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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."
Mr Hitler was a fantastic orator? (who would doubtless have made a great comedian).
While I'm on the topic, its interesting that an entire moustache can be effectively banned around the world due to the actions of one man.
Unless you happen to be Robert Mugabe (anyone notice his chosen moustache style?).
In the free world the media isn't government run; the government is media run.
Pointing out the evidence implicating Israel in 9/11.
Pointing out that the war on drugs is genocide.
Pointing out that feminism has ruined America.
I'm sure there are others, but I expect this is enough to score me -1, Heretic.
Is this truly the only Earth I can live on?
Dressing oddly gets you laughed at. Violating moral fashions can get you fired, ostracized, imprisoned, or even killed.
All relative notions of course. The office slut is ostracized by the prude secretary, but embraced by the CEO with a hard-on. "Candyass" expidites her corperate success while "violating moral fashions".
My eye was caught by this part:
Scientists go looking for trouble. This should be the m.o. of any scholar, but scientists seem much more willing to look under rocks.
Why? It could be that the scientists are simply smarter; most physicists could, if necessary, make it through a PhD program in French literature, but few professors of French literature could make it through a PhD program in physics.
Why, then, was the membership of my church at university drawn about 80% from the sciences and only 20% from the humanities? In fact my experience suggests a general trend here - scientists seem more likely to have strong religious views than artists.
I thought strong religious views were supposed to be signs of closed minds and credulity, not open minds and intelligence!
Karma whores only exist because of the mentality of the moderators who give them points. Its sad that if you moderate fairly & mod up the comments that were unfairly modded down you lose your mod status on here. The majority is not always right when the majority are sheep and -1 mod happy based on bias.
Although it's worthwhile to examine and criticize the existing orthodoxies of your society/timeperiod/family, the question is whether one truly examines one's own deeply held beliefs (i.e., the ground from which you're throwing bombs at the "establishment"). I've spent a lot of time around people who have a staggering degree of certainty that they're in the minority and an astonishing level of belief in their own victimhood and the heretical nature of their opinions.
The fascinating thing about those folks is that most of them were highly-educated white men (as am I) who thought that the deck in the US was stacked against them. They took the academic intellectual critiques of the existing society to mean that they were personally under attack and could never get a fair break, so that their boorish behavior was actually "speaking truth to power."
I guess my point here is that just because one fancies oneself a heretic doesn't mean that one is. A lot of self-styled heretics are just rude people looking for someone to blame outside themselves.
Point and Counterpoint: The Tick - "Spoon!" Neo - "There is no spoon."
America's heresy is to suggest that Bush hasn't exactly been honest regarding the Iraq war. To question our motives, you're immediately branded a liberal, a Saddam lover, or unpatriotic. Dissent is the sign of terrorist.
Well pfffffffft. The emporer has no clothes.
Not because people agree with me, which I can find 9 of 10, and maybe even 10 of 10 who would disagree, even greatly, on something.
I'm not uncomfortable, because I am confident in my opinions. As a Network Engineer, I will gladly discuss why I do not like VPNs and QoS. As an economist, I will gladly discuss why the Federal Reserve is an abomination and must be abolished instantly. As a citizen, I will gladly discuss why welfare must be abolished instantly, both for the poor and for the rich.
As a mortal being, I will gladly say that I believe humanity is on track to repair its damages already done, and to improve its condition in the future, so long as this absurdity called "government" is restrained from causing yet more harm.
As a male, I'll gladly say that Japanese women are the most beautiful in general.
Confidence, not agreement.
Bob-
The Ludwig von Mises Institute. The reasoning individuals economics
No... You wouldn't want people posting anything outside of standard conventions here on Slashdot. That's not the point of this forum. People should only post comments that are a part of the accepted mainstream TRUTH. Anything else is inappropriate, and should be modded to the level of a goatse post.
Calling something x-ist, as the author suggests, is often used to suppress ideas, even true ideas. But that doesn't mean that the concept of racism or sexism is just a form of censorship, as this article seems to imply. In fact, such labels are very useful for discussing implications as well as the truth value of a sentence.
That's pretty vague, so how about an example. If someone says, "Girls are bad at math", it can mean a lot of different things. One of the meanings might be, "Girls tend to do worse on math tests than boys of the same age," which if the age in question is high school, as opposed to elementary school or junior high, would be true. And yet, I can hear the cries, even though it's true, it gets labeled as sexist!
Well, there's a good reason for that. If what our hypothetical speaker really meant to say was, "Girls in high school perform worse on math tests that boys in high school," then why didn't he say that? The main difference in the two sentences, or in the general approach behind the sentences, is twofold: the implications of the sentence; and the assumptions behind it.
Those things need to be addressed, and it's not enough to say, "That's not true!" as the author of this article would have it. Because the sentence *is* true, but at least one implication -- that girls are naturally worse at math than boys, and there's nothing to be done about that -- is *exactly* the kind of idea that the author wants to avoid! It's pervasive, it's hard to get rid of, in most places in this country, people believe it implicitly. But it's also hard to talk about the general phenomenon without bringing up the concept of sexism.
So be careful of just rejecting x-ism and y-ic. They exist because they can be useful tools for uncovering the exact "fashions" which the author claims they hide.
Posted anonymously for obvious reasons.
There is a relationship between race and intelligence (think "Bell Curve").
Female circumcision, like male circumcision, is needed for the health and happiness of the girls upon which it is practiced.
People are easily swayed by slick advertising. That doesn't mean other people, that means you.
Children have a developed sexuality, and children under the age of 18 are capable of informed consent.
That's not to say that I personally do or do not believe in any of the ideas expressed above, just that if one were to express those beliefs in a public location they would be promptly shot.
1. Religion is the greatest folly of mankind.
2. Reproductive human cloning is a desirable technology.
3. Liberal and conservative are both worn-out and obsolete political philosophies.
4. A greenhouse effect ehanced by man-made pollutants is the only thing currently holding back a return of the Ice Age.
5. Greater availability of firearms tends to reduce the incidence of violent crime.
Hmmm. . . . Although I wouldn't normally do so, I think I better most this one anonymously.
Just finished reading it. Very interesting. He covers what we know we should do, but we often don't.
Much of his story is quite true. Another thing I might point out, is that while Graham does note that the current administration throws around the words "divisive" and "inappropriate" I can think up one more: "patriotic", where suddenly anyone who criticizes the war in Iraq is unpatriotic*. I really see how this guy earned his Ph.D.
*I supported the war in Iraq 100%, and support it to this very day, but I still find it a little disturbing that my opponents qualify for the title of "unpatriotic"
...who published the book "Ten Things you Can't Say In America".
To summarize his points:
* Blacks are More Racist than Whites
* White Condescension is as Real as Black Racism
* The Media Bias: It's Real, It's Widespread, It's Destructive
* The Glass Ceiling: Full of Holes
* America's Greatest Problem: Illegitimacy
* The Big Lie: Our Health Care Crisis
* The Welfare State: Helping Us to Death
* Republican v. Democrat: Maybe a Dime's worth of Difference, One's for Big Government, One's for Bigger
* Vietnam II: The War on Drugs, and We're Losing that One Too
* Gun Control Advocates: Good Guys with Blood on Their Hands
How about this one:
We exist purely as vehicles for our genes; our consciousness, our imaginations, our creations: all these are simply manifestations of our genetically-implanted instincts for survival. We believe we exist because it makes us better replicators. There is no other reason for existence, no god, no destiny, no karma. Our lives are neither random nor controlled: choice is an illusion, but so is fate. We simply operate, like the very intelligent automatons we are. Our minds are exquisitely adapted to solving large and complex problems, the bulk of which come from our intraspecies competition with each other. Our societies are hives, built through the collaboration of thousands and millions of minds. As a species we are genetically so similar, due to near-extinction around 50,000 years ago, that we are practically clones. All our notions of "ethnicity" and "color" are as meaningful as separating people by hair patterns or toe size. Our species is incredibly successful mainly because we have managed to turn our technological prowess onto ourselves, creating a feedback loop that has not stopped since we invented fire and freed our jaws to shrink and make space for a larger brain. Finally, although we all feel unique, we are in fact designed as team players, male and female, young and old adopting clear and comfortable roles that are so inate they are universal in all human cultures. Men solve technical problems, women organize social networks. Young men learn and work, young women dance and like to look pretty. Old women gossip and old men accumulate power."
These truths, though self0evident, are heresy because they seem to imply (wrongly) that life has no meaning and personal endeavour has no value. Au contraire, life is filled with meaning, and personal endeavour all that makes it possible.
Just because you understand fluid mechanics does not mean you cannot enjoy surfing a great wave.
OK, flame me now...
Ceci n'est pas une signature
I have never understood why society, experts or the media seem to believe that nudity harms children. Children see themselves naked everyday, why should it harm them to see someone else naked? It is absolute heresy in this age to claim otherwise.
What is worse than holding unpopular opinions is the reaction many people have to them. We jump all over those that hold opinions in the margins of society, however right or wrong they might be, and never seek to learn the reasons they hold such opinions or if there is any truth in them.
Humanity has come a long way, but as a society we seem as unreceptive to new ideas as ever.
This is exactly why I like Slashdot. Only rarely do I find myself agreeing with the group opinion, but it tends to open my mind to options and ideas that I hadn't otherwise thought of. Likewise, although my first view of a story will always be 3+, I frequently turn it down to -1 (when I have some extra time) to see what "the trolls" have to say.
It's also interesting to note that when I Meta Moderate (every couple of days), I find lots of anti-BSD or anti-Linux posts moderated as Flamebait. Being the heretic that I am, I always categorize such moderations as incorrect. In doing so, I've pretty much figured out that many of my opinions about copyright (WRT music) and software development (OOP and XP) are considered ignorant and uninformed.
IMHO, it would benefit many of us to spend more time in the company of people we disagree with, and not so much time just finding people to reinforce our already-formed opinions. I've feared for some time that one of the worst things about the Internet is that it allows someone whose ideas are dangerous to find others of like mind, and decide "I'm normal, because there are others out there like me who believe in gouging other people's eyes out for complaining about Joe Lieberman." It's OK for someone like that to feel the societal pressure that says "YOU ARE A WEIRDO."
Tim
"...About %50 of my income goes to paying tax of one sort or another. I get almost nothing in return..."
You're talking about the tangible benefits of living in a (relatively) high tax / high spending state.
The intangible benefits of living in a liberal stable democracy? Hard to quantify, since they're intangible.
I'm far too fukken lazy to look up the CIA world factbook or the Colonel Saunders' World Almanac, and correllate avg. % taxation vs. frequency of kidnapping , car-jacking, robbery, murder, civil war, invasion, torture (for criticising El Prezidente), being "disappeared", "ethnically cleansed" etc etc...
Of course, to some, I may have just said the unsayable, so I'm right on topic!
T&K.
Political language
Mmmm....Anyone have more?
-Jerald_Hams
Ha ha,
I love it when someone posts on slashdot about the "slashbots", not realizing that their *own post* is a counterexample! I see it a lot on other blogs too, usually like "I can't believe what slashdot is saying about copyright/operating systems/politics/etc", but then you go to the discussion and there's LOTS OF DIFFERENT OPINIONS, whoa, did the blogger just miss those, or did he just read the ones he wanted to?
Slashdot has lots of different folks and lots of different opinions. When you see the same thing repeated over and over, it's usually because many folks happen to agree.
For instance, I personally see little merit in the SCO suit, not because slashdot told me so, but because this is what happens in lots of other industries when a "winner" comes along and the "loser" struggles for relevance. Etc. Etc.
What you see on slashdot are lots of opinions, sometimes based on fact and analysis, often based on speculation or peer pressure, certainly, but I believe it is *just* as probably that somebody comes into slashdot and thinks "Everybody has the same opinion, I'm going to voice a different one" as much as "Everybody has the same opinion, I'm going to try and fit in".
Personally I think slashdot is great. Once you "learn" how to filter and handicap the comments, you can learn a lot and have a great time. Compare this to your local newspaper or MSNBC, etc. I'll take the din of slashdot any day. Or more precisely, the din of many weblogs, of which slashdot is one.
*why?*
why should it be more acceptable for a man to hit another man than a woman? why is it unacceptable to hit children?
yes, there's the dimorphism aspect of it but large men beating smaller men is readily acceptable (see "movies, hollywood").
more:
why is it unacceptable to have sex with animals?
or people under-21? under-18? under-16?
why is suicide morally wrong in the west when it is honourable (or can be) in the east?
My family is from Wisconsin. If we had wine with a meal, I would be given a glass. I can remember attending many picnics with family and relatives in local parks. There was always a keg or two of beer, along with the sausages, hamburgers and other food. Many of the kids would drink a half-cup or cup of beer, although most preferred soda.
What would happen if I tried that today, in another part of the United States? Let's see.
- Alcohol in a public park.
- Drinking in public.
- Giving alcohol to minors.
I'd probably end up in jail and see the kids put in foster care. I've also noticed the large number of "public service" ads on television that portray alcohol consumption, especially by children, as stupid and evil.Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
Ifind myself in a world where its dangerous to express my innermost fealings out loud. If i feal something its important that i can say so. If society dont like what i think its up to the society to prove me wrong by education and by reasoning. All absence of reasoning behind what is wrong and right breeds hate and terrorism.
Yes thats right, terrorism. What do YOU do when you feel for something more than you feel for life itself? Do you just step aside and let others make your decisions for you or do you fight for your right to think and feel as you like? Most people step aside and hide their fealings but some people like during the slave wars in the USA or in the indian upprising take the fight and stands for their beliefs.
If they are hindered from expressing their beliefs at some point they will resort to violence with a few exceptions. The israeli occupation and ethnic clensing of palestine is one excellent example of what happens when you step on someones rights too much. Anyone can become a terrorist at a point and its nothing that is contained to certain religions or folks.
Just look at your own history and the freedom fighters against england. Im sure they would be labeled terrorists by todays definition by the current administeration, dont you?
HTTP/1.1 400
For example, "black people are better dancers than white people". Yes, there will always be some pedant showing an example of a given white person who is a better dancer than a given white person, but that does not affect the usefulness of the generalisation.
Another example: next major internation sporting event, compare the relative representation of the various races in the finals of the 100m sprint. Now do it again in the swimming.
So here's a question you can't ask: why is it valid to segregate the 100m sprint into "male" and "female", but not into "african" and "chinese"? In one scenario, we are acknowleding that men tend to be physically stronger than women (even though you can find counterexamples), and in the other we are not.
People are different. Genders are different. Races are different. Short people can't reach the top shelf. Fat people can't fit in airline seats. Some genders can't reverse park. Generalities sometimes have a degree of truth. Let's get over it.
Slashdot does have biases. But when one of those hot-button topics comes up, I'll see a bunch of +5's on the minority side, as well.
It's a continuum. On the one hand, try going into a PC environment and talking about race&intelligence and see how fast people will literally shun you. Or a conservative group, and talk about gay marriage.
On the other hand, next time a "Linux rulez/sucks" thread pops up, try posting some thoughtful pro-Windows comments, and see if people respond to the actual points you make, or just knee-jerk. I really think Slashdot is pretty good on the rational debate.
As one of the most groupthunk people I know, I have to disagree with you on a couple of points.
/.ers will disagree with that, but I think that nails down the beliefs of the majority.
/., and that's often a bad thing, I don't see that any of the things you've pointed out rise to the level of "unsayable", even within the confines of Slashdot.
Copyright isn't evil. Copyright is an important guarantor of a creator's rights. The whole Linux thing wouldn't be possible without copyright protection. A few
Nevertheless, the current copyright system is too heavily biased towards creators, at the expense of the public and the public domain, and the situation is only getting worse with the recent copyright extension and the DMCA.
It appears obvious to me that the SCO lawsuit is utterly without merit. Obviously, everyone else here thinks so as well (probably even you). Now, there are a few reasons that such a consensus would emerge. The proponents of the SCO suit are being silenced, moderated to oblivion, or otherwise rendered incapable of presenting their side of the argument. Another is that nobody is interested in defending SCO on this forum, where Linux zealotry renders us all incapable of seeing the truth. Finally, SCO supporters may simply not have any reasonable arguments in their defense.
I've also seen a small minority of posts that coherently criticize Linux as a desktop platform, and I don't have to browse at -1 to find them. So while there is a herd mentality here on
You want the truthiness? You can't handle the truthiness!
I wonder on what that statement was based if not on a fully unfounded but fashionable conviction that somehow the hard sciences are better than the human and social sciences, and the hard (sic) scentist therefore are smarter (and deserve more money and better academic treatment, academic tourism etc.).
The interesting thing about this belief is that it is shared by both the hard scientists and the human/social scientists. But to my experience, confronting a member of one camp with a textbook from the other camp will produce very similar results, just a different reaction: the hard scientist will dismiss the assumptions and terminology as "absurd", "fuzzy", "bad" or "meaningless", while the human/social scientist will be impressed by the wanderful undechiphrable meaning.
You should always try to peek and think out of the box. For that, I find it very necessary for all thinking humans to escape the narrow prejudice of their specialisation: all human/social scientists should trained themselves well in maths at the very least, and all hard scientists should train themseves in philosophy an/or linguistics at the very least.
Obviously, geeks should do both!
-Kvorg
Metropolis was one of Hitler's favourite films.
Robots are everywhere, and they eat old people's medicine for fuel.
"There are all kinds of sacred cows here, that you criticize at your peril: the effectiveness of Linux, the evil of copyright in general and the recording industry in particular; the lack of merit to SCO's lawsuit ..."
:-)
/. equivelent of Calvin pissing on Ford got noticed by the masses. it works out for both sides and no one is any the less enriched because of it...
It really depends on how you do it...
I am a windows programmer / administrator by day (well, my subordinates actually administer everything), at night I do a *LOT* of work for RIAA endentured artists (to the point that it is generally much more profitable than my university gig -- and my boss knows this and allows my to fly off to LA or Nashville at a moments notice) and I get paid solely because of the enforcement of copyrights from these folks. I guess I could say that I secretly write code for SCO, but that would be stretching the truth
BUT -- I say this stuff and correct the misconceptions and generally I am modded up for my speach. Occasionally, the zealots get to my posts before the guys that read at +2 or better do (the only way to read this site these days) and I'll get zapped, but its not too often.
Yeah, there is a group speak around here and one must phrase your words anticipating the general arguments. I know one individual that seems to stalk the RIAA comments as if he had something personal to loose in the whole thing, and occasionally I notice I comment towards him before he will even start to refute the words.
So -- does the group think help or hurt? For me, it helps to force me to not just throw halfassed comments out there on certain subjects. The idiots in the groupspeak think will get modded up with a simple Copyright Is Dead post, the other end will get modded up with half a page of intelligent speach.
I can live with that...its almost like affirmative-action for the dumbasses. Those that can think on their own must do so more carefully, allowing us to reestablish our own thoughts on the subject...while the idiots can feel good because their
Social scientists, philosophers, historians, and psychologists--the kind of "soft scientists" Graham would probably not give the time of day to--actually think about these issues long and hard and write essays that are far more probing and deep than Graham's fluff.
What's worse than a soft scientist? A soft amateur, which is what Graham seems to amount to in this piece.
1. That for the most part, the Germans who participated in the Nazi atrocities were fairly normal people who felt they had little choice about what they did, that they could not really influence what happened, that they were not sure what was going on, and that maybe the victims deserved their fate to some extent.
Kind of like the relationship people in the west have to world hunger.
2. That world hunger is a soluble problem that we choose not to solve because other things are more important to us.
Well, just try and see where "No, that's ridiculous" will get you in response to "I'm a nigger".
Not only that, advocating any of these above ideas will not lead to any reasoned discourse but will result in a ratcheting of emotions and people starting to rant, sputter, leaflet, shout down speakers. I left out UFOs, ESP, and cold fusion because there was a time when science was actually open-minded about each of those topics, but UFOs, ESP, and cold fusion have gotten shot down on the evidence so many times that they are now in the realm of faith for their believers.
The five topics I have mentioned haven't been played out yet (we haven't run out of economic oil yet, the putative anthropormorphic global warming is still small, we don't yet have Mars samples in Earth laboratories). Also, there has to be some sense of doubt in the pleaders for the scientific consensus positions on each of the five topics, otherwise they wouldn't be using the language of taboo around these topics (the notion that taboos form around topics of which we are certain, but not so solidly certain).
Of course, if I am moderated Troll or Flamebait, or if replies to this post call me names, I will have evidence supporting my hypothesis. Each of the five statements is by itself a hypothesis and will be eventually proved or disproved (whether we make it 100 years without exhausting oil or not), and there are arguments to be marshalled on both sides of each of the statements.
The current copyright system is not biased towards creators. It's biased towards copyright holders, an entirely different animal.
The monopoly position of media companies enables them to foist unfair contracts on creators. Similarly, levies on blank recoridng media and the criminilization of tools prevents creators from using new technology to bypass the monopolies. Copyright extensions maintain the profits of copyright holders, while actively harming creators by (like software patents) increasing the chance that they will be sued for an accidental violation.
Ive been beaten shitless by a woman before (I was 21 at the time, she was 20), and she planned the whole thing beforehand. Basically she had been told that I had slept with her sister (untrue, told to her by someone who became her boyfriend after I told her to fuck off), invited me around for an evening in, locked the door using the security lock while i was settling in on the couch, and hit me with a fucking ball hammer. THe only reason i sustained a broken nose, wrist and collarbone was because of this fucking stupid retoric that it is totally not allowed to hit a woman in any situation. In the end, after I sustained the above, i thwapped her one, she went down and out, i got out a window and legged it.
The outcome? I got arrested by the police, had to explain everything (she admitted to assaulting me with a hammer, and causing my injuries, for the reason I stated above.) and in the end, I was charged with assault and sentanced to a 6 month suspended sentence, while she got off with nothing at all, but was allowed to take out a restraining order against me. While I was in hospital, she ripped off my bank account to the tune of just over 3000, and again the police did nothing (she had requested my pin number and had picked it up from my house a few nights before while she had keys and I was away on business. Wasnt until after this that I noticed my card was missing from my wallet).
Unpopular opinions are moderated away as trolls or flamebait. Low Karma users don't get modpoints, and neither ( I think ) do those who have spent long periods plumbing the Karma abyss such as myself, even if they subsequently acquire truly rocking Karma.
Hence, the cycle perpetuates itself. 'Proper' opinion is indirectly rewared with the ability to silence dissenters ( which should make your skin crawl ), and people tired of having their opinions reduced to inaudibility by down moderation ( particularly cute is the unparryable 'overrated' on comments that have never been moderated up - is the implication that the commentator does not deserve to have a voice? ) will also go elsewhere. With some justification. I don't think it's any great mystery why this happens. In fact, I think it's by design, although perhaps the design is to promote harmonious interaction as opposed to a thought monoculture.
Slashdot is what slashdot is, and people behave the same way online as they do off. Cliques will form, certain ideas will be branded as heretical, others will be held up as the shining truth. I guess that's just the way it goes. My advice is to not take the internet so seriously, and look at it as a kid would look at playground full of interesting rides, things to do, bugs to find under leaves etc. It causes a lot less stress that way.
YLFIOne god, one market, one truth, one consumer.
Someone said this. Almost everyone appeared outraged. Anyone who wasn't outraged kept their mouths shut.
Ditto for anyone who suggests that a woman wearing a outfit and walks alone at night is asking for trouble.
There's a difference between 'had it coming', 'asking for trouble' and actually 'deserving it'. But any time someone suggests the former two, everyone seems to think the latter is implied.
Even if you try and explain the difference between 'asking for trouble' and 'deserving it', the person will most likely put their hands over their ears and chant "it's a womans right to go anywhere she pleases at any time of the day wearing whatever she wants without fear of attack" over and over again, without listening.
For some people, it's almost like anything coming even close to threatening someone's idea of a taboo causes a brick wall to close over their mind, and out comes the pre-programmed response.
While Paul Graham's insights are nice, a better article would have offered up a better solution to this issue other than "Act phony in public, and hang out with people who think like you"(I'm paraphrasing...slightly).
Wisdom so accepted that none may question it:
Children below X years of age are not sexual beings, and have no sexual desires or impulses.
If you take X as 18 most would agree the statement is false. If you take X as 5 most would agree it is true. If you ARGUE for X as a low number you are a heretic.
In fact, anything involving children and sex is ripe grounds for heresy.
Most of the heresy posts I've seen so far are obvious -- there have been very few points made that are not made repeatedly by others outside Slashdot, from Rush Limbaugh to Ann Coulter to Robert Sheer. I have seen few truely heretical ideas listed in this discussion -- only unpopular ones. I'm much more curious about the unspoken assumptions we all agree on.
(And other than my poor attempt above, I'm coming up empty.)
That's exactly my point, although I didn't articulate it well. Moderators feel the need to select pro-Microsoft (or other unpopular) posts for the sake of "balance," not because they've found a worthy comment that deserves to be read. It's like a news article that goes to great lengths to present "both sides" of a political story, even if the author clearly believes that one side is full of crap. (The belief that there are only two sides to every political argument is another weird idea that often goes unchallenged, at least in the US.) Basically I'm saying that being against "free speech" is taboo on Slashdot, and this is demonstrated by the large numbers of highly ranked "opposition" posts that are completely without merit.
In Canada you get crucified if you speack of a "moderation tax" of 10$ per visit, even if capped at 100$ per year!
I would charge a 50$ per visit capped at 1000 per year!
Each time I go at the hospital I see one or more old lady bored in her home that thinks even the mall got borring! I have a headeach let's ask that nice doctor what he thinks!
The infamous "Post" that got endlessly modbombed despite all the positive moderation it received. A lot of people to this day can't even moderate or anything, despite positive karma, simply because they posted in that thread.
"Sufferin' succotash."
i think i'm due for a statement on it (a lot of people around me have been talking about it...)... firstly, women have changed in the past hundred or so years. some say it's due to hormones in beef, but whatever the cause, 12-18 year old women are PHYSICALLY roughly equal to 18-24 year old women of the past. full breasted, full form, women. they have all their secondary sexual characteristics and are in some if not most cases indestinguishible from other women. however, the law still treats them like little girls. once again, technology and the human species have outpaced law. especially in the united states where you have to be like 21 or something before you can be in porno(what the fuck? most women i know lose their virginity i'd estimate at or before 17. and some of the more slutty way before that. 21 for legality sake is just plain retarded. theres a lot of temptation between 16 and 21, especially in a sex-crazed culture like the one we have(woo) ) in the meanwhile, rape, and things glorifying the rape of children, and things glorifying sex with children, and predetorial sex, and above all predatorial rape sex with children, all on film and for profit just turns my stomach. can someone please tell me one reason why something like this is not a Bad Thing? and by children i mean not-even-trying-to-make-the-girls-seem-like-women. ..i mean exploiting whatever biological trigger there is in some men to be sexually attracted to children, FOR PROFIT.
if anything can be inspired by this, is that if you have no morality but that of the dollar, predatorial rape sex with children on video for profit is inevidible, and since this is in some way wrong(axiom?), pure capitalism(the morality of the dollar), is also to that extent wrong, and incomplete.
i think if you REALLY wanted to probe into what people find offensive, you wouldn't look at something that MIGHT be okay, when it boils down to it (secondary sexual characteristics are more important than law...it is in their name that the law was likely written).
another tangeant on this, is it also depends how old the male is.
when i was 16 i had some porn with 15-17 year old women in it. when i was 18 i found those files and saw them as "way too young", and deleted them. now that i'm 21 files i saw when i was 18 seem too young. this is important to notice(after all, wasn't there someone in your grade that you would have given anything to fuck? like grade 5? 6?)
the last interesting thing to note, is that i once had limewire or something installed, and it kept track of how many and which files were downloaded off my hard drive while connected to the gnutella network. day in, day out, i had something like 100x more downloads of a file called "childporn.mp3" than anything else. this scares the fuck out of me. what was the file? it was a rant by sean kennedy, saying about how he would kill and otherwise incite mass suffering on people who (make/host) child porn. or something.
anyways, i think i've rambled enough.
GENERATION 26: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation.
http://www.american-buddha.com/17.techniques.htm#1 7 TECHNIQUES FOR TRUTH SUPPRESSION
It was probably modded off-topic because the poster has posted it probably 1000 times in the last year. Congratulations to him for finally posting it to a topic somewhat related, but it certainly wasn't posted to spark conversation.
Back in the '80s, there was a company known as "Sir Unicorn Enterprises". They created a game called "Dreamquest" (which later morphed into the LRPS Live Role-Playing System). It was based on a D&D type scenario, where you had different character classes with different abilities etc. However it was done live-action and on a commercial scale... For my first game there were about 75 'players' (paying customers) and a dozen, or two, actors (game creatures).
One of the base rules of the game was "If you're out of your tent, you're in character".
Other than the limitations and powers of your character class, there was very little limitation to your character. You got to make up their personality, their costume, their history -- Even the history of how they got to Samiltan (the country in which the game was played). As an extreme, there was one guy on my first quest who was dressed in a (civilian) paratrooper's outfit. His story was that he was on a jump, went through this weird glowing portal thing, and next thing he knew he was fighting dragons.... Character class: Fighter (of course -- completely non-magical).
The venue of my first quest was a country club.. We had one small section of the country club building (basically a large room) and the edges of the property leading down into the river valley. On the Friday night, we were given very explicit instructions to not go beyond the end of the one room, because there was a wedding going on, and we were NOT to go beyond there. Disturbing the 'mundanes' (non-players) could get us booted out.
In game parlance, The world ends there.
Of course the country club didn't warn the wedding party about our presence (why should they? They knew that we wouldn't go past the "end of the world").
And of course, a couple of wedding party members wandered into the game space.
I'm thinking that the first thing that they learned was not to go past "the end of the world".
But they wanted to go home, so they started talking to people, and hearing stories -- stories from past dreamquests and the present one... stories of magic, demons dragons and an impending doom if "the unnamed one" could not be stopped.
At first, they were highly skeptical (of course), but they didn't really care, they just wanted to get home -- unfortunately, nobody could tell them about how to get home -- of course, nobody could, since it made sense that anybody who got home probably {w,c}ouldn't come (willingly) back from a mundane (non-magical) world. Nonetheless, it was possible (but not guaranteed) that a powerful enough wizard might be able to get them home. One thing that they had going for them, though, was that recent events in this corner of Samiltan had resulted in the gathering of some of the most powerful wizards known (and probably the cause of their own troubles). Thus, if anyplace had hope of getting them home, it was likely to be here. About the only thing that they learned for sure, however, was that they should not go past the end of the world... People were adamant about that -- beyond there lay death.
From what I can tell, they were in the game area for at least an hour... maybe two. Word was going around the players that a couple of characters (possibly actors) were playing guests from the wedding, and trying to get people to break character.
but we knew better, right?
Nobody would break character for them. The guy in the parachute outfit probably clinched it for them... If they could expect a straight answer out of anybody, it would be h
Sometimes boldness is in fashion. Sometimes only the brave will be bold.
Because ideological zealots will resent you for selectively believing (or disbelieving) their particular ideological abstraction, and because of this other independents (like you) will probably be jaded and cynical to the point that they do not bother caring what you think in the first place. Accept that you will probably never have any political weight (is this the "silent majority") because of this, and because it is hard to get independent-minded people to stick together. The requirement that you are constantly skeptical of your own ideas will alienate you from your very self. Finally, you will have to face the possibility that either there is no truth, or that there is truth but that the fundamental nature of human societies is architected in such a manner as to preclude any hope that it will ever comprise the majority of commonly held belief.
Do you want to replace your warm pillow of ideology with the cold hard brick of reason? Do you want the red pill, or do you want another thick chunk of prime steak with fine aged wine?
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
I agree with a lot of what he said but I don't think scientists are any better than the lay person at picking apart taboos. "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions" by Thomas Kuhn details the self-righteousness that scientists often display. The only real way to change things is to let all the people who came up with the original idea die.
Time makes more converts than reason
I don't, but that's not because I or my peers are conformist. Having offered conformism as a likely inference and dismissed coincidence as unlikely, Graham leaves out a third possibility: that my peer group is by habit and nature nonconformist and will happily accept and discuss any stated opinion.
The fourth possibility is that Graham means people of my age and cultural background (i.e. Greco-Roman/Anglo-Saxon derived Caucasian), rather than those folk I actually regard as a peer group. I profoundly resent the immediate derivation Graham makes - that "everything you believe is something you're supposed to believe". There are no grounds for reaching this conclusion from the position of lack of fear of wide-reaching discussion and candidness.
This article is a fine piece of fluff, with the low-flying non sequiturs carefully balanced by the empty speculation. Here's another example:
And yet, I wonder. The Dutch seem to live their lives up to their necks in rules and regulations. There's so much you can't do there; is there really nothing you can't say?
Perhaps Mr Graham should actually do some research before he wonders out loud. I lived in the Netherlands for two years, and the answer is yes. There is nothing you can't say. Next question. There's plenty you can't do because astoundingly even the Dutch would prefer not to sponsor murder, child molestation, or deviation from proper procedure.
Woolly thinking and a few historical quotations do not a strong argument make.
- J
Let's start with a test. Do you have any opinions that you would be reluctant to express in front of a group of your peers?
Hell yes!
I moved to the San Fransisco bay area slightly over five years ago. To this day I am extremely cautious about expressing most of my political and religious opinions. I learned that the hard way the first week I was here. It's not that this area is liberal or anything like that, it's because most people here are so damned intolerant of anything that even remotely associated with conservatives, Republicans (even liberal Republicans) or Christians (even liberal Democrat Christians).
I had a friend who no longer talks with me because she found out I'm a libertarian. In my forty years of life, this was a first to me, that someone would base their friendships on political affiliations. It boggles my mind.
I go to parties and someone says "we should round up everyone who voted for Bush and have them all shot." Several others nod their heads in agreement. Others may disagree with the penalty, but agree with the general sentiment. No one disagrees with the underlying premise that voting for Bush was akin to committing a crime. At a group of friends, two got into a spat over something as inconsequential as what temperature to set the thermostat. One left in a huff, and the other said "What a control freak! I bet she's a Republican!"
Do I dare let on that I'm not a member of the Democrat or Green parties? Will I be consigned to social ostracism if people find out I don't consider Bush to be Evil Incarnate?
A friend came over and expressed surprise at seeing my Bible out on the table. Why should he be surprised? It's the best selling book in all of history. It sold more copies last year than did The Lord of the Rings. Why should it be surprising that I own a Bible?
Yesterday while sitting around with some friends and drinking coffee, one of them sees a newspaper article about Mel Gibson and his new movie about Christ. "Oooh, I hate him," a friend said. "He's so... so... so damned conservative!" That was the worst epithet he could think of. "Conservative." Then he launched into a tirade about how Christians are homophobes.
Do I dare let on that I'm a Christian? If I were a poor hispanic who couldn't speak English, I could get away with being a Catholic. But I'm a middle class caucasian. Will people automatically assume all sorts of wrong things about me if they know I'm part of that 80% of people in the US who believe in God?
When you see a machine of wildly spinning metal gears, you know better than to stick your hand in. You know you'll like a finger or two. Likewise, when one sees a major metropolitan region where people go about spouting hatred for anyone of differing beliefs, you know better than to offer your opinion. It's just not safe.
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
Yawn, the althernative is that you only have, on average, 26,300 days period and wasting any of them thinking about (a nonexistent) eternity is just that, a waste.
To claim that it's unacceptable to be a christian in most of the western world today, certainly in the US, is just absurd. George W proclaims it on a regular basis and talks about god as if the existence of god, in particular, his god, is a forgone conclusion.
And for christ sake stop whining about the Romans. Christianity has so much blook on its hands that, imnsho, it has no room to whine about a two millenia old power struggle.
I sincerely regret that I won't live to see the day that humanity finally outgrows religion.
Every time I say something along these lines, someone will immediately counter with: No, it's the war on drugs that's bullshit. The war on drugs has had an incredible human cost in this country, and it's done nothing to combat the evils of addiction.
OK, fine. But then they'll follow it up with: Besides, I should have the right to experiment in the privacy of my own home!
To which I say: Experiment? And what, pray tell, is the nature of these experiments? What is the hypothesis to be proven here? That drugs get you high? Cuz I can point you to substantial prior work in that area, if you like.
What's more, who in the hell ever said that the war on drugs had anything to do with preventing you from dropping ecstasy in the privacy of your own home? Or in public, for that matter? As far as I'm concerned, it should be obvious to anybody that the war on drugs is all about money. It's about corrupt politicians, corrupt law enforcement, and blatant criminals both locally and overseas, all arranged in a little circle trading the money around. And in the middle are the people who use drugs, and they're the ones who are paying the bills -- with both their money, and the toll drugs take on their own lives.
The war on drugs isn't going to make drugs go away. But if you want the war on drugs to go away, there's one easy way to do it: Stop using drugs. Until people are willing to do that, you're just pouring more and more money toward preserving the status quo. And what do you get out of it, really?
Heresy, I know. Cuz after all, drugs are cool. They make you "counter culture." You're doing something they don't want you to do. Drugs make you more fun, more appealing. Proper use of them is a sign of maturity. It lends you worldliness, experience. There are lots of situations where you can't even imagine not doing drugs -- hell anybody who isn't is missing out, plain and simple.
Just like they said about cigarettes in the 1930s-40s. Go figure.
P.S. Before people bother to flame me, let me just point out that I'm not a tent preacher or anything. I'm not posting this to preach to people, or to convert them to any way of thinking. I'm posting it because this is a topic about speech taboos, and this is a line of thinking that I do believe in but I learned long ago to never bring up in public, cuz it's just not worth it. I reckon that's what makes it a taboo topic, right?
Breakfast served all day!
First of all, this really depends on where you are. In engineering fields there is a large balance of political viewpoints. I'd say the conservatives may out number the liberals where I work. (Large public college.) Where I did my undergraduate the guy with the nick-name "the liberal" was a Republican. My freshman year I debated for the Dems on the radio, because they couldn't find anyone else who was planning on voting for a Dem and willing to admit it.
But the real issue is still different. In college there is still a very strong bit of peer preasure to "belong". Not as strong as High School, but still there. This is enforced by people (loudly) complaining about folks they disagree with. So all opinions tend to be shot down. As conserative opinions are usually in the minority in liberal arts colleges, they tend to have more shots taken at them than the liberal opinions do....
As Nietsche famously said, "If you stare too long into the Abyss, 1d4 Tanar'ri of random type will attack you."
If you wonder, I have never committed statutory rape! Hell I never had sex with a minor in my life!
Example:
You are 23, you meet a girls who looks 21, swear she is 19, even show you a (fake) ID and you have a single wild night with her.
She gets in a fight with her best friend at school, who tells her parents by spite, the police are called. Once the complaint is made you a F***, even if the family does not wish to fill a complaint it's too late, it's in the DA's hands now. A year later you get a 2 to 5 year prison sentence. When you get out (with a larger a**-hole) you are shut down by everyone you know, must re-locate and your name / address is in the national list of registered sex offenders for the rest of your life!
Common guys, your drunk at a party, a girl follows you in the bathroom and grabs your dick (I lived this a few times so did many friends). What do YOU do? You are very stupid yes, but prison?
I understand the need for laws to protect our innocent young girls, but where are they all hiding? Girls get active at 12-14 today. To be a virgin at 18 is a social shame!!! Sexual activity is the favorite sport of all teenagers today.
When I was in college the papers got filled with a case, a sports figure that went to a 25YO+ bar (everybody needed a photo ID to get in). All the witnesses said this girl was on him all evening, looked over 20. They finished in his hotel room. She was 17, still in high school; bragged about her adventure. Her dad was a lawyer, the guy got arrested.
When I was 17 to 20 I hanged with a crowd that liked "private parties" (no ID, no closing time, no bouncer, liquor store prices, anything is ok from drug on the table to sex in the kitchen) with many 15-22 YO people (boys and girls), and discovered a whole new world. The worst girls are the 16-17 YO, they want to "try" every guy, blatantly propose sexual acts "right here right now" (and follow you in the bathroom if you say no). I always watched my back but was considered prude (or plain stupid by my guy friends).
I'm older now, I was soo stupid!
Questioning the justice in case of statutory rape at the office or a social gathering will always bring very bad looks. If women over 30 are present they will treat you like a criminal pedophile that keeps his 5 wives prisoner in the basement. A woman will always see her little 20 YO daughter as little 10 YO angel. If only she new what I saw her do when she was 15, things the mom probably never thought of doing!!!
Today's young girls are worst than "us guys" when I was in high school (and that's saying something)!
And yet, I can never mention this anywhere, even anonymously I get flamed to hell!
>
> * I refuse to put a disclaimer on this message. I feel that the continued use of that word by black culture is absolutely sickening. I am white.
I felt the same way you do. Then the recession came. Middle-class folks sold their stocks and left the apartment market to Section 8.
So, in the spirit of New Year's, here's my Heresy: "I agree that the continued use of that word by black culture is absolutely sickening. My heresy is that based on my observations brought on by living in close proximity to people subscribe to that culture's value system, however, the continued use of that word is also accurate and appropriate. My observations confirm the hypothesis as phrased by black comedian Chris Rock."
The biggest problem here is that you are getting in the middle of bickering matches with educated children with no real world experience.
Having an argument with a college student is like pig wrestling. You get all dirty, and the pig likes it.
Buck up, people. And use some sense. Most college kids in an argument are just happy that someone is listening to them about an issue. Unfortunately, they just haven't learned why they are not allowed to run planet Earth yet.
Besides, it's ridiculous to get into an argument with a person that can quote Camus and Marx on you but has never held a steady job. The moment some college kid starts trying to school me on anything, I start laughing. Usually that little crap-eating smile or a chuckle in their face does much more to shut down their "rage against the machine" attitude than anything else.
They're just kids. Sometimes you college kids need to learn to STFU. I know when I was in college I thougt I knew everything. I guarantee you that you are just as wrong as I was back then, so shut your mouths and listen to your elders.
So what have we learned? Colleges, and college kids need to shut the hell up. Thank you for your time.
Pundits, right? They like to be the focal point of attention. So it might be useful to apply some of the same critical thinking to their regular spew. Namely, we have this gem:
...like me! :-)
"(Or it could be that, because it's clearer in the sciences whether theories are true or false, you have to be smart to get jobs as a scientist, rather than just a good politician.)"
I omitted the general trashing of "liberal arts" disciplines before that. This is all reminiscent of Paul's high school nerd philosophizing on his intellectual superiority in an earlier article.
Someone else here pointed out the example of Bjorn Lomborg in particular. But we can simply point to Graham himself and his popularity. His writing speaks to most Nerds, but this doesn't not make him accurate or really even insightful. He may know what bayesian classifiers are, but that doesn't really give him any particular insight into the perfect programming language (still waiting...) or philosophical thought or even the most effective way to use these classifiers.
Raymond wrote the cathedral and the bazaar, but this was not a science-based piece. It was entirely political -- all assertions, and all pretty much unproven except by personal anecdote based on a... not very complex.. program. It was well written enough to be used as a political propaganda piece, and potentially correct -- however it alone doesn't make Eric an authority on anything...
So why is graham and raymond mentioned here and on other geek and science oriented sites? Because they write from the perspective of a geek, and write things that geeks agree with. It's not magic, it's competence. It's not competence in science, analysis or critical thought, but competence in political writing and the ability to parlay 15 minutes into some longer lasting form of success and/or influence.
The scientists which get paid the big bucks are good at this, but are not necessarily very good at science in general. This does not mean both aren't possible or don't exist in one person (they do), but it puts the claim that political saavy and science does not mix into perspective. Especially when compared to more "liberal" disciplines.
Perhaps Paul's mastery of archaic french is very good, but somehow I doubt it.. and I think he drastically underestimates the importance of motivation and overestimates the importance of intellegence.
As a geek, I see where he's coming from, but I also see the same negative human/geek tendency to deconstruct the world into simple algorithms based on what, frankly, I beleive is a limited experience. In the end, like most inet essayists, he wants to be profound, but by not framing his observations he ends up being just another netnews poster...
I'm tempted to take the Socratic method and ask: "what's so bad about blind faith?"
From there, I'd ask what the difference is between "faith in some kind of higher power" and "blind faith".
The latter question is a strawman argument, of course: there (presumably) being no evidence for a higher power, one believes in such only by virtue of "blind faith".
The stronger answer, though, is that the great miracles of the modern world -- technology, sciences (including economics, the study of which can allow people to interact peacefully even if they have widely conflicting beliefs) -- all depend on the Scientific Method, as put together by William of Ockham, Fracis Bacon, and elucidated more precisely by Karl Popper.
Basically, if you train yourself to truly believe only that for which you have experimental evidence (and you're always willing to drop those beliefs in the face of new, contradictory evidence), then you have a shot at really understanding How the World Works, and I assert that humanity's best chance for survival is by really understanding How the World Works. Richard Feynman is quite eloquent in describing this in his various books and lectures.
Faith in any kind of supra-natural "stuff" -- pixies, god(s), you name it -- foils that wonderful, scientific-method, mental training. And it's not that a good scientist can't have any kind of blind faith; just that, like driving a car with the parking brake on, the latter impedes the former, which succeeds only to the degree that it overpowers the dampening effect.
Part of the Second American Revolution!
Okay, now my heresy for the evening:
I actually believe that African-Americans using "nigger" to refer to each other is a good thing. Why? By using this word themselves in a different context they are (intentionally or not) helping to neutralize an extremely emotionally charged word, slowly but surely. This is similar to the gay community's deliberately using the word "queer" to refer to themselves. I don't know about you, but the first time I heard a gay person refer to himself as "queer" I was put off, but that word has obviously been successfully neutralized, look at "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy."
Maybe not in our lifetime, but trust me, one day this word will have no evoke no stronger reaction than does the word "anglo" today.
sig != null
Hey, whoah, just thought of a doozie that may take your taboo even farther: incest.
My old anthropology prof made a few factually backed-up observations which are not part of popular culture:
1. most cases of incest are consensual brother-sister situations, worldwide
2. the "inbreeding is genetically bad" is actually quite false, and the pigheadedness of the argument probably stems from the taboo, not reasoned debate or observation. He noted that several isolated tribes that had been inbreeding for centuries had the purest genes because malformations did occur with multiplication of genetic flaws... and then those people died off, leaving very few carriers of genetic anomalies. Why do we never hear this argument and evidence?
Therefore 3. Since evolution is not necessarily 100% genetic (ideas can be passed on, too, especially if made rigid customs -- or taboos), the taboo may serve the purpose of idea movement as well as genetic. ie: the spread of new ideas promotes survival.
So, several science fiction authors have imagined futures where incest is not a taboo. Indeed, if not, then it would be some kind of insult to not have sex with family members. Of course, to even imagine it, you have to shed the taboo, and this is even harder than it sounds. You sleeping with your sister? (*thinks about it*) Well, maybe. Me sleep with my sister? No way!!
1) You tell me what "God" is
2) I tell you if "God" exists or not
If you can't do step 1), step 2) becomes irrelevant (unknowable). You have define a concept before you can discuss its existence, and you can't do that objectively with "God". There is no possible objective definition of "God", just lots and lots of subjective ones.
Taken this argument to the extreme, any time any cells of a human body are destroyed, it is murder.
A fetus began as a normal cell under special conditions. This can be easily demonstrated by cloned animals. An unfertilized egg is taken, the interior removed and an alternate, existing interior from a "normal" cell is put in place. This cell is then told to reproduce itself, forming a fetus.
The egg itself was never fertilized and would never develop into a complete, normal animal. (Single X females do exist, but they are exceptions and have a variety of medical problems.) The "normal" cell was necessary to develop into a complete animal.
Now that we've seen that the majority of cells (red blood cells do not contain nuclei and thus are discounted) in the body can become fully fledged humans, how can you scrape your hand without carrying a huge burden of guilt?
You may argue that cloning is a very abnormal way to reproduce, but the methods used in cloning are very similar to those used in invitro fertilization and other methods of medically assisted reproduction. You'd have to start saying that test tube babies are not human because of the way they are produced.
And then there's the miscarriage argument. When a woman miscarries, is this murder? Well, it's not premeditated, but what if she didn't follow the proper diet? Does that constitute murder by neglect? What if she just had bad reproductive organs through no fault of her own; maybe her parents should be charged for passing on their genes? Maybe in any of these cases, it would only be manslaughter. In any event, do you believe that a woman who miscarries deserves to be prosecuted?
Heck, if this were taken to the ultimate extreme, even destruction of sperm and eggs would be considered murder. Every time a male masturbates to orgasm, millions of potential human beings are slaughtered!