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> Very weird personal ideas from anti gay marriage to anti mask/lockdown. Usually I respect someone with his/her own personal ideas more, even if those ideas a

> Very weird personal ideas from anti gay marriage to anti mask/lockdown. Usually I respect someone with his/her own personal ideas more, even if those ideas are weird. Reading PG's essay [1] 15 years ago might have nudged me in that direction. Quote: > Let's start with a test: Do you have any opinions that you would be reluctant to express in front of a group of your peers? If the answer is no, you might want to stop and think about that. If everything you believe is something you're supposed to believe, could that possibly be a coincidence? Odds are it isn't. Odds are you just think what you're told. [1] http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html

kvgr 5y ago
Thanks for response!
KennyBlanken 5y ago
There's a difference between "expressing an opinion in front of your peers" and "donating money to people trying to strip a group of people of some of their human rights." Trying to strip people of human rights because of an inherent part of their identity, especially one which does not affect you in any way, shape, or form, is not an "idea that is weird." It would be nice if you didn't assert "help strip gay people of human rights" as 'individuality' to be praised, respected, or admired. It would be nice if you realized the irony in talking about respecting personal ideas while defending someone who wanted to force others to live to his personal moral code. By the way: > "Do you have any opinions that you would be reluctant to express in front of a group of your peers?" Let's try an empathy exercise. Think about that statement in the context of, say, being trans and not out to your coworkers or neighbors. Not reluctant because of an opinion, but because of who you are. Not reluctant because you want to be part of the groupthink, or keep getting invited to lunch ,or the next neighborhood BBQ. But because you have to worry about things like harassment, being denied advancement or losing your job entirely? Losing your housing? Or you know, getting murdered?
- vadfa 5y ago
  Getting married is not a "human right". Also, human rights are nothing but a western social construct.
  - dragonwriter 5y ago
    > Getting married is not a "human right". Also, human rights are nothing but a western social construct. If you assert that human rights are a Western social construct, rather than something with some other basis on which you can argue what is included and excluded, you lose the ability to deny that marriage is such a right; see, e.g., the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 16.
- blub 5y ago
  Gay marriage is not a human right. The UN didn't even discuss LGBT rights at all until the 90s and while the UDHR was adopted in the 40s (and then additional treaties in the 60s) countries only started to legalise gay marriage in the 2000s. In 2008 the great majority of the world including Western Europe with a couple of exceptions did not allow same-sex marriages. And in the same year, it seems that about half of California was against gay marriage. So not only was being against gay marriage (as Eich was) not an abominable opinion, it wasn't even weird - it was normal!

kvgr 5y ago

Thanks for response!

KennyBlanken 5y ago

There's a difference between "expressing an opinion in front of your peers" and "donating money to people trying to strip a group of people of some of their human rights." Trying to strip people of human rights because of an inherent part of their identity, especially one which does not affect you in any way, shape, or form, is not an "idea that is weird." It would be nice if you didn't assert "help strip gay people of human rights" as 'individuality' to be praised, respected, or admired. It would be nice if you realized the irony in talking about respecting personal ideas while defending someone who wanted to force others to live to his personal moral code. By the way: > "Do you have any opinions that you would be reluctant to express in front of a group of your peers?" Let's try an empathy exercise. Think about that statement in the context of, say, being trans and not out to your coworkers or neighbors. Not reluctant because of an opinion, but because of who you are. Not reluctant because you want to be part of the groupthink, or keep getting invited to lunch ,or the next neighborhood BBQ. But because you have to worry about things like harassment, being denied advancement or losing your job entirely? Losing your housing? Or you know, getting murdered?

vadfa 5y ago
Getting married is not a "human right". Also, human rights are nothing but a western social construct.
- dragonwriter 5y ago
  > Getting married is not a "human right". Also, human rights are nothing but a western social construct. If you assert that human rights are a Western social construct, rather than something with some other basis on which you can argue what is included and excluded, you lose the ability to deny that marriage is such a right; see, e.g., the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 16.
blub 5y ago
Gay marriage is not a human right. The UN didn't even discuss LGBT rights at all until the 90s and while the UDHR was adopted in the 40s (and then additional treaties in the 60s) countries only started to legalise gay marriage in the 2000s. In 2008 the great majority of the world including Western Europe with a couple of exceptions did not allow same-sex marriages. And in the same year, it seems that about half of California was against gay marriage. So not only was being against gay marriage (as Eich was) not an abominable opinion, it wasn't even weird - it was normal!