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This stuff is just a cold religious war, between the believers and non-believers. The sooner we recognize it as such, and properly cap the blast radius as we ha

by gfodor 6y ago

This stuff is just a cold religious war, between the believers and non-believers. The sooner we recognize it as such, and properly cap the blast radius as we have with prior religious differences, the better. Until then this category error will plague us all. https://newdiscourses.com/2020/09/first-amendment-case-freedom-from-woke-religion/ https://newdiscourses.com/2020/09/first-amendment-case-freed...

pdonis 6y ago
I don't see it as a religious war between believers and non-believers, so much as a sectarian war between different sects of believers. The academics who wrote this open letter are still quite happy to arrogate to themselves the power to decide what constitutes "scientific research" that should be freely debated, and what constitutes "unacceptable opinions" which can be freely suppressed. In other words, all of the believers agree that some speech should be suppressed; the various sects just disagree on exactly where the line should be drawn. The non-believers are just unlucky enough to be within the blast radius.
- gfodor 6y ago
  I see this particular dustup as just a regional conflict between sects on opposite sides of the wider conflict - but the wider cold war going on is motivated by people who have strong, largely un-falsifiable beliefs about how the world works, and who are acting with a unilaterial goal of re-structuring society around these assumptions and eliminating views in conflict with them (and eliminating those who hold them from the public sphere, or creating a sufficient chilling effect such that they censor themselves.) Once you see it as a religious war it's by far the best analogy to understand the dynamics, at least to me. It's also potentially more than an analogy to the point where the underlying belief system ought to be treated as a religion from a legal standpoint, for the benefit of everyone involved, including the believers.
  - pdonis 6y ago
    > Once you see it as a religious war it's by far the best analogy to understand the dynamics, at least to me If "religious war" means a sectarian war, in which both sides are believers, just believers in different sects (often different only in details so minor that outsiders can't even see what the fuss is about), then I agree. I'm not aware, historically, of anything called a "religious war" that wasn't a sectarian war in that sense. This might just be a difference in terminology. However, it might not. If you think one of the sides in the "religious war" we are talking about is "unbelievers", then we disagree on something of substance. "Unbelievers" in this context would mean people who just think we should have free speech, period; that nobody should be suppressed simply because of what they are saying. But, as I said in my previous comment, I don't think either side in the current "religious war" meets this criterion; both sides agree that some speech should be suppressed, they just disagree on exactly which speech. Note that this applies not just to the particular "dustup" referenced in the open letter, but to the larger "cold war" you describe. Nobody is fighting for free speech, period. The different sides are just fighting for different rules about what can be suppressed. One side's rules currently seem a lot more draconian than the other's, but both sides want some such rules.
    - gfodor 6y ago
      The specific religious war going on is between people who believe all human interactions are orchestrated through oppression and artificially constructed social constructs which ought to be deconstructed, and those who think that explains at best a subset of interactions, and (generally speaking) a decreasing number of the problematic ones. In this specific back-and-forth in academia, the underlying difference once you get past superficialities and rhetorical tricks to pull people into one side or the other by glossing over fundamental premises, is not about what speech is permissible or not. Both sides have their views on that claim emerge from their underlying worldviews around how racism, discrimination, gender stereotypes, and things inject themselves into human interactions and what levers exist for affecting those influences. My use of 'sects' in this example was a bit of a misnomer, I consider the situation going on here to just be a conflict that's emerging due to these divergent worldviews that is localized around a specific community and domain, and the rift is cast in stark relief when situations like this finally manifest.
- tomcam 6y ago
  > The academics who wrote this open letter are still quite happy to arrogate to themselves the power to decide what constitutes "scientific research" that should be freely debated, and what constitutes "unacceptable opinions" Could not find that part of the letter—mind quoting the passage supporting this claim?
  - pdonis 6y ago
    > Could not find that part of the letter If they were really for free speech, period, that's what they would say. But they don't say that. They say they are for "the free and unfettered conduct of scientific research and debate". But who gets to decide what counts as "scientific research and debate" and what doesn't? They do.
    - Someone 6y ago
      I read that as picking one battle at a time. Also: who says they do decide what’s scientific research and debate?
      - pdonis 6y ago
        > who says they do decide what’s scientific research and debate? Because that is how academia works. And they're all academics.
        ilyaeck 6y ago
        The letter is from academics to an academic organization (ACM), so yes: its scope is the rules of engagement in academic institutions. The issues you are bringing up are out of scope.
        pdonis 6y ago
        > The issues you are bringing up are out of scope. No, they're not. Scientific research and debate are not the only topics that get discussed at academic institutions; in fact no topic should be off limits for discussion at academic institutions. Nor should the institutions themselves have any privileged position in deciding what counts as relevant for a particular topic, whether it's scientific research and debate or anything else.
- unishark 6y ago
  We can still quantify how much freedom of debate they allow and rank them. Would you still rate them the same?
  - pdonis 6y ago
    How do we measure "freedom of debate"? Who gets to decide the ranking? That's just another sectarian squabble.
    - unishark 6y ago
      Percentage of the populace who would be excluded. The ranking is simply a comparison of that number.
      - kergonath 6y ago
        That does not work. You need to be familiar enough with an issue to debate it, otherwise it’s just uninformed noise. It’s not because a subject is interesting only a small niche that there is no freedom of “debate”. Conversely, 80% of a population shouting at one another on Twitter is no debate at all. So you’d first have to define the relevant part of the population, which is hopeless. And then you have debates about who should be part of the debate, which is not much better than what we have now.
        unishark 6y ago
        > It’s not because a subject is interesting only a small niche that there is no freedom of “debate”. Did I suggest otherwise? It may be hard to do accurately, but that doesn't make it hopeless. If both sides want to exclude "crackpots" and people who's contributions lack technical quality, that is simply accounted for in the estimate. Whether you think that's fair to therefore characterize everyone as "intolerant" is another matter . I certainly wouldn't characterize them that way, though I get the impression the parent poster might, though perhaps only as a way to claim moral equivalence between all sides. I would expect there to remain quantifiable differences between those who claim they want a "healthy debate from all sides" and those who want to achieve social progress by limiting access to the debate.
DoofusOfDeath 6y ago
I'm religiously agnostic, and I'm in the habit of trying to understand these conflicts from both an atheistic and Christian perspective. Based on that, your recognition that this issue somewhat breaks down along worldview lines makes sense to me. [Disclaimer: The following is a description of my current thoughts on the topic. I could very well be wrong, but I thought sharing them might make for an interesting discussion.] That said, I have an anti-PC view on this topic that AFAICT is somewhat a-religious. My perception (i.e., I very well may be wrong) has been that the pro-PC arguments I've heard contain some logical inconsistencies that I've been unable to resolve. And that some organizations with pro-PC policies use ad baculum or ad hominem attacks to avoid serious debate about their position's weaknesses. I think it's obnoxious to force others to obey their moralizing while refusing to submit their views to serious debate.
- lemonspat 6y ago
  > I think it's obnoxious to force others to obey their moralizing while refusing to submit their views to serious debate. I agree, but it is even more obnoxious than that. Watching from the sidelines of Twitter, anyone who challenges a 'canceller' just gets bombarded with name calling (racism, sexism, phobic, etc) even if they're not and even if the comments were well intention ed
titanomachy 6y ago
Neither side in this conflict can claim a totally rational worldview. From where I'm standing: one side believes that our society is fraught with invisible power structures which reinforce inequity, and our highest duty is to dismantle those structures through any means necessary. The other side is skeptical of the extent of these power structures, and believes that freedom of speech is the higher ideal. Each belief is to some extent unfalsifiable. There's no scientific or first-principles reasoning that tells us which value should take precedence in a given situation. The actual nonbelievers are the ones who have no interest in the war, and will go along with whichever position their social circles deem acceptable.
- logicchains 6y ago
  >Each belief is to some extent unfalsifiable. Core values can't be falsified, but a belief system built atop these values can be shown to be inconsistent, meaning it can essentially be used to argue for anything. Like in mathematics, an ideal system would pick core axioms/values that don't lead to inconsistency.
- gfodor 6y ago
  The argument isn't for freedom of speech per se, it's that if you remove the ability for people to persuade others through discourse, you remove the ability for progress to occur (other than through violence or death) on the same issues the former group is concerned about. And it is eminently falsifiable and has been proven to be the case - one does not have to look very far back in recent history to see free speech (and other liberal approaches to resolving differences) overturning prejudices and ending injustices that have lasted for centuries.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - citrin_ru 6y ago
    The group which doesn't mind to loose free speech probably think that it doesn't work. They see that western society had freedom of speech for a relatively long time and still far from perfect. But they tend to ignore that countries without free speech are generally worse off.

by gfodor 6y ago

pdonis 6y ago

I don't see it as a religious war between believers and non-believers, so much as a sectarian war between different sects of believers. The academics who wrote this open letter are still quite happy to arrogate to themselves the power to decide what constitutes "scientific research" that should be freely debated, and what constitutes "unacceptable opinions" which can be freely suppressed. In other words, all of the believers agree that some speech should be suppressed; the various sects just disagree on exactly where the line should be drawn. The non-believers are just unlucky enough to be within the blast radius.

gfodor 6y ago
I see this particular dustup as just a regional conflict between sects on opposite sides of the wider conflict - but the wider cold war going on is motivated by people who have strong, largely un-falsifiable beliefs about how the world works, and who are acting with a unilaterial goal of re-structuring society around these assumptions and eliminating views in conflict with them (and eliminating those who hold them from the public sphere, or creating a sufficient chilling effect such that they censor themselves.) Once you see it as a religious war it's by far the best analogy to understand the dynamics, at least to me. It's also potentially more than an analogy to the point where the underlying belief system ought to be treated as a religion from a legal standpoint, for the benefit of everyone involved, including the believers.
- pdonis 6y ago
  > Once you see it as a religious war it's by far the best analogy to understand the dynamics, at least to me If "religious war" means a sectarian war, in which both sides are believers, just believers in different sects (often different only in details so minor that outsiders can't even see what the fuss is about), then I agree. I'm not aware, historically, of anything called a "religious war" that wasn't a sectarian war in that sense. This might just be a difference in terminology. However, it might not. If you think one of the sides in the "religious war" we are talking about is "unbelievers", then we disagree on something of substance. "Unbelievers" in this context would mean people who just think we should have free speech, period; that nobody should be suppressed simply because of what they are saying. But, as I said in my previous comment, I don't think either side in the current "religious war" meets this criterion; both sides agree that some speech should be suppressed, they just disagree on exactly which speech. Note that this applies not just to the particular "dustup" referenced in the open letter, but to the larger "cold war" you describe. Nobody is fighting for free speech, period. The different sides are just fighting for different rules about what can be suppressed. One side's rules currently seem a lot more draconian than the other's, but both sides want some such rules.
  - gfodor 6y ago
    The specific religious war going on is between people who believe all human interactions are orchestrated through oppression and artificially constructed social constructs which ought to be deconstructed, and those who think that explains at best a subset of interactions, and (generally speaking) a decreasing number of the problematic ones. In this specific back-and-forth in academia, the underlying difference once you get past superficialities and rhetorical tricks to pull people into one side or the other by glossing over fundamental premises, is not about what speech is permissible or not. Both sides have their views on that claim emerge from their underlying worldviews around how racism, discrimination, gender stereotypes, and things inject themselves into human interactions and what levers exist for affecting those influences. My use of 'sects' in this example was a bit of a misnomer, I consider the situation going on here to just be a conflict that's emerging due to these divergent worldviews that is localized around a specific community and domain, and the rift is cast in stark relief when situations like this finally manifest.
tomcam 6y ago
> The academics who wrote this open letter are still quite happy to arrogate to themselves the power to decide what constitutes "scientific research" that should be freely debated, and what constitutes "unacceptable opinions" Could not find that part of the letter—mind quoting the passage supporting this claim?
- pdonis 6y ago
  > Could not find that part of the letter If they were really for free speech, period, that's what they would say. But they don't say that. They say they are for "the free and unfettered conduct of scientific research and debate". But who gets to decide what counts as "scientific research and debate" and what doesn't? They do.
  - Someone 6y ago
    I read that as picking one battle at a time. Also: who says they do decide what’s scientific research and debate?
    - pdonis 6y ago
      > who says they do decide what’s scientific research and debate? Because that is how academia works. And they're all academics.
      - ilyaeck 6y ago
        The letter is from academics to an academic organization (ACM), so yes: its scope is the rules of engagement in academic institutions. The issues you are bringing up are out of scope.
        pdonis 6y ago
        > The issues you are bringing up are out of scope. No, they're not. Scientific research and debate are not the only topics that get discussed at academic institutions; in fact no topic should be off limits for discussion at academic institutions. Nor should the institutions themselves have any privileged position in deciding what counts as relevant for a particular topic, whether it's scientific research and debate or anything else.
unishark 6y ago
We can still quantify how much freedom of debate they allow and rank them. Would you still rate them the same?
- pdonis 6y ago
  How do we measure "freedom of debate"? Who gets to decide the ranking? That's just another sectarian squabble.
  - unishark 6y ago
    Percentage of the populace who would be excluded. The ranking is simply a comparison of that number.
    - kergonath 6y ago
      That does not work. You need to be familiar enough with an issue to debate it, otherwise it’s just uninformed noise. It’s not because a subject is interesting only a small niche that there is no freedom of “debate”. Conversely, 80% of a population shouting at one another on Twitter is no debate at all. So you’d first have to define the relevant part of the population, which is hopeless. And then you have debates about who should be part of the debate, which is not much better than what we have now.
      - unishark 6y ago
        > It’s not because a subject is interesting only a small niche that there is no freedom of “debate”. Did I suggest otherwise? It may be hard to do accurately, but that doesn't make it hopeless. If both sides want to exclude "crackpots" and people who's contributions lack technical quality, that is simply accounted for in the estimate. Whether you think that's fair to therefore characterize everyone as "intolerant" is another matter . I certainly wouldn't characterize them that way, though I get the impression the parent poster might, though perhaps only as a way to claim moral equivalence between all sides. I would expect there to remain quantifiable differences between those who claim they want a "healthy debate from all sides" and those who want to achieve social progress by limiting access to the debate.

DoofusOfDeath 6y ago

I'm religiously agnostic, and I'm in the habit of trying to understand these conflicts from both an atheistic and Christian perspective. Based on that, your recognition that this issue somewhat breaks down along worldview lines makes sense to me. [Disclaimer: The following is a description of my current thoughts on the topic. I could very well be wrong, but I thought sharing them might make for an interesting discussion.] That said, I have an anti-PC view on this topic that AFAICT is somewhat a-religious. My perception (i.e., I very well may be wrong) has been that the pro-PC arguments I've heard contain some logical inconsistencies that I've been unable to resolve. And that some organizations with pro-PC policies use ad baculum or ad hominem attacks to avoid serious debate about their position's weaknesses. I think it's obnoxious to force others to obey their moralizing while refusing to submit their views to serious debate.

lemonspat 6y ago
> I think it's obnoxious to force others to obey their moralizing while refusing to submit their views to serious debate. I agree, but it is even more obnoxious than that. Watching from the sidelines of Twitter, anyone who challenges a 'canceller' just gets bombarded with name calling (racism, sexism, phobic, etc) even if they're not and even if the comments were well intention ed

titanomachy 6y ago

Neither side in this conflict can claim a totally rational worldview. From where I'm standing: one side believes that our society is fraught with invisible power structures which reinforce inequity, and our highest duty is to dismantle those structures through any means necessary. The other side is skeptical of the extent of these power structures, and believes that freedom of speech is the higher ideal. Each belief is to some extent unfalsifiable. There's no scientific or first-principles reasoning that tells us which value should take precedence in a given situation. The actual nonbelievers are the ones who have no interest in the war, and will go along with whichever position their social circles deem acceptable.

logicchains 6y ago
>Each belief is to some extent unfalsifiable. Core values can't be falsified, but a belief system built atop these values can be shown to be inconsistent, meaning it can essentially be used to argue for anything. Like in mathematics, an ideal system would pick core axioms/values that don't lead to inconsistency.
gfodor 6y ago
The argument isn't for freedom of speech per se, it's that if you remove the ability for people to persuade others through discourse, you remove the ability for progress to occur (other than through violence or death) on the same issues the former group is concerned about. And it is eminently falsifiable and has been proven to be the case - one does not have to look very far back in recent history to see free speech (and other liberal approaches to resolving differences) overturning prejudices and ending injustices that have lasted for centuries.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- citrin_ru 6y ago
  The group which doesn't mind to loose free speech probably think that it doesn't work. They see that western society had freedom of speech for a relatively long time and still far from perfect. But they tend to ignore that countries without free speech are generally worse off.