4 ms·

The irony of this would be quite amusing if it wasn't so dangerous. Where are all the "free speech absolutists" now?

by pstuart 7mo ago

refulgentis 7mo ago
HN was such an interesting place in 2024, they’ve all disappeared, sadly. I’ve been genuinely, deeply, curious where those posters went. It was the site at that point. The most I’ve seen in months and months is a limp-wristed handwave at “but humans have gooned and been racist forever”, in response to someone saying they wouldn’t choose to work for X.ai because it accelerates those things. My most substantive idea is it was an unsustainable coalition, and that’s why we’re not seeing it much. You need to be for an ugly conjunction of things instead of against “woke” and Columbia students, thus you won’t get coalition-wide social approval (upvotes) anymore. So they’re almost certainly here, but, downvoted to the point of invisibility unless you scour every comment. Another case study to ponder is our host’s CEO, Gary Tan. Full-on loud-throated American juche stuff at beginning of tariffs. Now he has his own political website he built with Claude. And it’s LLM-generated articles that are riffs on Free Press articles he liked and they’re really tediously boring niche stuff even if you’re full in on team red, even before the AI writing cringe effect on the reader. Ex. “Mackenzie bezos philanthropy is fake and destructive because one college that got money hired the college presidents son and also enrollment dropped the next year”
- exceptione 7mo ago
  You can be intelligent and believe the narratives. You can be intelligent and see you were fooled, seeing the sponsors of the narratives don't share any of your ideals to begin with. Many are confused, feeling betrayed, open for new perspectives. Some will double down as we know from group dynamics in sects. Don't feel sad, it is a good sign of healthy progress. Project 2025 and the likes are a very destructive force, not something to gamble your democracy on.
  - CamperBob2 7mo ago
    You can be intelligent and believe the narratives. But what's intelligence good for, if it doesn't equip you to see reality for what it is?
    - exceptione 7mo ago
      There is the difficult and energy consuming way of thinking with the ratio, and there is a cheap way of thinking, based on ingrained beliefs, vibes, tribes etc. As humans we are quite fallible, but as long as mass media and "social" media don't hamper the process of eventual re calibration towards reality, we can come back from our mistakes. That imho also answers why autocrats immediately start a war on academia, they instinctively know where the danger lurks for them.
- jacquesm 7mo ago
  Well, we have a bunch of really problematic accounts on HN and I suspect that rather than to go into 'endless curious conversation' with those characters people just give up at some point. It's interesting in a way because one of PGs most famous post is the one about 'no broken windows'.
  - pstuart 7mo ago
    I'm all for having conversations with those having other viewpoints, but it doesn't seem to be possible when they don't argue in good faith (or even grounded in reality). I take zero pleasure in saying this, but "the other side" is fucking insane. There's no arguing from first principles, let alone acknowledging that there are issues of concern with one's propositions. In the case of "free speech", there's a failure to acknowledge the fundamental proposition of it when used in the US -- in that it's about the government not being able to prosecute you for speech that it doesn't like. This is literally the basis of the OP. I'm a fan of Christopher Hitchens and he embodied that "free speech absolutism" argument convincingly (as otherwise its a pathway to censorship and oppression), but I think it's also important to recognize Karl Popper's Intolerance of Intolerance. This stuff is no longer idle speculation -- it is an active facet of authoritarianism that is playing out around us right now.
    - jacquesm 7mo ago
      Indeed, and it is interesting how all those countries that have seen this up close have reasonable upper limits and courts that will try to find a balance without falling over one way or the other. Obviously you won't be able to please everybody all the time but we're - as you so eloquently put it - no longer in a speculative domain but in one where you can see the consequences play out in realtime. It's like toddlers with guns, they may not know exactly how the guns work but they're bloody dangerous all the same. Popper has it right, far more so than most other philosophers because he's coming at it almost from a security perspective: the system will have holes and you need to be willing to be pragmatic about that, rather than dogmatic. My solution for HN is simple by the way, I give up, but one account at the time and I simply block them. That doesn't help the site but it does help my blood pressure. The one I use is called 'Comments owl for HN'.
- JeremyNT 7mo ago
  It really does feel like the tech right has disappeared over the last year, at least as a more grass roots thing outside of the actual billionaires themselves. The early crypto and tax victories were presumably the impetus for many, and that's already been realized. There's not much incentive to stick around and be a bad faith advocate for incompetence and graft when you've already got yours.
  - KittenInABox 7mo ago
    In my impression the billionaire worship is just another form of fundamental respect and enforcement of hierarchy that has been part of conservative politics forever. We are back to transparently the "right" leaning being wanting to keep the absolute monarchy.
- jfengel 7mo ago
  They've switched to "A Democrat told me to shut up once so free speech is over."
  - YCpedohaven 7mo ago
    [dead]
- salawat 7mo ago
  >HN was such an interesting place in 2024, they’ve all disappeared, sadly. Likely because once you've seen your opponent mask off there is no longer a point trying to maintain a facade of politeness. You are in full adversarial waters. Either those people weren't actually for it and were talking a game until they got into power, or there's no longer a point in talking about it until we can get the current numb nuts out of the picture. One shouldn't tip their hand in an enemy controlled medium on their current plans for activism. That's how you go from unrestrained, to controlled opposition. Savvy? Here on HN, you damn well know you're in the SV types territory, and you know to whom'st they've aligned by their actions. Only conversations left to be had is needling those remaining until either they out themselves as part of the opposition, or as part of the sympathetic group. Turns out there's a lot of HN'ers more than happy with how things are going. Game theory/low trust environs are a bitch like that.
- YCpedohaven 7mo ago
  [dead]
RiverCrochet 7mo ago
Broadcast TV (and cable TV too) has been whithering on the vine for a long time. What a network couldn't broadcast on TV could simply be put on YouTube or other social network. TV could become state-owned media at this point and I don't think anyone would really care as long as the Internet is the way it is.
- nickthegreek 7mo ago
  I largely agree, but I think we have another 5-8 years before TV’s candle light is really extinguished. I hope they fight this nonsense to the bitter end.
dlivingston 7mo ago
Right here, to name one. Needless to say I feel very bleak and despondent as I watch the America I thought I knew transform into something dark. I do not anticipate the next decade+ of life in America to be free and prosperous.
- pstuart 7mo ago
  It's a weird world where one's hopes are in the incompetence of their leaders.
deleted 7mo ago
[deleted]

The irony of this would be quite amusing if it wasn't so dangerous. Where are all the "free speech absolutists" now?

by pstuart 7mo ago

The irony of this would be quite amusing if it wasn't so dangerous. Where are all the "free speech absolutists" now?

HN was such an interesting place in 2024, they’ve all disappeared, sadly. I’ve been genuinely, deeply, curious where those posters went. It was the site at that point. The most I’ve seen in months and months is a limp-wristed handwave at “but humans have gooned and been racist forever”, in response to someone saying they wouldn’t choose to work for X.ai because it accelerates those things. My most substantive idea is it was an unsustainable coalition, and that’s why we’re not seeing it much. You need to be for an ugly conjunction of things instead of against “woke” and Columbia students, thus you won’t get coalition-wide social approval (upvotes) anymore. So they’re almost certainly here, but, downvoted to the point of invisibility unless you scour every comment. Another case study to ponder is our host’s CEO, Gary Tan. Full-on loud-throated American juche stuff at beginning of tariffs. Now he has his own political website he built with Claude. And it’s LLM-generated articles that are riffs on Free Press articles he liked and they’re really tediously boring niche stuff even if you’re full in on team red, even before the AI writing cringe effect on the reader. Ex. “Mackenzie bezos philanthropy is fake and destructive because one college that got money hired the college presidents son and also enrollment dropped the next year”

exceptione 7mo ago
You can be intelligent and believe the narratives. You can be intelligent and see you were fooled, seeing the sponsors of the narratives don't share any of your ideals to begin with. Many are confused, feeling betrayed, open for new perspectives. Some will double down as we know from group dynamics in sects. Don't feel sad, it is a good sign of healthy progress. Project 2025 and the likes are a very destructive force, not something to gamble your democracy on.
- CamperBob2 7mo ago
  You can be intelligent and believe the narratives. But what's intelligence good for, if it doesn't equip you to see reality for what it is?
  - exceptione 7mo ago
    There is the difficult and energy consuming way of thinking with the ratio, and there is a cheap way of thinking, based on ingrained beliefs, vibes, tribes etc. As humans we are quite fallible, but as long as mass media and "social" media don't hamper the process of eventual re calibration towards reality, we can come back from our mistakes. That imho also answers why autocrats immediately start a war on academia, they instinctively know where the danger lurks for them.
jacquesm 7mo ago
Well, we have a bunch of really problematic accounts on HN and I suspect that rather than to go into 'endless curious conversation' with those characters people just give up at some point. It's interesting in a way because one of PGs most famous post is the one about 'no broken windows'.
- pstuart 7mo ago
  I'm all for having conversations with those having other viewpoints, but it doesn't seem to be possible when they don't argue in good faith (or even grounded in reality). I take zero pleasure in saying this, but "the other side" is fucking insane. There's no arguing from first principles, let alone acknowledging that there are issues of concern with one's propositions. In the case of "free speech", there's a failure to acknowledge the fundamental proposition of it when used in the US -- in that it's about the government not being able to prosecute you for speech that it doesn't like. This is literally the basis of the OP. I'm a fan of Christopher Hitchens and he embodied that "free speech absolutism" argument convincingly (as otherwise its a pathway to censorship and oppression), but I think it's also important to recognize Karl Popper's Intolerance of Intolerance. This stuff is no longer idle speculation -- it is an active facet of authoritarianism that is playing out around us right now.
  - jacquesm 7mo ago
    Indeed, and it is interesting how all those countries that have seen this up close have reasonable upper limits and courts that will try to find a balance without falling over one way or the other. Obviously you won't be able to please everybody all the time but we're - as you so eloquently put it - no longer in a speculative domain but in one where you can see the consequences play out in realtime. It's like toddlers with guns, they may not know exactly how the guns work but they're bloody dangerous all the same. Popper has it right, far more so than most other philosophers because he's coming at it almost from a security perspective: the system will have holes and you need to be willing to be pragmatic about that, rather than dogmatic. My solution for HN is simple by the way, I give up, but one account at the time and I simply block them. That doesn't help the site but it does help my blood pressure. The one I use is called 'Comments owl for HN'.
JeremyNT 7mo ago
It really does feel like the tech right has disappeared over the last year, at least as a more grass roots thing outside of the actual billionaires themselves. The early crypto and tax victories were presumably the impetus for many, and that's already been realized. There's not much incentive to stick around and be a bad faith advocate for incompetence and graft when you've already got yours.
- KittenInABox 7mo ago
  In my impression the billionaire worship is just another form of fundamental respect and enforcement of hierarchy that has been part of conservative politics forever. We are back to transparently the "right" leaning being wanting to keep the absolute monarchy.
jfengel 7mo ago
They've switched to "A Democrat told me to shut up once so free speech is over."
- YCpedohaven 7mo ago
  [dead]
salawat 7mo ago
>HN was such an interesting place in 2024, they’ve all disappeared, sadly. Likely because once you've seen your opponent mask off there is no longer a point trying to maintain a facade of politeness. You are in full adversarial waters. Either those people weren't actually for it and were talking a game until they got into power, or there's no longer a point in talking about it until we can get the current numb nuts out of the picture. One shouldn't tip their hand in an enemy controlled medium on their current plans for activism. That's how you go from unrestrained, to controlled opposition. Savvy? Here on HN, you damn well know you're in the SV types territory, and you know to whom'st they've aligned by their actions. Only conversations left to be had is needling those remaining until either they out themselves as part of the opposition, or as part of the sympathetic group. Turns out there's a lot of HN'ers more than happy with how things are going. Game theory/low trust environs are a bitch like that.
YCpedohaven 7mo ago
[dead]

RiverCrochet 7mo ago

Broadcast TV (and cable TV too) has been whithering on the vine for a long time. What a network couldn't broadcast on TV could simply be put on YouTube or other social network. TV could become state-owned media at this point and I don't think anyone would really care as long as the Internet is the way it is.

nickthegreek 7mo ago
I largely agree, but I think we have another 5-8 years before TV’s candle light is really extinguished. I hope they fight this nonsense to the bitter end.

dlivingston 7mo ago

Right here, to name one. Needless to say I feel very bleak and despondent as I watch the America I thought I knew transform into something dark. I do not anticipate the next decade+ of life in America to be free and prosperous.

pstuart 7mo ago
It's a weird world where one's hopes are in the incompetence of their leaders.

deleted 7mo ago

[deleted]