Open Letters- "Cancel Culture"

[Heartofice]

1 minute ago, Liffguard said:

It's a problem, but as stated above, it's not new. Employers have always wielded vast power to police their employees opinions and statements, and fire them when they didn't like those opinions and statements. I agree this isn't a good thing. The power imbalance between employers and employees is a problem. But the solution is to address that power imbalance.

I agree with your earlier point about employee protection and unions. The problem is where the push to fire people is coming from and that is new.

Internet rage mobs are new, and they act with a moral certainty to bring down those  whom they disagree with. I think even with proper employee protection people’s lives will still be ruined by the actions of these mobs.

[DanteGabriel]

23 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

You actually defended him being physically assaulted, straight faced. 

Do you know for a fact he was part of that violence? A quick google again shows it's really not all that clear, despite what you might have read, because I doubt you ever bothered to even consider that possibility. He denies it. 
https://reason.com/2019/09/03/andy-ngo-video-antifa-patriot-prayer-attack-media/

But anyway, this is totally off topic, and more importantly, it isn't something I care even a little bit about. I do care that you seem to think this is a stick to beat me with it, the amount of times you post about it, as if it is in any way clever.

I'd like you to go back and find where I defended him being assaulted. This is more of your strawman bullshit. I'm not going to spare any tears for a propagandist getting the trouble he repeatedly courts but nowhere can you find me saying it was a good thing he got his dumb lying ass beaten for swimming in the wake of white supremacists.

The Reason article you link (which I had already read) asks you to take the kindest possible view of Ngo's behavior. That he, a photojournalist, did not notice people arming themselves. That he was oblivious to them discussing violence as they planned to move against a peaceful business. He was too focused on his phone to notice that talk about violence. Ngo even admits that his "reporting" portrays Antifa as the sole cause of violence.

So no, I don't find your Reason link convincing. I suspect it is only convincing to apologists for white supremacist militias. I bet it's purely a coincidence that Quillette dropped Ngo's name from the masthead hours after the Mercury story went up.

15 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

What about the non powerful people it affects who lose their jobs? Isn’t it actually the reverse that is true, that JK is actually mostly shielded due to her wealth, if she didn’t then she would probably be keeping quiet.

What non powerful people have lost their jobs, and for what? I don't mourn people losing their jobs for racist outbursts.

[JoannaL]

2 minutes ago, DanteGabriel said:

"I don't want to work with a pedophile or a Nazi" is a far cry away from "I don't want to work with people who don't share my views." This is a vile and reductive strawman.

Nazi and paedophile were only examples on my side, you can insert here anything you like. I just picked IMO real odious views. But who can decide what is an odious view apart from the lawmaker? I think no one else has the right to  just decide this view is unlawful and not any longer protected by free speech. apart from this no one (especially no employer) should have the right to demand a certain viewset. Which also means that as an employee I cannot demand that my fellow (example: actor) coworker should be fired only because he is a communist or whatever. Can I demand that my coworker is not a communist? If I want to "make America great again" should I complain to my employer if my coworker thinks this is BS?

[Heartofice]

Just now, DanteGabriel said:

What non powerful people have lost their jobs, and for what? I don't mourn people losing their jobs for racist outbursts.

I posted a bunch of links up thread which only took about 10 minutes of googling and I know you’ve seen it.

[DanteGabriel]

24 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

I posted a bunch of links up thread which only took about 10 minutes of googling and I know you’ve seen it.

I looked at those links -- and by doing so I have extended you more courtesy than you did when you ignored my post about Ngo being present in the Patriot Prayer attack on the cider brewery.

Those links are a very mixed bag. I have no pity for James Damore. Maybe the musician whose performance got cancelled might have a legit grievance. Did she never work again? Was she left destitute? The author from the pulp mill whose contract was not renewed after she tweeted to support Rowling -- did she ever work again? Was she blacklisted from all fiction?

A lot of the others are suspect narratives from shit-stirring sites. Maybe some were unjustly fired. Not sure any of these people are more deserving of justice than the millions of people fired for worse reasons than expressing an unpopular or racist-adjacent opinion on social media. Overall I'd support better employee protections because the employer always has had too much power over people's lives.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

48 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

What about the non powerful people it affects who lose their jobs? Isn’t it actually the reverse that is true, that JK is actually mostly shielded due to her wealth, if she didn’t then she would probably be keeping quiet.

Given that the press is less likely to report about non-noteworthy people being impacted by "cancel culture" is it possible people are being impacted and we don't have any documentation of it because those being impacted aren't "of note"?

[DanteGabriel]

22 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

Given that the press is less likely to report about non-noteworthy people being impacted by "cancel culture" is it possible people are being impacted and we don't have any documentation of it because those being impacted aren't "of note"?

I dunno, Quillette and other right wing sites seem to have found quite a cottage industry in digging up obscure victims of the intolerant librul hivemind. I just had no idea we were so powerful.

[Heartofice]

37 minutes ago, DanteGabriel said:

I have no pity for James Damore.

I do have pity for him. It's hard to see what he actually did wrong, when you look at the case, and yet he will likely never work in the industry at the same level again. He's really not a bad guy, probably suffers from some form of autism. He had a number of pretty untrue things said about him and was labelled as a really bad guy and a sexist, when he was actually interested in increasing the number of women in the industry. 

40 minutes ago, DanteGabriel said:

 Did she never work again? Was she left destitute? The author from the pulp mill whose contract was not renewed after she tweeted to support Rowling -- did she ever work again? Was she blacklisted from all fiction?

This is a comment that gets brought up time and time again. What is it you are asking for here? Would it only be a problem is these people are left destitute and never able to work again? If they lose their jobs is it ok because they 'might' be able to get another job somewhere else? 

42 minutes ago, DanteGabriel said:

Overall I'd support better employee protections because the employer always has had too much power over people's lives.

On this much we at least agree.

[DanteGabriel]

6 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

I do have pity for him. It's hard to see what he actually did wrong, when you look at the case, and yet he will likely never work in the industry at the same level again. He's really not a bad guy, probably suffers from some form of autism. He had a number of pretty untrue things said about him and was labelled as a really bad guy and a sexist, when he was actually interested in increasing the number of women in the industry. 

This is a comment that gets brought up time and time again. What is it you are asking for here? Would it only be a problem is these people are left destitute and never able to work again? If they lose their jobs is it ok because they 'might' be able to get another job somewhere else? 

Well, what are you asking for? Do you want the Twitterverse to stop piling on people who fuck up? Do you want private employers to have better reasons to fire people? I'm sure Google has fired a ton of people for stupid reasons. Why cape for a guy who got fired for pissing off a bunch of his co-workers by saying that women aren't as good as men at tech jobs?

[Heartofice]

25 minutes ago, DanteGabriel said:

Do you want the Twitterverse to stop piling on people who fuck up? Do you want private employers to have better reasons to fire people?

Well actually yes.. that is pretty much it. Though 'fuck up' is highly subjective, which is part of the issue.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

52 minutes ago, DanteGabriel said:

I dunno, Quillette and other right wing sites seem to have found quite a cottage industry in digging up obscure victims of the intolerant librul hivemind. I just had no idea we were so powerful.

As I pointed out up thread they went after Steven Pinker.  I simply wonder who has been targeted who we don’t know about because they don’t have Pinker’s pull.

[DanteGabriel]

25 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

Well actually yes.. that is pretty much it. Though 'fuck up' is highly subjective, which is part of the issue.

Good luck getting large groups of people to stop pile-ons, and good luck getting public corporations to care more about the rights of their employees than the opinions of the public. It seems what you're asking for is a change in human nature or society. "Cancel culture" to me seems like ordinary people making use of the tools available to react to perceived injustice in the world. Obviously they will be wrong from time to time and some people will go too far. But people who criticize "cancel culture" seem to act like there's some arch-liberal central command in Cambridge or something that's putting hits out on innocent well-meaning people, when the phenomenon seems to be pretty predictable when you give millions of people the technology to speak to each other directly.

By the way, still waiting for you to cite my "straight-faced" defense of Ngo's assault.

[DaveSumm]

2 hours ago, JoannaL said:

Nazi and paedophile were only examples on my side, you can insert here anything you like. I just picked IMO real odious views. But who can decide what is an odious view apart from the lawmaker?

Exactly, by whose metric is this declared odious? I don’t see how you can enforce a policy where you get sacked for something that is legal and has nothing to do with your job.

[OldGimletEye]

22 hours ago, larrytheimp said:

 

If back during debates on integrating black and white society a journalist just had a Fact Box in the local paper listing 'facts' about differences between black people and white people that included "blacks more likely to have sickle cell anemia" "more likely to have diabetes" "more likely to have a criminal record" I think you could call that socially irresponsible.  I mean hey, it's not their fault what someone does with that information.

When the feds demanded access to the NY driver's license database, specifically on licenses granted to undocumented people after Project Greenlight became law, all while ICE was stalking courthouses deporting people who showed up to pay traffic tickets, NY state could have just handed the info over.  Wouldn't be their fault if someone did something with these facts.

If I gave out your home address and phone number, it's just stating an objective truth.  If someone else 'swatted' you, why would i be guilty?  See how that works?  Intent doesn't really matter if there are material consequences to it.  

And you're conflating two different points.  The comment about a counter study was "what should happen if the employer disagrees with something an employee is saying" instead of firing them.  It wasn't about how the researcher needs to do that.  He can do whatever he wants.  

I also maybe shouldn't have used the phrase 'objective truth' to describe a study.  There could very well be other studies showing more material gains from violent protests.  

When we get to the point that we are having to engage in all types of mental gymnastics to justify, the sacking of a guy who tweeted a link to what appears to be well thought out political science paper, we have reached the bottom of the barrel.

The fact that people on the left are trying to justify this, by engaging in all types of mental gymnastics, pretty much reinforces the letter's basic point. And it's a said day for the left, as it used to be, largely, the guardians of free speech.

The thing you have to understand is that would be censors always can point to an "emergency", arguing "well, I'm for free speech, but see the thing is, the times are unusual right now." Human history has always been tumultuous. Their is always some "emergency" going on. So the argument that "but, these times are different" always need to be viewed with great suspicion.

And the arguments that this particular political science paper would have wrecked the protest movement or encouraged the police is pretty tenuous. I have no idea how a political science paper on the political effects of a protest movement would actually encourage the police. I think argument is ridiculous. I just can't imagine the police saying, "Hey some professor just found that violent protest have long term political consequences. Now we really can start beating the fuck out of people". The assertion makes no sense. And the fact it was made, just seems to be an indication of how some on the left are grasping for straws.

The only people that might have been affected by the paper are those arguing for violent protest as an effective means of political change and not interested in changing or revising their opinions. Committed ideologues basically.

And some of your examples just miss the mark, when talking about privacy issues. To compare the tweet about a political science paper, which is already in the public domain, and was intended to be by its creator, to the situation of publishing some one's private information is pretty absurd. I do recognize people have legitimate privacy interest. But, nobody's privacy interest was threatened by the tweeting this paper.

22 hours ago, larrytheimp said:

Totally happy to concede that this example of Shor is an injustice!  

Hey @OldGimletEye

any thoughts on this?

Are we talking about the very first article you posted at this begging of this thread? Are you wanting comments about Bennett, the article in general, or something else?

[DanteGabriel]

4 minutes ago, DaveSumm said:

Exactly, by whose metric is this declared odious? I don’t see how you can enforce a policy where you get sacked for something that is legal and has nothing to do with your job.

If someone deals with the public, you absolutely can not have a Nazi in that role. When a cop is found to have been a Nazi sympathizer, you have to look at every case he's been involved in, every traffic stop, every public disturbance, to see if his bias affected the outcome. I don't see how it's at all controversial to think violent racists should be excluded from public interaction or trust.

[DaveSumm]

4 minutes ago, DanteGabriel said:

If someone deals with the public, you absolutely can not have a Nazi in that role. When a cop is found to have been a Nazi sympathizer, you have to look at every case he's been involved in, every traffic stop, every public disturbance, to see if his bias affected the outcome. I don't see how it's at all controversial to think violent racists should be excluded from public interaction or trust.

Hold on, you just introduced a bunch of words that I didn’t mention: I never said cop, and I never said violent. I’m just talking about views held, nothing illegal ever acted upon. So if we’re left with just ‘racists’, then you’re advocating sacking a whooooooolllle lot of people right there.

[Larry of the Lawn]

2 minutes ago, OldGimletEye said:

When we get to the point that we are having to engage in all types of mental gymnastics to justify, the sacking of a guy who tweeted a link to what appears to be well thought out political science paper, we have reached the bottom of the barrel.

The fact that people on the left are trying to justify this, by engaging in all types of mental gymnastics, pretty much reinforces the letter's basic point. And it's a said day for the left, as it used to be, largely, the guardians of free speech.

The thing you have to understand is that would be censors always can point to an "emergency", arguing "well, I'm for free speech, but see the thing is, the times are unusual right now." Human history has always been tumultuous. Their is always some "emergency" going on. So the argument that "but, these times are different" always need to be viewed with great suspicion.

And the arguments that this particular political science paper would have wrecked the protest movement or encouraged the police is pretty tenuous. I have no idea how a political science paper on the political effects of a protest movement would actually encourage the police. I think argument is ridiculous. I just can't imagine the police saying, "Hey some professor just found that violent protest have long term political consequences. Now we really can start beating the fuck out of people". The assertion makes no sense. And the fact it was made, just seems to be an indication of how some on the left are grasping for straws.

The only people that might have been affected by the paper are those arguing for violent protest as an effective means of political change and not interested in changing or revising their opinions. Committed ideologues basically.

And some of your examples just miss the mark, when talking about privacy issues. To compare the tweet about a political science paper, which is already in the public domain, and was intended to be by its creator, to the situation of publishing some one's private information is pretty absurd. I do recognize people have legitimate privacy interest. But, nobody's privacy interest was threatened by the tweeting this paper.

Are we talking about the very first article you posted at this begging of this thread? Are you wanting comments about Bennett, the article in general, or something else?

Was asking about Bennett.  But re: Shor, I'm not justifying his firing, I'm explaining how his actions could be legitimately questioned, but more than that all those examples you're calling mental gymnastics were a counter to you and Ran being absolutely incredulous that sharing a fact or truth could ever cause any harm or that responsibility for that harm could fall on the person sharing it.  Those are all examples of someone sharing a fact that causes material harm.  Call that mental gymnastics, I'm just answering your questions.

Privacy has nothing to fucking to with it.  It's about understanding the context of what's going on around you, thus the "objective truth doesn't exist in a vacuum" that was so troubling.  

And again, I think Shor's firing was wrong, but I understand how people could be pissed.

[DanteGabriel]

Just now, DaveSumm said:

Hold on, you just introduced a bunch of words that I didn’t mention: I never said cop, and I never said violent. I’m just talking about views held, nothing illegal ever acted upon. So if we’re left with just ‘racists’, then you’re advocating sacking a whooooooolllle lot of people right there.

All right, what's a safe job for a Nazi to hold? Teacher? Bank loan officer? Credit bureau employee? Restaurant staff? Are you pretending that Nazis just treat their belief like a weekend hobby and won't allow their prejudices to affect how they act professionally?

If you think that blacks, Jews, or some other group of people are subhuman, you should not be in a job where you interact with them. If Nazis want to be garbage collectors, well, that may be okay.

[OldGimletEye]

18 hours ago, The Marquis de Leech said:

I still remember when criticising the Iraq War got you labelled as an apologist for dictators. "Freedom isn't free", and all that nonsense.

For somebody in their 20s, all this stuff probably seems like ancient history. But, I remember all of it quite vividly. I still remember all the dishonest and hokey horseshit that happened to silence critics of the Iraq War and the Bush administration.

In one case, I remember Bill Oreilly arguing that people should be prosecuted for sedition. The thrust of his argument? You can't yell fire in a crowded theater. So ergo, prosecuting people under sedition is good to go. There was no attempt to distinguish the two cases. It was completely a disingenuous argument. The difference of course is that yelling fire in a theater does not remotely advance any political, scientific, philosophical, or artistic viewpoint. It is just the utterance of a false fact about which there is no material dispute.

[Darth Richard II]

Always punch Nazis in the face. Always.