What You Can't Say

dtolton writes "Paul Graham has an excellent article posted on the subject of things you can't say. His article explores what ideas are generally considered heresy, and whether or not those ideas might be true nonetheless. He also presents advice for handling heretical ideas. Considering that many of the ideas in technology in general and Open Source specifically are near heresy, it's well worth a read."

Comments

My favorite heresy...

[musingmelpomene]

HIV does not cause AIDS illnesses.

AIDS is currently defined as presence of HIV antibodies (not live virus necessarily) plus any ONE of about 30 other illnesses, from low t-cell counts to pneumonia to kaposi's sarcoma. So through a miracle of circular reasoning, yes, HIV causes AIDS - but only because that's the definition.

Scientists who dispute that HIV causes all AIDS illnesses (pointing out that HIV, if responsible, acts differently than any other virus known to man in about a dozen ways) and postulate other hypotheses - for instance, that drug usage, including the chemotherapy drugs like AZT used for AIDS treatment, causes the immunodeficiencies, are barred from conferences and their papers are blacklisted.

Re:Best examples of heresy I can think of

[corebreech]

I'm sorry, I made the mistake of assuming that many of you were well read in such matters.

Here's an excerpt from The New York Times article dated 2001-09-22 I referred to:

A NATION CHALLENGED: THE TALLY; Officials Say Number of Those Still Missing May Be Overstated

By ERIC LIPTON (NYT) 1217 words

It has become clear, though, that the question of foreign citizens has been the most problematic in efforts to keep the city's count accurate. Over the last several days, the city's list of the missing became inflated by what officials said were missing persons reports from consulates and embassies for countries including India and Israel.

But interviews with many consulate officials yesterday suggested that the lists of people they were collecting varied widely in their usefulness. For example, the city had somehow received reports of many Israelis feared missing at the site, and President Bush in his address to the country on Thursday night mentioned that about 130 Israelis had died in the attacks.

But today, Alon Pinkas, Israel's consul general here, said that lists of the missing included reports from people who had called in because, for instance, relatives in New York had not returned their phone calls from Israel. There were, in fact, only three Israelis who had been confirmed as dead: two on the planes and another who had been visiting the towers on business and who was identified and buried.

As for The Washington Post story about Odigo, that paper has since taken it down. Here however is the story as reported by Haaretz. And here is a Google search that lists all the hundreds if not thousands of web sites that have copied the Post story for posterity, perhaps this link is the best... it also goes into the allegations about the Israeli spy ring, allegations which are largely confirmed by the Jewish publication Forward.

Re:Things like...

[Christian Engstrom]

[...] the demonization of one man has such a large effect on fashial hair fashions. Did this kind of thing happen during other large conflicts?

The moustache was in fact intended as a deliberate political statement: by cutting of the long, vaxed ends of the moustache that had been the hallmark of the previous generation of German leaders associated with the Kaiser, they were signalling rejection of the leadership that they blamed for Germany loosing The Great War on such humiliating terms.

So the facial fashion game was already on in that arena at the time. Weird times, to say the least.

Re:Best examples of heresy I can think of

[MythoBeast]

On point number 2, roughly 12% of all drug users are black (National Household Survey on Drug Abuse). Slicing the data another way indicates that while 12.2% of all white people use drugs, only 10% of blacks use drugs.

To go even further with this, 35% of all people arrested on drug charges are black (US Department of Justice). Roughly 53% of all people tried for drug charges are black, and 70% of all time served for drug charges is served by blacks (US Department of Correctional Statistics).

Please check the facts before you try to push your truths on others.

Re:The first 15 posts on this are things you cant

[_Sharp'r_]

In contrast to your point about the horrible "European ancestors", it was primarily the white Christian British who ended slavery over most of the world. Until that time, slavery was common just about everywhere.

Now about the only place slavery is still wide-spread is in a few locations that it's been going on for as far back as recorded history goes, being practiced by black muslims.

Hate to burst your bubble, but slavery was practiced by blacks on blacks, whites on blacks, whites on whites, blacks on whites, etc... by just about everyone for just about all of history until those "white Christians" finally put an end to it because of their moral beliefs informing their political decisions.

As for your rant on Native Americans, our people did plenty worse to each other for thousands of years before any Europeans showed up. It wasn't exactly a unique experience in history.

If you want a serious study of the issues, try reading a book like "Conquest and Cultures" by Thomas Sowell.