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Your comment seems critical of him. So where is the line? What commentary on his death is acceptable and won’t get a person sacked or sanctioned from a governm

Your comment seems critical of him. So where is the line? What commentary on his death is acceptable and won’t get a person sacked or sanctioned from a government job?

sidibe 1y ago
I don't know the specifics about most of the firings. I think saying it's good someone was killed is inflammatory and not something people should do and expect no consequences. That MSNBC guy getting fired was ridiculous though. Kirk isn't suddenly due respect and zero criticism because he died.
- zahlman 1y ago
  Dowd didn't say that it was good, but did seem to agree that it was justified: > Dowd responded by saying about about Kirk: “He’s been one of the most divisive, especially divisive younger figures in this, who is constantly sort of pushing this sort of hate speech or sort of aimed at certain groups. And I always go back to, hateful thoughts lead to hateful words, which then lead to hateful actions. And I think that is the environment we are in. You can’t stop with these sort of awful thoughts you have and then saying these awful words and not expect awful actions to take place. And that’s the unfortunate environment we are in.” (via https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/comcast-execs-criticize-msnbc-matthew-132552519.html https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/comcast-execs-criticize-...) To me, that's approximately as bad.
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
  - itsdrewmiller 1y ago
    That? That reads like “if you put a lot of hateful words out in the world you should expect it to lead to hateful action”. If anything this would be more relevant if Kirk inspired someone to kill any of the various groups he encouraged violence against. It doesn’t read at all like a justifying for killing him.
  - soraminazuki 1y ago
    If somebody says "when you jump off a cliff, you fall," that's not "justifying" anything. That's just explaining cause and effect. You're bending over backwards to come up with an excuse for shutting down speech for purely ideological reasons. Justify policies enabling gun violence, and you make the world a more dangerous place, including for yourself. Sow hate and violence, and you end up creating people who hate you back. Why is that so hard to understand for some people? Why on earth do some people interpret that as a call for violence? None of it makes any sense.
    - zahlman 1y ago
      > If somebody says "when you jump off a cliff, you fall," that's not "justifying" anything. It is when you say it of someone who was pushed rather than jumping. There is no rational line of reasoning in which being shot is a natural consequence of supporting the right to bear arms. Hundreds of millions of Americans support the right to bear arms on at least some level.
      - lostlogin 1y ago
        > There is no rational line of reasoning in which being shot is a natural consequence of supporting the right to bear arms. I come from a New Zealand, and we have fairly strict gun laws. That having loose laws and lots of guns comes with more deaths doesn’t seem at all surprising.
        zahlman 1y ago
        I come from (have lived in my entire life) Canada, which also has fairly strict gun laws. It is indeed not surprising that a rise in access to guns correlates with a rise in shooting deaths. That was indeed Kirk's exact point. This does not contradict the quoted point in the slightest. It is worlds apart from what you are trying to dispute. Taking risks is not in the same category as being targeted.
        lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 1y ago
- immibis 1y ago
  Proof by counterexample: It's good that Adolf Hitler died.
  - lostlogin 1y ago
    I disagree. If he had 15 years earlier, maybe. He just escaped the Nuremberg Trials.
zahlman 1y ago
I was talking with a friend about this and came to the conclusion that people in certain lines of work should be held to a higher standard when it comes to situations like this: * government officials (as you say), members of federal agencies, civil servants etc. * journalists * healthcare workers and emergency services personnel * educators There may have been more on my list, but it doesn't come to mind at the moment. All of these are places where a mindset that glorifies or justifies political violence and death seems like it would be an impediment to actually doing the job properly, which is the only thing that would make me accept "cancel culture". Others may be morally unjustified in "crossing the line", but should not lose their jobs for it. For me, the line is drawn where anyone proposes that anything a person said justifies or excuses killing someone. The "stochastic terrorism" argument is especially insidious: it attempts to launder "speech" into "violence" (and thus justify "an eye for an eye" etc.) by hand-waving at some vague notion of, basically, extremely non-imminent incitement. The idea is that convincing a wide audience of people to have a more negative impression of a group stochastically increases the number of members of that group that will die to violence. But none of the dots are ever actually connected in this argument; and taken seriously and applied even-handedly, it would make basically any form of political discourse impossible. Initially, I thought Matthew Dowd's comments (I had very little exposure to them) didn't fall into that category — that they were simply made in incredibly bad taste. But I looked up some more of the transcript and, yeah, I can't excuse that. Certainly he wasn't as aggressive about it as, say, some Bluesky users. But part of it does fundamentally boil down to making the "fuck around and find out" argument, and "finding out" is just not supposed to involve being shot and killed. This is fundamental for me; see e.g. https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/svuBpoSduzhYjFPrA/elements-of-rationalist-discourse https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/svuBpoSduzhYjFPrA/elements-o... .
- lostlogin 1y ago
  > For me, the line is drawn where anyone proposes that anything a person said justifies or excuses killing someone It's really difficult. How do you apply this to government worker? Some are actively involved in killing people, foe example the military, (some) police, the judiciary in some jurisdictions, politicians. In places with a judicial death sentence it's acceptable to decide that someone deserve to die.

Your comment seems critical of him. So where is the line? What commentary on his death is acceptable and won’t get a person sacked or sanctioned from a government job?

sidibe 1y ago

I don't know the specifics about most of the firings. I think saying it's good someone was killed is inflammatory and not something people should do and expect no consequences. That MSNBC guy getting fired was ridiculous though. Kirk isn't suddenly due respect and zero criticism because he died.

zahlman 1y ago
Dowd didn't say that it was good, but did seem to agree that it was justified: > Dowd responded by saying about about Kirk: “He’s been one of the most divisive, especially divisive younger figures in this, who is constantly sort of pushing this sort of hate speech or sort of aimed at certain groups. And I always go back to, hateful thoughts lead to hateful words, which then lead to hateful actions. And I think that is the environment we are in. You can’t stop with these sort of awful thoughts you have and then saying these awful words and not expect awful actions to take place. And that’s the unfortunate environment we are in.” (via https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/comcast-execs-criticize-msnbc-matthew-132552519.html https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/comcast-execs-criticize-...) To me, that's approximately as bad.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- itsdrewmiller 1y ago
  That? That reads like “if you put a lot of hateful words out in the world you should expect it to lead to hateful action”. If anything this would be more relevant if Kirk inspired someone to kill any of the various groups he encouraged violence against. It doesn’t read at all like a justifying for killing him.
- soraminazuki 1y ago
  If somebody says "when you jump off a cliff, you fall," that's not "justifying" anything. That's just explaining cause and effect. You're bending over backwards to come up with an excuse for shutting down speech for purely ideological reasons. Justify policies enabling gun violence, and you make the world a more dangerous place, including for yourself. Sow hate and violence, and you end up creating people who hate you back. Why is that so hard to understand for some people? Why on earth do some people interpret that as a call for violence? None of it makes any sense.
  - zahlman 1y ago
    > If somebody says "when you jump off a cliff, you fall," that's not "justifying" anything. It is when you say it of someone who was pushed rather than jumping. There is no rational line of reasoning in which being shot is a natural consequence of supporting the right to bear arms. Hundreds of millions of Americans support the right to bear arms on at least some level.
    - lostlogin 1y ago
      > There is no rational line of reasoning in which being shot is a natural consequence of supporting the right to bear arms. I come from a New Zealand, and we have fairly strict gun laws. That having loose laws and lots of guns comes with more deaths doesn’t seem at all surprising.
      - zahlman 1y ago
        I come from (have lived in my entire life) Canada, which also has fairly strict gun laws. It is indeed not surprising that a rise in access to guns correlates with a rise in shooting deaths. That was indeed Kirk's exact point. This does not contradict the quoted point in the slightest. It is worlds apart from what you are trying to dispute. Taking risks is not in the same category as being targeted.
        lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 1y ago
immibis 1y ago
Proof by counterexample: It's good that Adolf Hitler died.
- lostlogin 1y ago
  I disagree. If he had 15 years earlier, maybe. He just escaped the Nuremberg Trials.

zahlman 1y ago

I was talking with a friend about this and came to the conclusion that people in certain lines of work should be held to a higher standard when it comes to situations like this: * government officials (as you say), members of federal agencies, civil servants etc. * journalists * healthcare workers and emergency services personnel * educators There may have been more on my list, but it doesn't come to mind at the moment. All of these are places where a mindset that glorifies or justifies political violence and death seems like it would be an impediment to actually doing the job properly, which is the only thing that would make me accept "cancel culture". Others may be morally unjustified in "crossing the line", but should not lose their jobs for it. For me, the line is drawn where anyone proposes that anything a person said justifies or excuses killing someone. The "stochastic terrorism" argument is especially insidious: it attempts to launder "speech" into "violence" (and thus justify "an eye for an eye" etc.) by hand-waving at some vague notion of, basically, extremely non-imminent incitement. The idea is that convincing a wide audience of people to have a more negative impression of a group stochastically increases the number of members of that group that will die to violence. But none of the dots are ever actually connected in this argument; and taken seriously and applied even-handedly, it would make basically any form of political discourse impossible. Initially, I thought Matthew Dowd's comments (I had very little exposure to them) didn't fall into that category — that they were simply made in incredibly bad taste. But I looked up some more of the transcript and, yeah, I can't excuse that. Certainly he wasn't as aggressive about it as, say, some Bluesky users. But part of it does fundamentally boil down to making the "fuck around and find out" argument, and "finding out" is just not supposed to involve being shot and killed. This is fundamental for me; see e.g. https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/svuBpoSduzhYjFPrA/elements-of-rationalist-discourse https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/svuBpoSduzhYjFPrA/elements-o... .

lostlogin 1y ago
> For me, the line is drawn where anyone proposes that anything a person said justifies or excuses killing someone It's really difficult. How do you apply this to government worker? Some are actively involved in killing people, foe example the military, (some) police, the judiciary in some jurisdictions, politicians. In places with a judicial death sentence it's acceptable to decide that someone deserve to die.