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> ~1.5 years ago it was totally racist and xenophobic to think a lab escape in Wuhan could be a viable source of the pandemic. To the extent that it was true t

> ~1.5 years ago it was totally racist and xenophobic to think a lab escape in Wuhan could be a viable source of the pandemic. To the extent that it was true then (taking saalweachter's comment in mind), it's still true now. > ~15 years ago being queer was something you should be quiet about. "Queer" is a very broad term, which also includes trans- men and women, drag queens, and so-called "Don't Say Gay" bills which make it more difficult to bring up many queer issues now than it was 5 years ago. Members of ACT UP in the 1980s certainly did not believe that being queer was something you should be quiet about. > ~10 years ago a language supporting simple asynchronous paradigms, static and cross compilation was a "waste of time". I remember people being enthusiastic about Go, which came out more than 10 years ago and fits that description. > ~30 years ago OOP was the only acceptable and superior paradigm. Not true. In 1994 Stroustroup wrote: ] One reason often given for learning Smalltalk is that it is ‘‘pure’’ and thus forces people to think and program ‘‘object-oriented.’’ I will not go into the discussion of ‘‘purity’’ beyond mentioning that I think that a general-purpose programming language ought to and can support more than one programming style (paradigm). - https://archive.org/details/designevolutiono0000stro/page/170/mode/2up?q=paradigm https://archive.org/details/designevolutiono0000stro/page/17... and ] The fundamental reason for the size of C++ is that it supports more than one way of writing programs, more than one programming paradigm. From one point of view, C++ is really three languages in one: - A C-like language (supporting low-level programming); - An Ada-like language (supporting abstract data type techniques); - A Simula-like language (supporting object-oriented programming) - https://archive.org/details/designevolutiono0000stro/page/198/mode/2up?q=paradigm https://archive.org/details/designevolutiono0000stro/page/19... > ~45 years ago psychology was equivalent to voodoo. What? I don't remember it that way either. I really don't think viewers of "The Bob Newhart Show" (1972-1978) were expected to view Robert "Bob" Hartley, Chicago psychologist, as a voodoo practitioner.

kodah 3y ago
> To the extent that it was true then (taking saalweachter's comment in mind), it's still true now. It is entirely possible to be skeptical and critical of the labs handling of the virus and want investigation into it without assuaging anything about the Chinese people or some grandiose theory involving their military. Most people are interested in the former, not the latter, but people who don't want this discussed rule all discussion about the latter. As for the rest of what you wrote, you can definitely object that there are exceptions today and that there exceptions years ago but I'm talking about prevailing attitudes, not that there weren't zero people who did or didn't believe something. Case in point, the 1990s is when the idea about OOP being dominant began to die. This was culturally marked in the show Halt and Catch Fire.
- eesmith 3y ago
  > I'm talking about prevailing attitudes I disagree. You are presenting strawman attitudes, representing an extreme interpretation of the past. Exactly what you accuse me of. Except I cited counter-examples. Even your example of "possible to be skeptical and critical of the labs handling of the virus" has strong issues because when the general scientific consensus is along the lines "Although there is insufficient evidence to define upstream events, and exact circumstances remain obscure, our analyses indicate that the emergence of SARS-CoV-2 occurred through the live wildlife trade in China and show that the Huanan market was the epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic. .... Several lines of evidence support the hypothesis that the Huanan market was the epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic and that SARS-CoV-2 emerged from activities associated with the live wildlife trade there." https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abp8715 https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abp8715 . The general response to the lab leak hypothesis is "where's the evidence"? Not "you're racist". > This was culturally marked in the show Halt and Catch Fire. A show made, what, 25 years after the era it describes? Do you know about "Kirk Drift"? The Kirk of the original series is not the womanizer people remember him to be. http://strangehorizons.com/non-fiction/columns/freshly-rememberd-kirk-drift/ http://strangehorizons.com/non-fiction/columns/freshly-remem... Why do you think Halt and Catch Fire accurately describes things, rather than being subject to its own sense of drift? While my own pop culture example comes from the era you describe. Here's another 1991 quote, from Lippman's C++ Primer: """Object-oriented programming is an evolutionary advance in the design and management of large software systems. It is not, however, the deus ex machina come forth to resolve the many ills of the software industry.""" - https://archive.org/details/cprimer0000lipp/page/530/mode/2up?q=paradigm https://archive.org/details/cprimer0000lipp/page/530/mode/2u... That's in the section titled "Living in a Multi-Paradigm Universe".
  - kodah 3y ago
    > You are presenting strawman attitudes, representing an extreme interpretation of the past. Exactly what you accuse me of. Except I cited counter-examples. lmao, this is so over the top ridiculous. I didn't "accuse" you of anything. I validated your examples and said that there's exceptions but I was describing prevailing attitudes. Take your frustration and hostility somewhere else. The only thing I flatly disagree with is that all or most people that agree with lab leak are somehow racists and xenophobes and I find it distasteful that this was pushed by "scientists" who turned out to be heavily involved in the whole thing. Lab leak has just about as much evidence as "zoological origins" so folks like you step off your sad little soap boxes. The original Lancet article calling Lab Leak a "dangerous conspiracy theory": https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)30418-9/fulltext#coronavirus-linkback-header https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6... The addendum acknowledging competing interests: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(21)01377-5/fulltext https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6... The article acknowledging lab leak should be investigated and carries about as much weight as other theories: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(21)01419-7/fulltext https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6... If you look up articles and conversation that reference that first citation you'll see most of them derided the theory as racist and xenophobic which had a chilling effect on further investigation for over a year, so much so that it required secretative investigation.
dnissley 3y ago
> "Queer" is a very broad term, which also includes trans- men and women, drag queens, and so-called "Don't Say Gay" bills which make it more difficult to bring up many queer issues now than it was 5 years ago. Let's not mistake this for regression! 15 years ago it would have been literally unthinkable to e.g. do a drag queen story time with kids or have teachers talk about their sexual orientations. Now it's an active cultural battlefield, on which the pro-queer side has evidently made significant progress.
- eesmith 3y ago
  While you make a good point, I hold there is both progression and regression. > or have teachers talk about their sexual orientations. When I was a kid, I well remember teachers talking about their sexual orientations, like how one teacher took time off when his wife gave birth to their kids.

kodah 3y ago

> To the extent that it was true then (taking saalweachter's comment in mind), it's still true now. It is entirely possible to be skeptical and critical of the labs handling of the virus and want investigation into it without assuaging anything about the Chinese people or some grandiose theory involving their military. Most people are interested in the former, not the latter, but people who don't want this discussed rule all discussion about the latter. As for the rest of what you wrote, you can definitely object that there are exceptions today and that there exceptions years ago but I'm talking about prevailing attitudes, not that there weren't zero people who did or didn't believe something. Case in point, the 1990s is when the idea about OOP being dominant began to die. This was culturally marked in the show Halt and Catch Fire.

eesmith 3y ago
> I'm talking about prevailing attitudes I disagree. You are presenting strawman attitudes, representing an extreme interpretation of the past. Exactly what you accuse me of. Except I cited counter-examples. Even your example of "possible to be skeptical and critical of the labs handling of the virus" has strong issues because when the general scientific consensus is along the lines "Although there is insufficient evidence to define upstream events, and exact circumstances remain obscure, our analyses indicate that the emergence of SARS-CoV-2 occurred through the live wildlife trade in China and show that the Huanan market was the epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic. .... Several lines of evidence support the hypothesis that the Huanan market was the epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic and that SARS-CoV-2 emerged from activities associated with the live wildlife trade there." https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abp8715 https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abp8715 . The general response to the lab leak hypothesis is "where's the evidence"? Not "you're racist". > This was culturally marked in the show Halt and Catch Fire. A show made, what, 25 years after the era it describes? Do you know about "Kirk Drift"? The Kirk of the original series is not the womanizer people remember him to be. http://strangehorizons.com/non-fiction/columns/freshly-rememberd-kirk-drift/ http://strangehorizons.com/non-fiction/columns/freshly-remem... Why do you think Halt and Catch Fire accurately describes things, rather than being subject to its own sense of drift? While my own pop culture example comes from the era you describe. Here's another 1991 quote, from Lippman's C++ Primer: """Object-oriented programming is an evolutionary advance in the design and management of large software systems. It is not, however, the deus ex machina come forth to resolve the many ills of the software industry.""" - https://archive.org/details/cprimer0000lipp/page/530/mode/2up?q=paradigm https://archive.org/details/cprimer0000lipp/page/530/mode/2u... That's in the section titled "Living in a Multi-Paradigm Universe".
- kodah 3y ago
  > You are presenting strawman attitudes, representing an extreme interpretation of the past. Exactly what you accuse me of. Except I cited counter-examples. lmao, this is so over the top ridiculous. I didn't "accuse" you of anything. I validated your examples and said that there's exceptions but I was describing prevailing attitudes. Take your frustration and hostility somewhere else. The only thing I flatly disagree with is that all or most people that agree with lab leak are somehow racists and xenophobes and I find it distasteful that this was pushed by "scientists" who turned out to be heavily involved in the whole thing. Lab leak has just about as much evidence as "zoological origins" so folks like you step off your sad little soap boxes. The original Lancet article calling Lab Leak a "dangerous conspiracy theory": https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)30418-9/fulltext#coronavirus-linkback-header https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6... The addendum acknowledging competing interests: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(21)01377-5/fulltext https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6... The article acknowledging lab leak should be investigated and carries about as much weight as other theories: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(21)01419-7/fulltext https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6... If you look up articles and conversation that reference that first citation you'll see most of them derided the theory as racist and xenophobic which had a chilling effect on further investigation for over a year, so much so that it required secretative investigation.

dnissley 3y ago

> "Queer" is a very broad term, which also includes trans- men and women, drag queens, and so-called "Don't Say Gay" bills which make it more difficult to bring up many queer issues now than it was 5 years ago. Let's not mistake this for regression! 15 years ago it would have been literally unthinkable to e.g. do a drag queen story time with kids or have teachers talk about their sexual orientations. Now it's an active cultural battlefield, on which the pro-queer side has evidently made significant progress.

eesmith 3y ago
While you make a good point, I hold there is both progression and regression. > or have teachers talk about their sexual orientations. When I was a kid, I well remember teachers talking about their sexual orientations, like how one teacher took time off when his wife gave birth to their kids.