4 ms·

> I'm sure this has nothing to do with people pushing back on her goofy opinions Ad-hominem. > Not every thought that goes through a person's mind the need be

by senko 4y ago

> I'm sure this has nothing to do with people pushing back on her goofy opinions Ad-hominem. > Not every thought that goes through a person's mind the need be put out into the open immediately. Straw man. > When you're from a marginalized community and you've had your existence questioned a thousand times, She's a black woman, I'd say there's a good chance she's been marginalized already and knows what she's talking about. > you can be excused for being a little impatient with someone who's actually curious the 1001st time. She's not talking about someone being a little impatient. To quote the end of the article: > this kind of backlash, ugly personal insults, putting addresses of homes and children's schools online, trying to make people lose their jobs. [...]. It is a virtual vigilante action whose aim is not just to silence the person who has spoken, but to create a vengeful atmosphere that deters others from speaking."

great_tankard 4y ago
Ok I guess I have to spell this out explicitly: the self-censorship thing obviously applies doubly to the trolls and doxxers and "virtual vigilantes." Nobody deserves that kind of treatment.
- PM_me_your_math 4y ago
  What happens when everyone who disagrees with your viewpoint is suddenly a "troll" or better yet, a "not-see?"
EntropyIsAHoax 4y ago
> > Not every thought that goes through a person's mind the need be put out into the open immediately. > > Straw man. Doesn't sound like a straw man to me. What is self-censorship if not thinking through what you want to say before speaking? Generally when I speak I try to think about what effect my words will have, and if they would have what I consider to be a bad effect either on myself or others, I self-censor.
- poszlem 4y ago
  The difference between thinking before speaking and self-censorship is that in one case you don't say something because you think it isn't true, and in another you don't say it because you are afraid of people finding out that you think it isn't.
  - EntropyIsAHoax 4y ago
    If someone is convinced that black people are inferior to white people, I want them to be afraid to express that. I don't care about hearing evidence on certain subjects, and I want there to be societal repercussions for disagreeing about things like that. While I do agree "cancel culture" in the way of "someone misspeaks once, so the twitter mob digs up their entire past and puts them on trial for every shitty thing they've ever said" is toxic and unhelpful, I'm perfectly in agreement that deplatforming bigots is actually helpful. As a concrete example, I'm very happy Kanye West has lost essentially all of his contracts and a lot of his supporters; he thinks "Jews secretly control the world" is true and wasn't afraid to say it, maybe others will be now and will self-censor.
    - poszlem 4y ago
      The problem, as usual is that "bigot" is just another word in the long list of words used to silence people. To quote Paul Graham: <<In every period of history, there seem to have been labels that got applied to statements to shoot them down before anyone had a chance to ask if they were true or not. "Blasphemy", "sacrilege", and "heresy" were such labels for a good part of western history, as in more recent times "indecent", "improper", and "unamerican" have been. By now these labels have lost their sting. They always do. By now they're mostly used ironically. But in their time, they had real force. The word "defeatist", for example, has no particular political connotations now. But in Germany in 1917 it was a weapon, used by Ludendorff in a purge of those who favored a negotiated peace. At the start of World War II it was used extensively by Churchill and his supporters to silence their opponents. In 1940, any argument against Churchill's aggressive policy was "defeatist". Was it right or wrong? Ideally, no one got far enough to ask that. We have such labels today, of course, quite a lot of them, from the all-purpose "inappropriate" to the dreaded "divisive." In any period, it should be easy to figure out what such labels are, simply by looking at what people call ideas they disagree with besides untrue. When a politician says his opponent is mistaken, that's a straightforward criticism, but when he attacks a statement as "divisive" or "racially insensitive" instead of arguing that it's false, we should start paying attention.>> Coming from an ex-communist country, where the word: "reactionary" is still useless after being used as a weapon for so long, I find it really scary that it is now, again, used unironically in the west and appears to be regaining its power. My grandmother lost her job because she was part of the anti-communist, democratic opposition, and the reason given to her was that she was "divisive, and anti-worker".

by senko 4y ago

great_tankard 4y ago

Ok I guess I have to spell this out explicitly: the self-censorship thing obviously applies doubly to the trolls and doxxers and "virtual vigilantes." Nobody deserves that kind of treatment.

PM_me_your_math 4y ago
What happens when everyone who disagrees with your viewpoint is suddenly a "troll" or better yet, a "not-see?"

EntropyIsAHoax 4y ago

> > Not every thought that goes through a person's mind the need be put out into the open immediately. > > Straw man. Doesn't sound like a straw man to me. What is self-censorship if not thinking through what you want to say before speaking? Generally when I speak I try to think about what effect my words will have, and if they would have what I consider to be a bad effect either on myself or others, I self-censor.

poszlem 4y ago
The difference between thinking before speaking and self-censorship is that in one case you don't say something because you think it isn't true, and in another you don't say it because you are afraid of people finding out that you think it isn't.
- EntropyIsAHoax 4y ago
  If someone is convinced that black people are inferior to white people, I want them to be afraid to express that. I don't care about hearing evidence on certain subjects, and I want there to be societal repercussions for disagreeing about things like that. While I do agree "cancel culture" in the way of "someone misspeaks once, so the twitter mob digs up their entire past and puts them on trial for every shitty thing they've ever said" is toxic and unhelpful, I'm perfectly in agreement that deplatforming bigots is actually helpful. As a concrete example, I'm very happy Kanye West has lost essentially all of his contracts and a lot of his supporters; he thinks "Jews secretly control the world" is true and wasn't afraid to say it, maybe others will be now and will self-censor.
  - poszlem 4y ago
    The problem, as usual is that "bigot" is just another word in the long list of words used to silence people. To quote Paul Graham: <<In every period of history, there seem to have been labels that got applied to statements to shoot them down before anyone had a chance to ask if they were true or not. "Blasphemy", "sacrilege", and "heresy" were such labels for a good part of western history, as in more recent times "indecent", "improper", and "unamerican" have been. By now these labels have lost their sting. They always do. By now they're mostly used ironically. But in their time, they had real force. The word "defeatist", for example, has no particular political connotations now. But in Germany in 1917 it was a weapon, used by Ludendorff in a purge of those who favored a negotiated peace. At the start of World War II it was used extensively by Churchill and his supporters to silence their opponents. In 1940, any argument against Churchill's aggressive policy was "defeatist". Was it right or wrong? Ideally, no one got far enough to ask that. We have such labels today, of course, quite a lot of them, from the all-purpose "inappropriate" to the dreaded "divisive." In any period, it should be easy to figure out what such labels are, simply by looking at what people call ideas they disagree with besides untrue. When a politician says his opponent is mistaken, that's a straightforward criticism, but when he attacks a statement as "divisive" or "racially insensitive" instead of arguing that it's false, we should start paying attention.>> Coming from an ex-communist country, where the word: "reactionary" is still useless after being used as a weapon for so long, I find it really scary that it is now, again, used unironically in the west and appears to be regaining its power. My grandmother lost her job because she was part of the anti-communist, democratic opposition, and the reason given to her was that she was "divisive, and anti-worker".