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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.
please, by all means, back your hersies with discussion - I think they could lead to good discussion...
1) I haven't seen too much evidence of israeli involvement, but I think there are lots of interesting things one could say both about this and in comparison of israel v. iraq in their handling of UN resolutions. Since the US administration's stance seems to be 'israel good, other middle eastern places bad' this could be called heresy in the states, but probably not in other places...
2) I wholeheartedly agree with this, the war on drugs has done nothing to combat the evils of addiction, and the human cost of the 'war' has been terrible
3) I disagree with this, but I'd still like to hear your arguments (if you or any other slashdotters present actually want to make that argument)
One thing I find interesting in the article is the test near the beginning: "Do you have any opinions that you would be reluctant to express in front of a group of your peers?"
I'd say that I don't, but that's probably more a result of how I define my peers than the acceptability of my ideas. Some of my opinions might not be shared by my peers, but they would be more likely to debate my points than declare me a heretic...
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.
...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
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
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.
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!
"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
I would readily admit the evidence against Afghanistan/Iraq might not be strong (the latter, in particular) but I think there's a large amount against Al-Qaeda.
Got a link to the Washington Post story?
Also, arguing that only one Israeli died indicates that Israel warned "its citizens" (and, therefore had a hand in the attack) is pretty ridiculous.
The fact that 5 Israeli's were reportedly seen 'high fiving' also indicates nothing.
You're grounds are, so far, that the Washington Post (supposedly) claimed an Israeli company was warned in advance of the attacks.
Evidence that Al-Qaeda were involved includes Osama Bin Laden saying that they did, as well as more evidence (trail of funds, trailing the hijackers, etc).
Forgive me while I still consider your post flamebait.
Manta
Two things strike me as odd about the WTC Israeli angle theory.
First, the Odigo employees who were "warned" were in Israel. The warning was non-specific, and didn't mention the WTC. This could be no more serious than an e-mail warning of a kidney theft ring.
More seriously, the behavior of the alleged Israeli spies was odd, to say the least, to anyone who has ever had any contact with real members of Israeli intelligence agencies. I've seen such people who would duck for cover at the sight of someone pulling out a camera in a public place. I can't imagine spies who would dance conspiciously on top of a van. I would have to conclude that they were just ordinary idiots (they're plentiful in Israel, just as they are everywhere else), rather than spies.
The rest of the evidence against them is even less convincing. They had box cutters in their van - they worked as movers, a common occupation for young Israelis staying in the US illegally. One of them had two passports - he was a German citizen. The FBI held them for a long period of time - well, the FBI had their hands full around that time, don't you think? They held a lot of innocent people longer than they normally would.
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).
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.
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.
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!