5 ms·

That makes it very hard for some minority groups to talk freely. Trans people are a big example but even gays can be at risk. And then there are whistle blowers

by cbd1984 12y ago

That makes it very hard for some minority groups to talk freely. Trans people are a big example but even gays can be at risk. And then there are whistle blowers.

hga 12y ago
And speaking of "minority groups", at least on the net, what about conservatives? Echoing my other comment about the totalitarian and most especially Stalinist nature of this arena, Brendan Eich was purged from Mozilla for holding the same position on gay marriage as Obama, "CEO" of the entire nation, officially did until May 9th, 2012, although in fairness to Obama, he said he changed his mind as opposed to always being at war with Eastasia. The Left has captured a whole bunch of fields like science where "No Irish or (open) Conservatives" applies, so to still be able to engage in the public sphere anonymity is required. And fortunately anonymity is enshrined in our lowercase and uppercase c/Constitutional order, e.g. The Federalist Papers. Compare to South Korea where they're still in a not quite hot but definitely not cold war with their northern Communist neighbor; I don't believe they can afford some of the civil liberties we enjoy.
- dragonwriter 12y ago
  > And speaking of "minority groups", at least on the net, what about conservatives? Conservatives aren't an underrepresented or disempowered group (the relevant sense of "minority"), even on the net. They are a group with disproportionate power (rooted in disproportionate economic power, extending to political and social domains), many of whose members have, or effect for propaganda purposes, an (unjustified) sense of persecution.
  - forgottenpass 12y ago
    Persecution complexes are a red herring. Society does coalesce into like-minded groups, usually with different ideological trends than the larger society as a whole. Either we can try to analyze treatment of X in subgroup Y, for any X, or we've set ourselves up for dead end reasoning with the outcomes predetermined. That doesn't mean X1 is the same as X2 on any axis. The strong point found in a slight rework of the grandparent's point is that for a large number of communities on the internet conservatives are the minority group. The bifurcation along the left-right axis is one, if not the most, visible splits on the internet that websites fall on one side of. Also, persecution complexes are not unique to the empowered, it's just a fools errand (and asking for a flame war) to try and engage in well intentioned discussion to untangle actual persecution from perceived persecution among dis-empowered groups.
  - patzerhacker 12y ago
    >Conservatives aren't an underrepresented or disempowered group (the relevant sense of "minority"), even on the net. Regardless, silencing or demonizing any group is wrong.
    - Elrac 12y ago
      > Regardless, silencing or demonizing any group is wrong. I find this blanket generalization hard to accept. There's a group of parents who try to cure their children's autism by making them drink diluted chlorine bleach and giving them enemas of the same stuff. They get their advice from a couple who make money from the sale of books, supplements and services related to this horribly misguided and abusive practice. Would it be wrong to try to silence the perpetrators?
      - hga 12y ago
        Under what principle would you allow silencing, removing the ability of these people to speak, that includes them but not your favored tiny or not so tiny groups?
        patzerhacker 12y ago
        I find it disconcerting that many self-identifying 'liberal' groups advocate for the anti-liberal restrictions of speech codes. If you are not for free expression, everybody's, not just the ones you agree with or approve of, then you do not hold liberal views and are not a liberal.
        hga 12y ago
        That's because these people were never liberals. After they "used up" the word progressive, they stole liberal from the "classical liberals", somewhat akin to today's libertarians ... and now they've pretty much used up "liberal", and many are recycling the word progressive.
      - patzerhacker 12y ago
        >There's a group of parents who try to cure their children's autism by making them drink diluted chlorine bleach and giving them enemas of the same stuff. That's a crime. Full stop. Those parents should be charged to the fullest extent of the law. >They get their advice from a couple who make money from the sale of books, supplements and services related to this horribly misguided and abusive practice. Would it be wrong to try to silence the perpetrators? YES IT WOULD! (I wish I could make this larger, bold, blinking, and shouting.) Writing that one should do something stupid and dangerous is not a crime, otherwise half of the clickbait articles on the web would result in jail time for the posters. Thoughts, in and of themselves, don't MAKE people do anything. The person hearing them always has a choice. Now if you want to make it illegal to SELL their supplies because they're a risk to public health then go right ahead. A restriction on commerce is not a restriction on speech. We criminalize representing oneself as a doctor if you're not. What you're not allowed to do is shut someone up if you don't like what they're saying.
- cafard 12y ago
  Stalinist? Brendan Eich is cutting down trees in Kolyma? No, I don't think that he should have been pushed out, but come on.
  - hga 12y ago
    Sorry for my lack of clarity. I'm using "Stalinist" as shorthand for constantly changing party lines, which Stalin was infamous for, e.g. the public about face of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, obviously reversed on 22 June 1941, the day when Communists e.g. joined the French resistance, stopped sabotaging US rearmament, etc. As for "cutting down trees in Kolyma" ... well, a few minutes with Google just now indicates he's become an unperson on the web, something else Stalin was notorious for doing. While I doubt Eich's been reduced to hard labor in a rural region unless he just wanted to get away from it all, who denies his career is effectively over? Unless, of course, he's doing things anonymously?
- cbd1984 12y ago
  > Brendan Eich was purged from Mozilla No. He exercised his free speech, others exercised their freedom of association. People didn't like that, necessarily, but that's life. Calling it Stalinist is just a way to demonize your opponents. > The Left has captured a whole bunch of fields like science Wrong. What happened was that the GOP decided that the science in some issues is contrary to their party line, and began to deny it. There is no "Liberal Science", "Conservative Science", "Jewish Science", or "German Science", just science backed by evidence and non-evidence-based denials thereof. Just because the news media gives you time doesn't mean you have a valid argument; just because you have a vested interest in something being wrong doesn't make it wrong.
  - hga 12y ago
    It appears you missed my point about the Left capturing fields, it refers to this sort of thing: https://www.google.com/search?q=no+irish https://www.google.com/search?q=no+irish As in I wouldn't try to become a scientist today, vs. back in the '80s, I'd have to avoid fields captured by the Left's Gleichschaltung. In that sense, there was a "German Science", more specifically Deutsche Physik, in that no Jews were allowed to participate. And no need to go off in partisan weeds, let alone imply there's much overlap between conservatives and Republicans.
    - cbd1984 12y ago
      Scientists don't care if you're left or right as long as you do good work. The fact party-line GOP dogma prevents scientists from doing good work in some fields is not science's problem, and does not represent scientists ousting conservatives from science.
      - hga 12y ago
        James Watson, co-discoverer of the structure of DNA, would beg to differ. You're also ignoring what it takes to get to the point of being able to do good work (ugrad -> grad -> postdoc -> (in the academic track) professor -> tenure), and that the funding for such work is governed by politics, not "science". ClimateGate showed us how bad that can get. As for the GOP, they're irrelevant to this discussion, except for the obvious fact they live rent free in your brain.

by cbd1984 12y ago

That makes it very hard for some minority groups to talk freely. Trans people are a big example but even gays can be at risk. And then there are whistle blowers.

hga 12y ago

And speaking of "minority groups", at least on the net, what about conservatives? Echoing my other comment about the totalitarian and most especially Stalinist nature of this arena, Brendan Eich was purged from Mozilla for holding the same position on gay marriage as Obama, "CEO" of the entire nation, officially did until May 9th, 2012, although in fairness to Obama, he said he changed his mind as opposed to always being at war with Eastasia. The Left has captured a whole bunch of fields like science where "No Irish or (open) Conservatives" applies, so to still be able to engage in the public sphere anonymity is required. And fortunately anonymity is enshrined in our lowercase and uppercase c/Constitutional order, e.g. The Federalist Papers. Compare to South Korea where they're still in a not quite hot but definitely not cold war with their northern Communist neighbor; I don't believe they can afford some of the civil liberties we enjoy.

dragonwriter 12y ago
> And speaking of "minority groups", at least on the net, what about conservatives? Conservatives aren't an underrepresented or disempowered group (the relevant sense of "minority"), even on the net. They are a group with disproportionate power (rooted in disproportionate economic power, extending to political and social domains), many of whose members have, or effect for propaganda purposes, an (unjustified) sense of persecution.
- forgottenpass 12y ago
  Persecution complexes are a red herring. Society does coalesce into like-minded groups, usually with different ideological trends than the larger society as a whole. Either we can try to analyze treatment of X in subgroup Y, for any X, or we've set ourselves up for dead end reasoning with the outcomes predetermined. That doesn't mean X1 is the same as X2 on any axis. The strong point found in a slight rework of the grandparent's point is that for a large number of communities on the internet conservatives are the minority group. The bifurcation along the left-right axis is one, if not the most, visible splits on the internet that websites fall on one side of. Also, persecution complexes are not unique to the empowered, it's just a fools errand (and asking for a flame war) to try and engage in well intentioned discussion to untangle actual persecution from perceived persecution among dis-empowered groups.
- patzerhacker 12y ago
  >Conservatives aren't an underrepresented or disempowered group (the relevant sense of "minority"), even on the net. Regardless, silencing or demonizing any group is wrong.
  - Elrac 12y ago
    > Regardless, silencing or demonizing any group is wrong. I find this blanket generalization hard to accept. There's a group of parents who try to cure their children's autism by making them drink diluted chlorine bleach and giving them enemas of the same stuff. They get their advice from a couple who make money from the sale of books, supplements and services related to this horribly misguided and abusive practice. Would it be wrong to try to silence the perpetrators?
    - hga 12y ago
      Under what principle would you allow silencing, removing the ability of these people to speak, that includes them but not your favored tiny or not so tiny groups?
      - patzerhacker 12y ago
        I find it disconcerting that many self-identifying 'liberal' groups advocate for the anti-liberal restrictions of speech codes. If you are not for free expression, everybody's, not just the ones you agree with or approve of, then you do not hold liberal views and are not a liberal.
        hga 12y ago
        That's because these people were never liberals. After they "used up" the word progressive, they stole liberal from the "classical liberals", somewhat akin to today's libertarians ... and now they've pretty much used up "liberal", and many are recycling the word progressive.
    - patzerhacker 12y ago
      >There's a group of parents who try to cure their children's autism by making them drink diluted chlorine bleach and giving them enemas of the same stuff. That's a crime. Full stop. Those parents should be charged to the fullest extent of the law. >They get their advice from a couple who make money from the sale of books, supplements and services related to this horribly misguided and abusive practice. Would it be wrong to try to silence the perpetrators? YES IT WOULD! (I wish I could make this larger, bold, blinking, and shouting.) Writing that one should do something stupid and dangerous is not a crime, otherwise half of the clickbait articles on the web would result in jail time for the posters. Thoughts, in and of themselves, don't MAKE people do anything. The person hearing them always has a choice. Now if you want to make it illegal to SELL their supplies because they're a risk to public health then go right ahead. A restriction on commerce is not a restriction on speech. We criminalize representing oneself as a doctor if you're not. What you're not allowed to do is shut someone up if you don't like what they're saying.
cafard 12y ago
Stalinist? Brendan Eich is cutting down trees in Kolyma? No, I don't think that he should have been pushed out, but come on.
- hga 12y ago
  Sorry for my lack of clarity. I'm using "Stalinist" as shorthand for constantly changing party lines, which Stalin was infamous for, e.g. the public about face of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, obviously reversed on 22 June 1941, the day when Communists e.g. joined the French resistance, stopped sabotaging US rearmament, etc. As for "cutting down trees in Kolyma" ... well, a few minutes with Google just now indicates he's become an unperson on the web, something else Stalin was notorious for doing. While I doubt Eich's been reduced to hard labor in a rural region unless he just wanted to get away from it all, who denies his career is effectively over? Unless, of course, he's doing things anonymously?
cbd1984 12y ago
> Brendan Eich was purged from Mozilla No. He exercised his free speech, others exercised their freedom of association. People didn't like that, necessarily, but that's life. Calling it Stalinist is just a way to demonize your opponents. > The Left has captured a whole bunch of fields like science Wrong. What happened was that the GOP decided that the science in some issues is contrary to their party line, and began to deny it. There is no "Liberal Science", "Conservative Science", "Jewish Science", or "German Science", just science backed by evidence and non-evidence-based denials thereof. Just because the news media gives you time doesn't mean you have a valid argument; just because you have a vested interest in something being wrong doesn't make it wrong.
- hga 12y ago
  It appears you missed my point about the Left capturing fields, it refers to this sort of thing: https://www.google.com/search?q=no+irish https://www.google.com/search?q=no+irish As in I wouldn't try to become a scientist today, vs. back in the '80s, I'd have to avoid fields captured by the Left's Gleichschaltung. In that sense, there was a "German Science", more specifically Deutsche Physik, in that no Jews were allowed to participate. And no need to go off in partisan weeds, let alone imply there's much overlap between conservatives and Republicans.
  - cbd1984 12y ago
    Scientists don't care if you're left or right as long as you do good work. The fact party-line GOP dogma prevents scientists from doing good work in some fields is not science's problem, and does not represent scientists ousting conservatives from science.
    - hga 12y ago
      James Watson, co-discoverer of the structure of DNA, would beg to differ. You're also ignoring what it takes to get to the point of being able to do good work (ugrad -> grad -> postdoc -> (in the academic track) professor -> tenure), and that the funding for such work is governed by politics, not "science". ClimateGate showed us how bad that can get. As for the GOP, they're irrelevant to this discussion, except for the obvious fact they live rent free in your brain.