5 ms·

> merely being cancelled rather than straight up executed is why we live in the good times. Yes, "literally anything less than execution is OK" is the standard

by timr 4y ago

> merely being cancelled rather than straight up executed is why we live in the good times. Yes, "literally anything less than execution is OK" is the standard we should uphold for public discourse. This is like a joke that starts with "be grateful, comrade..."

Teever 4y ago
From an AI getting kicked from a public forum for an uncouth joke to the gulag in what, a handful of comments? I think that's quite a bit of a leap my friend.
ben_w 4y ago
Being cancelled is the smallest possible increment I am aware of over being heckled. It is the necessary other side of the same coin as freedom of speech, otherwise you end up with the literal Republican party being legally obligated to let the literal Communist Party of the USA (not a euphemism for the Democrats) lecture them during their Primaries.
- erulabs 4y ago
  Somewhere in the vast distances between being heckled and being cancelled is a sturdy but forgotten old shack named constructive criticism. Inside, all the great things in this world were born.
  - ben_w 4y ago
    I'd say that constructive criticism isn't between those two things, in the way that i+1 isn't between -1 and -2. Also: what do you think being cancelled is such that you perceive a "vast distance" between it and being heckled? For me, an audience going "boo, your jokes are bad!" is very close to "we're sorry, Mr Comedian, you're not bringing in a big enough audience to justify booking you as a headline act".
    - erulabs 4y ago
      But the entire audience didn't say "boo, your jokes are bad!", otherwise no one would have been viewing the Seinfeld stream in the first place. Instead, a tiny fraction of the viewers decided to shout that they were being harmed by the content that no one made them watch, and implied that Twitch is morally culpable for the opinions of (non-human!) creators on their platform. Twitch, out of fear of legal or viral repercussions, plays it safe and removes content that the vast majority of the audience was enjoying. We know the majority of the audience was enjoying it, because we're hearing about it. You don't hear about shows with zero attendance being canceled - because no one cares!
      - ben_w 4y ago
        > entire I didn't use that word. > out of fear of legal or viral repercussions, Is why places have always refused to host people even way back when. It's an even stronger reason for the host location to say "no" than for an event organiser.
        erulabs 4y ago
        This conversation is a problem of definition. Cancel culture is not the entire or even half the audience of a club complaining about the act. Cancel culture is 500 people out of 50M (0.0001%) complaining, which combined with the power of journalistic headlines to blow things wildly out of proportion, results in the act being removed - even though, in many cases, 100% of the in person audience enjoyed the act. In fact, in many cases, the shows are sold out and there are no free seats, so we can assume much more than 100% of the audience enjoyed the act. Cancel culture when a tiny minority can use outrage to cudgel others into complying. You can pretend when people say "cancel culture" they mean "popular opinion", but that's not what they mean, even a little bit.
        ben_w 4y ago
        > Cancel culture Until this point, I thought we were talking about literally being cancelled, not whatever the phrase "cancel culture" means in modern political discourse, given that this headline is literally about an endless AI-generated stream being switched off. Everything I used was intended as an analogy to that end. > Cancel culture is 500 people out of 50M (0.0001%) complaining, which combined with the power of journalistic headlines to blow things wildly out of proportion, results in the act being removed Reminds me of what (allegedly) happened in the UK in the 70s and 80s when some Christians were very upset to learn of Pagans appearing on the BBC. Also what I see happening in some quarters today with regard to trans women, which has very recently mutated into "also furries" (is this a confusion with "transhuman"? Seen a bit of hate towards that recently too). Also why the TV stations were so concerned about what happened with Shatner and Nichols, and why TNG's "gay rights" episode was so bland you could miss that entire aspect of the story. And, now I think about it, why there were no women captains in TOS. Not saying any of these things are "good", though I rather suspect you're underestimating the number of people who find $insert_topic_here enraging for whatever reason — people are a mess.
  - msla 4y ago
    Except, for you, the whole purpose of art is to engender a reaction, and being banned is certainly a reaction.
- welshwelsh 4y ago
  >otherwise you end up with the literal Republican party being literally obligated to let the literal Communist Party of the USA lecture them during their primaries And this is a bad thing how? The purpose of free speech is to prevent groupthink. Nothing good comes from allowing Republicans and Communists to create echo chambers where people only hear opinions they already agree with and dissent is banned. Wouldn't it be more productive if they were forced to engage directly with their opponents, and made to justify their position to their harshest critics? It would be better if there were no parties at all, and all political discourse happened in a public space where all viewpoints are represented indiscriminately.
  - ben_w 4y ago
    > And this is a bad thing how? While I think it would be hilarious in a comedy sketch, in practice it's a DDOS attack. Overwhelm the discussion with irrelevant noise and you have de-facto suppressed someone else's speech.

by timr 4y ago

Teever 4y ago

From an AI getting kicked from a public forum for an uncouth joke to the gulag in what, a handful of comments? I think that's quite a bit of a leap my friend.

ben_w 4y ago

Being cancelled is the smallest possible increment I am aware of over being heckled. It is the necessary other side of the same coin as freedom of speech, otherwise you end up with the literal Republican party being legally obligated to let the literal Communist Party of the USA (not a euphemism for the Democrats) lecture them during their Primaries.

erulabs 4y ago
Somewhere in the vast distances between being heckled and being cancelled is a sturdy but forgotten old shack named constructive criticism. Inside, all the great things in this world were born.
- ben_w 4y ago
  I'd say that constructive criticism isn't between those two things, in the way that i+1 isn't between -1 and -2. Also: what do you think being cancelled is such that you perceive a "vast distance" between it and being heckled? For me, an audience going "boo, your jokes are bad!" is very close to "we're sorry, Mr Comedian, you're not bringing in a big enough audience to justify booking you as a headline act".
  - erulabs 4y ago
    But the entire audience didn't say "boo, your jokes are bad!", otherwise no one would have been viewing the Seinfeld stream in the first place. Instead, a tiny fraction of the viewers decided to shout that they were being harmed by the content that no one made them watch, and implied that Twitch is morally culpable for the opinions of (non-human!) creators on their platform. Twitch, out of fear of legal or viral repercussions, plays it safe and removes content that the vast majority of the audience was enjoying. We know the majority of the audience was enjoying it, because we're hearing about it. You don't hear about shows with zero attendance being canceled - because no one cares!
    - ben_w 4y ago
      > entire I didn't use that word. > out of fear of legal or viral repercussions, Is why places have always refused to host people even way back when. It's an even stronger reason for the host location to say "no" than for an event organiser.
      - erulabs 4y ago
        This conversation is a problem of definition. Cancel culture is not the entire or even half the audience of a club complaining about the act. Cancel culture is 500 people out of 50M (0.0001%) complaining, which combined with the power of journalistic headlines to blow things wildly out of proportion, results in the act being removed - even though, in many cases, 100% of the in person audience enjoyed the act. In fact, in many cases, the shows are sold out and there are no free seats, so we can assume much more than 100% of the audience enjoyed the act. Cancel culture when a tiny minority can use outrage to cudgel others into complying. You can pretend when people say "cancel culture" they mean "popular opinion", but that's not what they mean, even a little bit.
        ben_w 4y ago
        > Cancel culture Until this point, I thought we were talking about literally being cancelled, not whatever the phrase "cancel culture" means in modern political discourse, given that this headline is literally about an endless AI-generated stream being switched off. Everything I used was intended as an analogy to that end. > Cancel culture is 500 people out of 50M (0.0001%) complaining, which combined with the power of journalistic headlines to blow things wildly out of proportion, results in the act being removed Reminds me of what (allegedly) happened in the UK in the 70s and 80s when some Christians were very upset to learn of Pagans appearing on the BBC. Also what I see happening in some quarters today with regard to trans women, which has very recently mutated into "also furries" (is this a confusion with "transhuman"? Seen a bit of hate towards that recently too). Also why the TV stations were so concerned about what happened with Shatner and Nichols, and why TNG's "gay rights" episode was so bland you could miss that entire aspect of the story. And, now I think about it, why there were no women captains in TOS. Not saying any of these things are "good", though I rather suspect you're underestimating the number of people who find $insert_topic_here enraging for whatever reason — people are a mess.
- msla 4y ago
  Except, for you, the whole purpose of art is to engender a reaction, and being banned is certainly a reaction.
welshwelsh 4y ago
>otherwise you end up with the literal Republican party being literally obligated to let the literal Communist Party of the USA lecture them during their primaries And this is a bad thing how? The purpose of free speech is to prevent groupthink. Nothing good comes from allowing Republicans and Communists to create echo chambers where people only hear opinions they already agree with and dissent is banned. Wouldn't it be more productive if they were forced to engage directly with their opponents, and made to justify their position to their harshest critics? It would be better if there were no parties at all, and all political discourse happened in a public space where all viewpoints are represented indiscriminately.
- ben_w 4y ago
  > And this is a bad thing how? While I think it would be hilarious in a comedy sketch, in practice it's a DDOS attack. Overwhelm the discussion with irrelevant noise and you have de-facto suppressed someone else's speech.