk but we have better tools to protect ourselves and find like minded people now. This isn't new and at worst doesn't seem that much different to how people have always acted. The argument is that things have got worse, but they just seem to be the same.

oramit 6y ago

Yes, this narrative about not being free to talk about "dangerous" ideas is always left intentionally vague. We have so much free inquiry going on right now that I can't even keep track of it. If free inquiry is being eroded, one of the central claims in this essay, then that means we are coming down from a greater high. When was that high and would you prefer to go back to that time?

marvin 6y ago
I'll hazard a guess: PG went out on a limb a few years ago, and actually published a long essay on one of the ideas that are very controversial in the sense implied in this essay. Namely, how tech tools as a primary driver for increasing wealth inequality will likely grow in importance, leading to increased wealth inequality, and that this is in itself not a problem. This was after years of pointing out that it's not necessarily a good idea to specifically discuss controversial topics, if you want to spend your time thinking and learning instead of arguing (and, implied, deleting hate mail and death threats, etc). This essay was met with an incredible amount of backlash that missed its point entirely, and if I was in PG's shoes, I'd probably have soured on taking that sort of discussion outside my closest circle. A big but very understandable loss. I believe that discussing the phenomenon, rather than specific instances of it, still has great value. This points out tools that can be used to discover and handle the censorship of valuable heresy. I'd love it even more if I had intimate access to a group of very intelligent and open-minded folks to actually discuss the heresies of today, as this is both super fascinating and a great mental stretching exercise. Sadly, doesn't look like public forums on the Internet are the most fertile arena for that kind of thing. It happens rarely, when I happen to stumble across a community that hits something like this by chance, or where one of my real-life acquaintances happens to stray outside the box in exactly the right way.
- NoodleIncident 6y ago
  Do you have examples of the backlash to this essay? Were there any actual consequences to expressing his opinion, or did people just express their own opinions about his?
- 6y ago

neonate 6y ago

It's because the pendulum has taken a noticeable swing in the reverse direction, with online mobs getting people fired because of opinions they've expressed. Extreme labels like "white supremacist" and "Nazi" are being put on people for views that deviate from approved ideology. This is creating a climate of fear in which each case of someone getting fired is enough to cow thousands if not millions of observers, who fear to lose their own jobs if they speak out or even slip up. Bogus arguments like "it doesn't count unless the government does it" are being used to dismiss free speech concerns about this. To me it seems obvious that from a free speech point of view it's fine for people to respond to each other with criticism, even if they're mean and mischaracterize each other, but getting people fired crosses an obvious line into non-speech and physical harm. It's not as harmful as physical violence or putting someone in prison for what they say, but it's on the same spectrum, and the psychology of the zealots who want to see people punished in this way is unmistakeable. That's where the comparisons to the Soviet Union, China, and so on, come in. Anyone who is familiar with the history knows the type, even if so far they are unable to do more than exert power over employment. There's also deplatforming, which falls in between pure speech (such as criticism/debate) and physical harm (such as firing).

pvg 6y ago
'Firing' is not a physical harm unless you mean it literally.
- neonate 6y ago
  It directly impacts livelihood. It's physical in the sense that it's a real world, tangible harm. This is not at all the same thing as somebody merely saying something critical on Twitter. There's a clear distinction here.
  - pvg 6y ago
    There is a distinction but it's not the one you were originally making. Which seems important in a discussion about kinds of harms. Firing someone is not assault.

BurningFrog 6y ago

> Can anyone explain it? One clue is that almost everyone here posts anonymously. Under people's own names, many would be much more careful and conformist.