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Essentially, your argument is that the ends justify the means, right? Or, that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few? The issue is that we now kno

Essentially, your argument is that the ends justify the means, right? Or, that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few? The issue is that we now know that things blow up in social media so we should adjust our behavior to be ethical. The case of dongle-gate at PyCon is a good example to talk about. We should now understand that attempting local solutions outside of social media is far preferable. Individuals (on either side of an issue) should not be cannon fodder for social causes. Inviting/creating that sort of public ostracism is extremely irresponsible. I hope that we (collectively) are learning that lesson. Maybe protecting individuals from social media attacks can be seen as a social justice cause? The most vulnerable minority is the minority of one.

geofft 12y ago
No, absolutely not, and I'm sad that anyone would think I'm advocating that, because it means I wrote unclearly. My argument is that distasteful but not disallowable means should not scare us off from meaningful ends. Disallowable means are, as always, disallowable. Here's an example of a disallowable means: come up with trumped-up excuses using forged evidence to fire all the powerful white men on the grounds that once you get rid of them, the people who'll fill in will be (probably) less oppressive. You can probably even come up with data backing that. But it would be completely inappropriate. (Not to mention strategically wrong because it legitimizes a harmful strategy, but it's also inherently wrong even if it weren't strategically wrong.) My worry is that we'll look at a possible side effect of a means as a threat, as you're portraying things "blowing up", and that will be a chilling effect on change. Whatever the problems are with social media, to use that as an excuse is just that—an excuse, to prop up the current, bad systems.
- celticninja 12y ago
  but really what we see with these crusades by SJW's is just an opportunity for bullying, usually by people who were once bullied and now want to get their own back. A lot of it is bandwagon jumping by the majority of people, who may or may not have a dog int he fight, but just want to cause a fuss. It is these people that call the employers, DDOS employers websites etc and then everyone lumps them all together as SJW's, giving everyone a bad rep. Doing things quietly would bring about better change, not chnage through fear (as it is now) but change through education. Explain to eople why they are wrong, get them to conciously change their behaviour as opposed to reactively change it to protect themselves and not because of an understanding of where they went wrong. Reasd the article and everyone involved still thinks that what they said was a joke and was blown out of all proportion. No minds were changed here, people just batten down the hatches to protect themselves and their families.
  - geofft 12y ago
    That would be extremely nice, if it worked. Then the entire question about distasteful means wouldn't come up, which would be better for everyone, because distasteful means are still distasteful. Unfortunately, that's not how changing minds works, in practice. http://www.contralbum.com/blog/2015/2/5/political-correctness-is-more-reasonable-than-jonathan-chait http://www.contralbum.com/blog/2015/2/5/political-correctnes... See the section starting "The second great flaw...." (And yes, I get the irony of trying to convince you of this by cordially linking you to some random blog post that lists research.)
    - protomyth 12y ago
      So, looking at your link and I find and interesting line. "42% of Americans still believe we found weapons of mass destruction in Iraq" is presented as 42% of Americans are stupid and uniformed. It would seem those "informed" people are not readers of the New York Times as they have an article[1] detailing the WMDs found and the effects on our soldiers. Perhaps these "correct" people don't have friends who served or never served themselves? I suppose they can go with the Mother Jones approach and say there was no "active WMD program". But, that probably wasn't the question asked and I sure families of those veterans would say some were found. Seems if you only have 140 characters, a short conservation snippet, or a single data item then you might not get the whole story. Summing up the article as "the end justifies the means" seems appropriate and, to me, is still the simplest definition of evil. 1) http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/10/14/world/middleeast/us-casualties-of-iraq-chemical-weapons.html http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/10/14/world/middleea... 2) "In all, American troops secretly reported finding roughly 5,000 chemical warheads, shells or aviation bombs, according to interviews with dozens of participants, Iraqi and American officials, and heavily redacted intelligence documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act."
    - celticninja 12y ago
      So your go to alternative is bullying. Well I would prefer to effect no change than to have to force it through with threats and intimidation. SJW is more of a pejorative term these days, I don't know anyone who uses it in a positive way and you are perhaps the first person I have seen that indicates they themselves are an SJW. My experience of those who the term applies to is generally negative and I cannot think of one positive action that has come from these SJW's. I won't even wish you luck as I think it is a retarded idea that they preach. Yes I disagree with sexism, racism, homophones etc, I consider myself a bleeding heart liberal but there seems to be no redeeming qualities to the SJW movement it is juts bullying, hatred and damaging their own agenda (on the rare occasions when that agenda can be loosely agreed upon).

geofft 12y ago

No, absolutely not, and I'm sad that anyone would think I'm advocating that, because it means I wrote unclearly. My argument is that distasteful but not disallowable means should not scare us off from meaningful ends. Disallowable means are, as always, disallowable. Here's an example of a disallowable means: come up with trumped-up excuses using forged evidence to fire all the powerful white men on the grounds that once you get rid of them, the people who'll fill in will be (probably) less oppressive. You can probably even come up with data backing that. But it would be completely inappropriate. (Not to mention strategically wrong because it legitimizes a harmful strategy, but it's also inherently wrong even if it weren't strategically wrong.) My worry is that we'll look at a possible side effect of a means as a threat, as you're portraying things "blowing up", and that will be a chilling effect on change. Whatever the problems are with social media, to use that as an excuse is just that—an excuse, to prop up the current, bad systems.

celticninja 12y ago
but really what we see with these crusades by SJW's is just an opportunity for bullying, usually by people who were once bullied and now want to get their own back. A lot of it is bandwagon jumping by the majority of people, who may or may not have a dog int he fight, but just want to cause a fuss. It is these people that call the employers, DDOS employers websites etc and then everyone lumps them all together as SJW's, giving everyone a bad rep. Doing things quietly would bring about better change, not chnage through fear (as it is now) but change through education. Explain to eople why they are wrong, get them to conciously change their behaviour as opposed to reactively change it to protect themselves and not because of an understanding of where they went wrong. Reasd the article and everyone involved still thinks that what they said was a joke and was blown out of all proportion. No minds were changed here, people just batten down the hatches to protect themselves and their families.
- geofft 12y ago
  That would be extremely nice, if it worked. Then the entire question about distasteful means wouldn't come up, which would be better for everyone, because distasteful means are still distasteful. Unfortunately, that's not how changing minds works, in practice. http://www.contralbum.com/blog/2015/2/5/political-correctness-is-more-reasonable-than-jonathan-chait http://www.contralbum.com/blog/2015/2/5/political-correctnes... See the section starting "The second great flaw...." (And yes, I get the irony of trying to convince you of this by cordially linking you to some random blog post that lists research.)
  - protomyth 12y ago
    So, looking at your link and I find and interesting line. "42% of Americans still believe we found weapons of mass destruction in Iraq" is presented as 42% of Americans are stupid and uniformed. It would seem those "informed" people are not readers of the New York Times as they have an article[1] detailing the WMDs found and the effects on our soldiers. Perhaps these "correct" people don't have friends who served or never served themselves? I suppose they can go with the Mother Jones approach and say there was no "active WMD program". But, that probably wasn't the question asked and I sure families of those veterans would say some were found. Seems if you only have 140 characters, a short conservation snippet, or a single data item then you might not get the whole story. Summing up the article as "the end justifies the means" seems appropriate and, to me, is still the simplest definition of evil. 1) http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/10/14/world/middleeast/us-casualties-of-iraq-chemical-weapons.html http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/10/14/world/middleea... 2) "In all, American troops secretly reported finding roughly 5,000 chemical warheads, shells or aviation bombs, according to interviews with dozens of participants, Iraqi and American officials, and heavily redacted intelligence documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act."
  - celticninja 12y ago
    So your go to alternative is bullying. Well I would prefer to effect no change than to have to force it through with threats and intimidation. SJW is more of a pejorative term these days, I don't know anyone who uses it in a positive way and you are perhaps the first person I have seen that indicates they themselves are an SJW. My experience of those who the term applies to is generally negative and I cannot think of one positive action that has come from these SJW's. I won't even wish you luck as I think it is a retarded idea that they preach. Yes I disagree with sexism, racism, homophones etc, I consider myself a bleeding heart liberal but there seems to be no redeeming qualities to the SJW movement it is juts bullying, hatred and damaging their own agenda (on the rare occasions when that agenda can be loosely agreed upon).