6 ms·

> The number of true things we can't say should not increase. If it does, something is wrong. Word.

by frizlab 2y ago

slowmovintarget 2y ago
[flagged]
- somedude895 2y ago
  Over the past couple of weeks there have been two heavy virtue signalers in my social circle that have turned out to be complete assholes to people around them, and I had that thought exactly. Maybe the very reason they feel the need to get approval from "virtuous" people is because they themselves are so awful.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
kstrauser 2y ago
The problem comes from deciding what's true. It's factually true to say that a higher percentage of black people than white people are convicted felons. It's also grossly negligent to describe that as a cause ("black people have higher tendencies to become criminals") than as an effect ("centuries of systemic racism held higher numbers of black people in poverty, and poverty highly correlates to the kind of criminal behavior that gets you arrested, and also lower quality legal representation, which makes it more likely that the next generation will also be poor; lather, rise, repeat"). Is it a lie to say "black people are more likely to be felons"? No, but if that's all you have to say on the subject, then you're probably a jerk and shouldn't be talking about it at all. TL;DR I'm weary of people saying things that are factually true on the face of them, but that utterly distort the conversation. See also: "scientists don't know how old the universe is" (but have a broad consensus of a narrow band of values), "vaccines can harm you" (so can water), "it's getting cooler in some places" (global climate change doesn't add X degrees to every location uniformly), etc. etc. etc.
- baggy_trough 2y ago
  True things which make you a jerk (to some) shouldn't be censored to avoid "distorting the conversation". Respondents can explain the context.
  - jandrese 2y ago
    The flipslide is trolls will spew out the lies faster than you can rebut them. Much faster. Orders of magnitude faster. The lie is short, pithy, and requires little thought. The truth require context and effort. After a lie has been rebutted several times there is little value in allowing it to be repeated constantly. Eventually the truth tellers get worn down and the lie is allowed to live on in perpetuity, allowing more and more people to believe it over time.
    - baggy_trough 2y ago
      That is a view which is entirely opposed to my own. I have no faith that there is some authoritative entity that could objectively determine what is a lie and what is the truth.
      - perlgeek 2y ago
        If you don't act against disinformation, you get a world that is spammed with so many statements that it's impossible for the average consumer to assess the truth of any of them. Is that what you want? If yes, why? If not, what's your approach?
        baggy_trough 2y ago
        I already stated my approach. Let speech be met by more speech in return. Consumers can assess the credibility of each.
        triceratops 2y ago
        > Consumers can assess the credibility of each. I ain't doing all that work. I'm picking whatever I already believe in. /s but only kind of. That's how most people think. They aren't enlightened like you.
miltonlost 2y ago
What are some true things you cannot say? Enumerate some, please.
- tantalor 2y ago
  > saying "colored people" gets you fired
  - growse 2y ago
    But not arrested. Freedom of association is a thing.
    - tantalor 2y ago
      Can you elaborate? I want to take you seriously but I don't get your point. There are very few situations where speech leads to incarceration, and I don't think PG is talking about those, is he?
      - growse 2y ago
        My point is that "cannot say" is pure hyperbole. Your freedom to say whatever you want is not impinged, and my equivalent freedom to shun you based on what you say is similarly unimpinged. Usually when people complain about what you "can't say", what they actually mean is they can't say whatever they like and still have people still employ / socialise / be nice to them. Expressing opinions that others find disagreeable is not a protected class.
        tantalor 2y ago
        Oh yes, point well taken, thanks for the extra context.
        etiam 2y ago
        Pure hyperbole is pure hyperbole. If you want to shun me for not loudly enough pronouncing how great some sort of special privileges for certain ostensibly oppressed classes is, or for not jumping enthusiastically enough though hoops referencing people with exactly the most woke-community prescribed terminology, then chances are I don't particularly to associate with you either. That's fine. If you start telling lies about me online and try to incite a mob to threaten or harm me and the people who do opt to socialize with me (despite or maybe even because of my opinions), or organize mobs for PR damage to pressure my boss into taking away my livelihood, that is something quite beyond exercising your right to choose your associations. Of course that would still not literally make me unable to pronounce my woke-taboo opinion, but it should nonetheless be obvious that trying to wreck my life is a disproportionate response merely to me not toeing the line you took it upon yourself to draw. What you "can't say" is almost always graded rather than absolute, but active hostility destroying months or years of a person's life is well into the territory that constitutes a real hindrance for freely expressing an opinion.
jandrese 2y ago
I like to follow a statement like that up with: What exactly did you want to say that you can't anymore? Please give some specific examples. While the sentiment sounds good on paper, in practice it far too often is someone complaining that you can't demand a black men to be lynched if they have a white girlfriend anymore because society has gone all woke. There are lots of things that aren't 'PC' to say anymore and that doesn't mean society is failing. In fact I would argue that it is just plain old progress, especially when it is accompanied by a number of things that we can now say that used to be taboo. Out with: "Gay people should be burned at the stake." In with: "Contraception allows families to decide when to have children."
- chihuahua 2y ago
  I have a specific example in mind, but I fear that if I mention it, I'll be doxxed, cancelled, fired, and burned at the stake.
  - jodrellblank 2y ago
    https://xkcd.com/1357/ https://xkcd.com/1357/
- Manuel_D 2y ago
  > I like to follow a statement like that up with: What exactly did you want to say that you can't anymore? Please give some specific examples. At one company, we instituted "opportunistic hiring" policies. A certain portion of our engineering headcount was reserved for women. Men explicitly could not be hired using the headcount put under the "opportunistic hiring" pool. However, it was absolutelyy forbidden to mention that gender was used as a factor in hiring. Yes, we straight up banned one gender from a portion of our head count. But nobody could say that one gender had greater headcount than the other. That was considered offensive harassment. The same managers that would hire women under their "opportunistic hiring" pool one day would admonish other people for suggesting that women were beneficiaries of discrimination the next. Another example: 9 out of 10 people shot and killed by police are men. Is this evidence of sexism against men in police? If I say that I don't believe that the police are sexist, but rather this disparity is due to the fact that men commit proportionally more acts of violence than women, is such an opinion sexist against men? In many circles, pointing to the fact that the racial breakdown in policy shootings matches the racial breakdown in violent crime, with the same strength of correlation as the gender breakdown in shootings, is considered racist. In fact, even acknowledging a disparity in the rates of violent crime is considered racist by many (even if one states that poverty and historic injustice are the causes of the racial disparity in crime). I'm very curious how you came to the conclusion that Paul was thinking of statements like "gay people should be burned at the stake" when he writes, "the number of true things we can't say should not increase".
jrm4 2y ago
This presumes a high, perhaps delusional, level of faith in the public speaking space to determine what is "true."
Vegenoid 2y ago
Everyone agrees with this. Obviously, the problem is determining what is true. There is significant disagreement. This is the root of the problem, not that people are preventing other people from saying things that they themselves believe are true.

> The number of true things we can't say should not increase. If it does, something is wrong. Word.

slowmovintarget 2y ago

[flagged]

somedude895 2y ago
Over the past couple of weeks there have been two heavy virtue signalers in my social circle that have turned out to be complete assholes to people around them, and I had that thought exactly. Maybe the very reason they feel the need to get approval from "virtuous" people is because they themselves are so awful.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

kstrauser 2y ago

The problem comes from deciding what's true. It's factually true to say that a higher percentage of black people than white people are convicted felons. It's also grossly negligent to describe that as a cause ("black people have higher tendencies to become criminals") than as an effect ("centuries of systemic racism held higher numbers of black people in poverty, and poverty highly correlates to the kind of criminal behavior that gets you arrested, and also lower quality legal representation, which makes it more likely that the next generation will also be poor; lather, rise, repeat"). Is it a lie to say "black people are more likely to be felons"? No, but if that's all you have to say on the subject, then you're probably a jerk and shouldn't be talking about it at all. TL;DR I'm weary of people saying things that are factually true on the face of them, but that utterly distort the conversation. See also: "scientists don't know how old the universe is" (but have a broad consensus of a narrow band of values), "vaccines can harm you" (so can water), "it's getting cooler in some places" (global climate change doesn't add X degrees to every location uniformly), etc. etc. etc.

baggy_trough 2y ago
True things which make you a jerk (to some) shouldn't be censored to avoid "distorting the conversation". Respondents can explain the context.
- jandrese 2y ago
  The flipslide is trolls will spew out the lies faster than you can rebut them. Much faster. Orders of magnitude faster. The lie is short, pithy, and requires little thought. The truth require context and effort. After a lie has been rebutted several times there is little value in allowing it to be repeated constantly. Eventually the truth tellers get worn down and the lie is allowed to live on in perpetuity, allowing more and more people to believe it over time.
  - baggy_trough 2y ago
    That is a view which is entirely opposed to my own. I have no faith that there is some authoritative entity that could objectively determine what is a lie and what is the truth.
    - perlgeek 2y ago
      If you don't act against disinformation, you get a world that is spammed with so many statements that it's impossible for the average consumer to assess the truth of any of them. Is that what you want? If yes, why? If not, what's your approach?
      - baggy_trough 2y ago
        I already stated my approach. Let speech be met by more speech in return. Consumers can assess the credibility of each.
        triceratops 2y ago
        > Consumers can assess the credibility of each. I ain't doing all that work. I'm picking whatever I already believe in. /s but only kind of. That's how most people think. They aren't enlightened like you.

miltonlost 2y ago

What are some true things you cannot say? Enumerate some, please.

tantalor 2y ago
> saying "colored people" gets you fired
- growse 2y ago
  But not arrested. Freedom of association is a thing.
  - tantalor 2y ago
    Can you elaborate? I want to take you seriously but I don't get your point. There are very few situations where speech leads to incarceration, and I don't think PG is talking about those, is he?
    - growse 2y ago
      My point is that "cannot say" is pure hyperbole. Your freedom to say whatever you want is not impinged, and my equivalent freedom to shun you based on what you say is similarly unimpinged. Usually when people complain about what you "can't say", what they actually mean is they can't say whatever they like and still have people still employ / socialise / be nice to them. Expressing opinions that others find disagreeable is not a protected class.
      - tantalor 2y ago
        Oh yes, point well taken, thanks for the extra context.
      - etiam 2y ago
        Pure hyperbole is pure hyperbole. If you want to shun me for not loudly enough pronouncing how great some sort of special privileges for certain ostensibly oppressed classes is, or for not jumping enthusiastically enough though hoops referencing people with exactly the most woke-community prescribed terminology, then chances are I don't particularly to associate with you either. That's fine. If you start telling lies about me online and try to incite a mob to threaten or harm me and the people who do opt to socialize with me (despite or maybe even because of my opinions), or organize mobs for PR damage to pressure my boss into taking away my livelihood, that is something quite beyond exercising your right to choose your associations. Of course that would still not literally make me unable to pronounce my woke-taboo opinion, but it should nonetheless be obvious that trying to wreck my life is a disproportionate response merely to me not toeing the line you took it upon yourself to draw. What you "can't say" is almost always graded rather than absolute, but active hostility destroying months or years of a person's life is well into the territory that constitutes a real hindrance for freely expressing an opinion.

jandrese 2y ago

I like to follow a statement like that up with: What exactly did you want to say that you can't anymore? Please give some specific examples. While the sentiment sounds good on paper, in practice it far too often is someone complaining that you can't demand a black men to be lynched if they have a white girlfriend anymore because society has gone all woke. There are lots of things that aren't 'PC' to say anymore and that doesn't mean society is failing. In fact I would argue that it is just plain old progress, especially when it is accompanied by a number of things that we can now say that used to be taboo. Out with: "Gay people should be burned at the stake." In with: "Contraception allows families to decide when to have children."

chihuahua 2y ago
I have a specific example in mind, but I fear that if I mention it, I'll be doxxed, cancelled, fired, and burned at the stake.
- jodrellblank 2y ago
  https://xkcd.com/1357/ https://xkcd.com/1357/
Manuel_D 2y ago
> I like to follow a statement like that up with: What exactly did you want to say that you can't anymore? Please give some specific examples. At one company, we instituted "opportunistic hiring" policies. A certain portion of our engineering headcount was reserved for women. Men explicitly could not be hired using the headcount put under the "opportunistic hiring" pool. However, it was absolutelyy forbidden to mention that gender was used as a factor in hiring. Yes, we straight up banned one gender from a portion of our head count. But nobody could say that one gender had greater headcount than the other. That was considered offensive harassment. The same managers that would hire women under their "opportunistic hiring" pool one day would admonish other people for suggesting that women were beneficiaries of discrimination the next. Another example: 9 out of 10 people shot and killed by police are men. Is this evidence of sexism against men in police? If I say that I don't believe that the police are sexist, but rather this disparity is due to the fact that men commit proportionally more acts of violence than women, is such an opinion sexist against men? In many circles, pointing to the fact that the racial breakdown in policy shootings matches the racial breakdown in violent crime, with the same strength of correlation as the gender breakdown in shootings, is considered racist. In fact, even acknowledging a disparity in the rates of violent crime is considered racist by many (even if one states that poverty and historic injustice are the causes of the racial disparity in crime). I'm very curious how you came to the conclusion that Paul was thinking of statements like "gay people should be burned at the stake" when he writes, "the number of true things we can't say should not increase".

jrm4 2y ago

This presumes a high, perhaps delusional, level of faith in the public speaking space to determine what is "true."

Vegenoid 2y ago

Everyone agrees with this. Obviously, the problem is determining what is true. There is significant disagreement. This is the root of the problem, not that people are preventing other people from saying things that they themselves believe are true.