Politics How does the left get its political mojo back and win power?

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If you're indifferent to mid to late term abortion as most pro-abortionists seem to be, you're basically a disgusting human being.

Killing a 20 week old fetus because it might impinge on your lifestyle. Is that okay? That's what's on offer at the moment.

You’re an idiot.
 
Maybe they could read this book?

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The pro-abortion lobby haven't qualified their support. Indifferent fits.

Do you see a difference between pro-choice and pro-abortion? I mean, I'm pro-choice. I don't WANT women to have abortions, but the option should be there as long as the foetus is unviable outside the womb. Option, not requirement.
 

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Do you see a difference between pro-choice and pro-abortion? I mean, I'm pro-choice. I don't WANT women to have abortions, but the option should be there as long as the foetus is unviable outside the womb. Option, not requirement.
[/QUOTE/]
The option to kill a child because having it would be inconvenient to have it.
 
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Which question was genuine?
All of them. The only 'funny' part was the parasite til 30 comment but I had thought that it was obvious that that was intended to be light hearted.

Look for what it's worth, I am asking these questions not to catch people out but to get a better sense of where people who have different values than I do are coming from. If I can understand your perspective better it makes it easier to have a productive conversation with you about the topic. We may never end up agreeing but at least I'll learn about why we disagree.

I really would rather that than the typical convo you see on this forum with people insulting each other because they disagree on one relatively small thing in the grand scheme of things. It does require a bit of hard work and I am sure my questions might seem annoying, but conversations like this are the only way we can hope to resolve differences in human society - the only alternative we've known in history is violence.
 
Jun 18, 2003
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Interesting juxtapositioning in my Twitter feed this morning.

This thread explains how and why an old school leftie has given up on the left:


I didn't agree with all of it but I did like a lot of it.

Then only a few posts below was this discourse from someone from the 'new' left:


I know it's not a binary choice but that first thread resonated way more than the second (read the thread - the first post doesn't reveal much), which seemed, frankly, batshit insane. The author apparently did her postdoc at Yale. Has anyone here heard of Yale?
 
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Interesting juxtapositioning in my Twitter feed this morning.

This thread explains how and why an old school leftie has given up on the left:


I didn't agree with all of it but I did like a lot of it.

Then only a few posts below was this discourse from someone from the 'new' left:


I know it's not a binary choice but that first thread resonated way more than the second (read the thread - the first post doesn't reveal much), which seemed, frankly, batshit insane. The author apparently did her postdoc at Yale. Has anyone here heard of Yale?

Just read through Bo Winegard's thread.
He seems to be referring to the left in the same way he has issue with the 'left' referring to the West.

It seems it's more to do with blow back he has received for his paper on "Dodging Darwin: Race, evolution, and the hereditarian hypothesis". https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0191886920301045
An interesting read.

Which is being picked up and run with by HBD (Human Biological Diversity). Which is the 'blacks are genetically inferior, it's science' racial realism that's been repeatedly debunked for generations.


I'll have a read of the second one a bit later. But I don't think I agree with much from Bo Winegard.
 
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Just read through Bo Winegard's thread.
He seems to be referring to the left in the same way he has issue with the 'left' referring to the West.

It seems it's more to do with blow back he has received for his paper on "Dodging Darwin: Race, evolution, and the hereditarian hypothesis". https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0191886920301045
An interesting read.

Which is being picked up and run with by HBD (Human Biological Diversity). Which is the 'blacks are genetically inferior, it's science' racial realism that's been repeatedly debunked for generations.


I'll have a read of the second one a bit later. But I don't think I agree with much from Bo Winegard.
May I ask, is there something in the article that you've posted that you think the authors have misrepresented or that you disagree with?

I had a quick scan of it (admittedly in my Lazy Sunday Morning mode), and the arguments made sense to me. That is, it seems reasonable to me that differences could exist in means (and variances) between different groups of people. They make mention of the easily observable physiological differences that we all know about (e.g., height, skin colour). Clearly those differences served some adaptive function for survival in the different parts of the world and I can't see why these differences would necessarily end at observable physiological characteristics and in no way could extend to unobservable psychological characteristics.

I am not sure, however, how one would go about isolating the genetic (vs. environmental) components of the differences in psychological characteristics. I don't think it's even possible without, say, a twin study where one from many sets of twins (and non-twins) is randomly assigned to one of a whole range of different environments. That study would answer the question, but will never happen for obvious reasons. So, while I think that it's possible that psychological characteristics have a heritable component, and that there probably exist some differences between groups, I don't think we'll ever be in a position to accurately estimate the sizes of these heritable factors, nor the proportion of differences due to 'purely' group membership. For example, it could very well be be that the true 'pure' black-white difference is actually black > white, and it's the shitty environments that blacks have been forced to endure have caused the observed difference to flip.

I do understand that certain groups like to use these sorts of papers to justify claims of supremacy and this is what makes research in this areas very problematic. People who study these things always attract attention from right-wing nut jobs and white supremacists. Indeed, I find that phenomenon particularly ironic since these studies consistently find that people with Asian ancestry outperform whites on intelligence tests. You don't see the nut jobs claiming Asain supremacy [wonder why that is?]; instead they rail against Asian people being admitted into Harvard university on the basis of merit. Such an ideology also completely ignores within group differences, which are huge when compared to the between group differences, making the between group difference (if it exists) completely useless for making judgements about individual people.

The other vexxing issue here is often the sort of people who are motivated to push the race difference agenda are the ones who take a special interest in doing research in that space, and so they are good at finding what they are looking for and getting peer-reviewed by others who seek to find the same. So it can sometimes be hard to unscramble people's motives from their messages. I don't know enough about Winegard's previous work to know whether he is a white supremecist or just a 'normal' evolutionary psych. But I do know that once an accusation is thrown at someone in that space, it sticks forever - whether fair or unfairly - and so many researchers just avoid the topic out of fear.
 
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CM86, I wanted to add one more thing to the above that I thought of later. While I think Psychologists have done a pretty decent job of measuring IQ amongst relatively wealthy populations [by global standards], I am far less convinced that they've cracked the cross-income-level nut in IQ measurement. It's difficult to meausure IQ accurately without putting people into a situation where they're completing some sort of individualised assessment on a computer or with paper and pencil, over a fairly long period of time. For many people from relatively [globally] high-income backgrounds, a situation like that is rather mundane, but for those others, it can be quite extraordinary, and so I'd be wary of interpreting the scores in the same way. Many psychs claim there are no differences here, but I am not so sure about that.
 

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May I ask, is there something in the article that you've posted that you think the authors have misrepresented or that you disagree with?

I had a quick scan of it (admittedly in my Lazy Sunday Morning mode), and the arguments made sense to me. That is, it seems reasonable to me that differences could exist in means (and variances) between different groups of people. They make mention of the easily observable physiological differences that we all know about (e.g., height, skin colour). Clearly those differences served some adaptive function for survival in the different parts of the world and I can't see why these differences would necessarily end at observable physiological characteristics and in no way could extend to unobservable psychological characteristics.

I am not sure, however, how one would go about isolating the genetic (vs. environmental) components of the differences in psychological characteristics. I don't think it's even possible without, say, a twin study where one from many sets of twins (and non-twins) is randomly assigned to one of a whole range of different environments. That study would answer the question, but will never happen for obvious reasons. So, while I think that it's possible that psychological characteristics have a heritable component, and that there probably exist some differences between groups, I don't think we'll ever be in a position to accurately estimate the sizes of these heritable factors, nor the proportion of differences due to 'purely' group membership. For example, it could very well be be that the true 'pure' black-white difference is actually black > white, and it's the shitty environments that blacks have been forced to endure have caused the observed difference to flip.

I do understand that certain groups like to use these sorts of papers to justify claims of supremacy and this is what makes research in this areas very problematic. People who study these things always attract attention from right-wing nut jobs and white supremacists. Indeed, I find that phenomenon particularly ironic since these studies consistently find that people with Asian ancestry outperform whites on intelligence tests. You don't see the nut jobs claiming Asain supremacy [wonder why that is?]; instead they rail against Asian people being admitted into Harvard university on the basis of merit. Such an ideology also completely ignores within group differences, which are huge when compared to the between group differences, making the between group difference (if it exists) completely useless for making judgements about individual people.

The other vexxing issue here is often the sort of people who are motivated to push the race difference agenda are the ones who take a special interest in doing research in that space, and so they are good at finding what they are looking for and getting peer-reviewed by others who seek to find the same. So it can sometimes be hard to unscramble people's motives from their messages. I don't know enough about Winegard's previous work to know whether he is a white supremecist or just a 'normal' evolutionary psych. But I do know that once an accusation is thrown at someone in that space, it sticks forever - whether fair or unfairly - and so many researchers just avoid the topic out of fear.
No I think I saw it in a similar light to you.
I don't think he is looking to imply anything. He mentions himself that at most there would be a 0.3 -0.8% connection to genetics.
It's an interesting idea that should be researched. But it isn't an entirely new idea, so it has baggage.

The problem as always lies with the extremes. Which is what I think has caused his more recent view on the left.

What I disagree with were more in his Twitter thread.
Taking the worst parts of the left, and painting it as all of the left. While explaining that the 'left' takes the worst parts of the West, and paints it as all of the West.
Using his misunderstandings and learning as a reflection on 'the left', possibly rather than just for self reflection.
 

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All of them. The only 'funny' part was the parasite til 30 comment but I had thought that it was obvious that that was intended to be light hearted.

Look for what it's worth, I am asking these questions not to catch people out but to get a better sense of where people who have different values than I do are coming from. If I can understand your perspective better it makes it easier to have a productive conversation with you about the topic. We may never end up agreeing but at least I'll learn about why we disagree.

I really would rather that than the typical convo you see on this forum with people insulting each other because they disagree on one relatively small thing in the grand scheme of things. It does require a bit of hard work and I am sure my questions might seem annoying, but conversations like this are the only way we can hope to resolve differences in human society - the only alternative we've known in history is violence.
Fair enough Patrick, but you got off on the wrong foot by asking me if one month is long-term.

We currently live in a society where a woman can have her story published in a major newspaper about her journey interstate to obtain an abortion at 20 weeks because having a baby would be inconvenient for her new relationship. Not only is it condoned but we celebrate such abortions as a step forward for women's rights.

The pro-choice crowd have shown no concern for the rights of the fetus, but are very concerned when I question the ethics of such abortions.
 
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Fair enough Patrick, but you got off on the wrong foot by asking me if one month is long-term.

We currently live in a society where a woman can have her story published in a major newspaper about her journey interstate to obtain an abortion at 20 weeks because having a baby would be inconvenient for her new relationship. Not only is it condoned but we celebrate such abortions as a step forward for women's rights.

The pro-choice crowd have shown no concern for the rights of the fetus, but are very concerned when I question the ethics of such abortions.
Could you please provide an example of this precise thing? Just to ensure we're not going to get into a situation where people who disagree cannot say, 'this doesn't happen."
 
Jun 18, 2003
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Fair enough Patrick, but you got off on the wrong foot by asking me if one month is long-term.
I understand. Text isn't a fantastic medium for conveying emotion and authenticity, especially in a forum where authenticity from many posters can be wanting. My questions (e.g., one month, one day) were intended as prompts, not as prods. There are some people out there that think one minute into the term is too late to abort and I honestly wasn't sure at that time where you stood! But I can understand why you could have mistaken them as prods.

Thanks for explaining your position in more detail. Would you mind if I asked a few more questions about it? Again, these are to better understand you, not catch you out or pull a 'zinger' on you later.

We currently live in a society where a woman can have her story published in a major newspaper about her journey interstate to obtain an abortion at 20 weeks because having a baby would be inconvenient for her new relationship. Not only is it condoned but we celebrate such abortions as a step forward for women's rights.
I am not familiar with this story and would love it if you could dig it up so I can learn about it. Even though it might seem at the moment as though you and I disagree fundamentally about abortion, being honest, the story as you described it does not make me feel good at all. As in, this isn't something I'd personally be promoting an exemplar of women's rights in action.

I suppose, if pushed into picking a 'team', I'd be more comfortable with giving a woman the option to abort at 20 weeks than forcing her to carry the child if she did not want to. In other words, I'd rather not prevent her from doing what she really wants to do. But I am also not going to celebrate this as some sort of amazing sign of human achievement or progress. I guess this might be the difference between pro-choice and pro-abortion. I don't like it when people get abortions; it's a sign that something has gone wrong somewhere. But I dislike it even more when people are forced into things they don't want to be forced into. I think that forcing people to do anything is counterproductive and a denial of liberty. Is that making any sense?

The pro-choice crowd have shown no concern for the rights of the fetus, but are very concerned when I question the ethics of such abortions.
I understand your frustration with it, but I honestly don't think that's quite a fair characterisation of the pro-choice crowd; or at least not the majority within that crowd. I think that what's going on here is that we're in a position of choosing between two horrible steaming turds:
- Kill a foetus, or
- Force someone to bear a child they don't want
Both of those options suck, and ideally nobody would have to make that choice. Where I think the disagreement lies in is in which of the two options sucks less than the other. It's clearly very complicated and is often made even more complicated by differences between people in terms of their value systems, religious views and so forth. But I honestly think that most people here - on both sides of the pro-life pro-choice debatee - would take that story above and agree that it's kind of a s**t situation.

Of course, there are some loonies on both sides. There are some people who think women's only role in society is to bear children and they should not have any reproductive rights. Equally, but opposite, there are some people who think abortions are just a routine procedure that one can access, much like taking a panadol etc. I do believe (well, I hope) that these lunatic views are held by the tiny minority and just become amplified because of the media. Unfortunately, when people argue on forums, Twitter, Reddit etc. they often believe they're arguing with a loony, and so the conversation can go badly early on.

Anyway, I hope that was interesting and helpful for understanding how I feel about the issue. Either way, thanks for the discussion.
 
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Just read through Bo Winegard's thread.
He seems to be referring to the left in the same way he has issue with the 'left' referring to the West.

It seems it's more to do with blow back he has received for his paper on "Dodging Darwin: Race, evolution, and the hereditarian hypothesis". https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0191886920301045
An interesting read.

Which is being picked up and run with by HBD (Human Biological Diversity). Which is the 'blacks are genetically inferior, it's science' racial realism that's been repeatedly debunked for generations.


I'll have a read of the second one a bit later. But I don't think I agree with much from Bo Winegard.
He ended up getting fired!

 

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Interesting that when people here are asked to actually provide evidence that the left is pro late term abortion, like actual quotes or examples of people preaching late term abortion, they either freak out and go on the defensive, or just disappear from the thread altogether.
I'm still waiting for a logical explanation as to how pro-choice = pro-abortion. Hell, even an illogical explanation or an emotional rant will do.
 

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Im amazed this is the only issue that the left have to modify to win power.
Especially since the ALP and LNP's policies on abortion are much of a muchness.

In the US, it's a little different since the support base of the right consists of utter morons who believe the world is 10,000 yrs old and those from Wall street who seek to take advantage of people like them.

Only in 'Merica.
 

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Patrick Bullet I'll respond to some of the questions you asked back in December that I don't think I ever gave you a full answer for.

I am happy to float some hypotheticals and will do so in a later post if you would like that, but for now would you be kind enough to indulge me in this thought experiment first? Can you think of any alternative explanations at all? It doesn't matter if they sound a bit ridiculous or implausible; I'm just keen for you to test the limits of the assumptions first.
The only alternative explanation I have that I think is credible is that they've been hoodwinked by corporate media into distrusting scientific authorities. There has been a narrative peddled for decades now that feelings are more important than scientific fact. The media has encouraged this by intentionally reducing the public's esteem for science, either overtly (publishing nonsense like scientists all fomenting a global conspiracy to obtain piddlingly small research grants) or subtly (publishing sensationalised editorials of individual research studies, often before they've been properly peer-reviewed. This is how we get alternating stories in different weeks, first declaring coffee causes cancer and then declaring it prevents cancer).

As a result, people have been conditioned to ignore the facts and identify with a tribe on this issue, as they have for basically every aspect of politics. This causes people to cherry pick the studies that support their preconceived notions and ignore those that don't, instead of looking at the overall body of work to see how the scientific method has been most effectively carried out and the conclusions it reached.

The left aren't immune to this either, as plenty of left-leaning people suffer from similar delusions about the evils of vaccination and GM food, due to being told to distrust the scientific community and the scientific method. I probably have my own biases too, none of us are perfect.

Do you think there definitely exist some people who are snowflakes, cucks, or SJWs (in the pejorative sense)? If so, should they also be labeled as such?
Snowflakes, certainly. They're incredibly numerous on both sides of politics. My only issue with the term is how many people think it only applies to the left, when there are just as many people on the right who don't like having their sensibilities upset. The same is true of political correctness in general, as you pointed out previously with Yasmin Abdel-Magied being a victim of it.

SJWs, certainly. I don't think it has to be a negative term, anyone who is aware of discrimination happening in front of them ought to push for what's right. In the sense that some people overreach the desire for social justice, yes, that exists too. For example, I believe cultural appropriation as a negative thing, it's just that 90% of the things that activists claim as cultural appropriation is simply cultural exchange.

Cuck, though? All that is, is kink shaming that has been made into a collectivised insult, because some people really can't fathom anything worse than someone else having consensual sexual desires that are different to their own. Asking whether cucks exist is like asking whether people with bondage fetishes, of course they do but there's no relevance to politics.

Also, when it comes to words like racism, sexism, and bigoted, do you think we all have a shared and agreed understanding about the inclusion criteria?
Well obviously not, otherwise we wouldn't have debate or disputes over it.

Let me throw some examples at you, which I hope will help make my question clearer.
1. It's late at night in Northbridge (if you don't know Perth, think Fortutiude Valley in Brissy), I am walking home when I see a black guy down the road in front of me. I decide to turn down a different street because I am a little worried he might mug or accost me. Is that racism? Am I a racist if I do that? Do I need to be told the truth?
Yes, it's racism. It involves instantly forming a negative impression of someone due to their skin colour being different to yours. Does that make you a "racist"? In a word, no. Perhaps we need different terms for things. It just makes you a person who had a problematic thought in that moment, likely as a result of social conditioning rather than a conscious choice. It's quite obviously not on the level of Fraser Anning or a KKK member, not just in terms of severity but also because it doesn't show a repeated pattern of behaviour.

We're all rude to people at some point in life, but that doesn't necessarily make us "rude people". If my first interaction with you was to see you being rude, it would give me a negative impression, but that isn't necessarily an accurate reflection of you. It takes either strong behaviour, a repeated pattern of behaviour or a total unwillingness to change before I'd declare someone to be a "rude person". The same is true of racism.

2. It's late at night in Northbridge, I am walking home and a woman is walking 20m in front of me, by herself. She reaslises there is a man walking in the same direction as her (i.e., me) and she is a little worried he might be a rapist, so she starts walking faster and towards a busier road. Is that sexism? Is she a sexist if she does that? Does she need to be told the truth?
No. Women live their entire lives with some level of fear of men. The more I talk to women, the more I realise that the level of sexual harassment and assault is much greater than I ever thought; practically every woman I've talked to has some experience from some time in life of facing it.

Is this comparable to the previous example? I would say no. Why? It's about power relationships, and I mean that both in societal power and to some extent, physical power. Black people do not hold the structures of power in Western society over white people, the way that men do over women. And the average man is physically stronger than the average woman, whereas I doubt there's much of a difference between the average black man and the average white man (or between black and white women).

I have to say that I don't think the answer is clearly yes or no in either scenario. Maybe you don't agree, but even if you do, I imagine others might not. I am sure we could come up with plenty of other examples where it's not crystal clear.
I made a boatload of assumptions in my response, as I'm sure other people would too. That's how I could give yes/no responses. I agree there could be extenuating circumstances in either equation.

If I am right about that (and I concede I might not be but humor me for the moment), whose version of 'truth' should we rely on? By who's criteria should we decide what is bigoted vs. not? Yours? Mine? Someone else's?
Everyone has their own truth. We're all judging on individual levels based on our own experiences and our own sense of what is right. There are sociopaths out there who would disagree with every regular member of society on human ethics. Bigotry is largely a term based on how society operates, I'm sure it was qualified differently 200 years ago and will be qualified differently 200 years from now.

Personally, I am fearful that people's 'bigot' radars are overly sensitive, and this makes people play the 'bigot card' far too early in a conversation.
Maybe yes and maybe no. I think there are a lot of people so terrified of being labelled a bigot when they do engage in bigotry, that they consider the label to be worse than actual bigotry. There are times where the "bigot card" is accurate.

Once a person plays the 'bigot card', it's hard to resuscitate a conversation. For me, using words like bigot, racist, sexist should be the 'nuclear' option; better not played at all.
When and where? What conversations in particular do you refer to? Is it controversial to call David Duke a racist in conversation? I agree that to change a person's mind, labels like that aren't helpful. But relating it back to BF, I think most of the people on BF in general and SRP in particular aren't open to having their minds changed on many issues, they're here to engage in keyboard war, to puff up their own ego, score points the other side and gain likes from similarly-minded people. I'm sure I've been guilty of that many times.

It's very kind of you to say that I have an open mind. Truthfully, if this convo was happening twelve months ago, you might have encountered a different version of me. In fact, I'd probably just be clicking 'like' on all of the lefties' posts. But a few things have made me stop and question a few things, and the biggest one was the realisation that the left keeps losing. The notion of Trump being POTUS would have been hysterical 10 years ago, yet it has happened! That should have shocked the system, but it still took me 3 extra years to work out something is very wrong with how the conversation is going.
That's interesting. I don't care anywhere near enough to do what you do, but I admire you for changing the way you choose to engage with it all.

I am hopeful that you're getting something out of our conversation too. I am not sure what that 'something' would be exactly, but if nothing else, I do hope it has been enjoyable. It has been enjoyable for me because you too have shown a willingness to consider my seemingly endless and inane (but truly purposeful) questions, and I am grateful for that. Few people have the time or patience.
Thanks. I think it's helpful to ask yourself questions sometimes, to understand why you think the way you do.

You are right, though, it can be frustrating when people seem completely wedded to their views, and those views are clearly and objectively flawed (e.g., flat-earthers). But, that story I posted earlier about the KKK conversion guy makes me truly believe that it is possible to bring anybody back from anywhere through conversation.
I think those people were always open to having their minds changed, some others aren't. Of course, it's impossible to know exactly who falls into which category. But in general I think people who have a belief that isn't central to their identity and self-esteem are more likely to be able to change their minds on it, especially if they're relatively content with their lives and who they are. Because the alternative is breaking themselves down and building themselves up again as a different person, which isn't easy.

Whether it's worth the time invested is another matter of course, but if you truly care about your country QLD friend, then it might be worth persisting, but maybe trying some different tactics.
Do you have any suggestions? I don't care about him all that much perhaps. I'd like to see him finally see the light and understand, but it won't make that much difference to my life in the end. There are billions of other people I can engage with if this issue becomes a dealbreaker. But it isn't.

- Protesters preventing the guest speaker from actually speaking (e.g., by making the environment physically unsafe, blocking the entrances to the venue, or by regularly interrupting the discussion/speech) - IS cancel culture, and a form of authoritarianism, suppression of free speech
I disagree with some of that. Everybody has the right to their views, but nobody has the right to a particular soapbox to broadcast their views on. I don't agree with violence to interrupt speech though.

Tell me, if protesting is all well and good, why should protesting not involve interrupting a speech? Does everyone have the right to be listened to? If so, are people compelled to listen if someone wants to talk?

- Participating in a campaign (usually on social media) to try to arrange the sacking of an individual from an organisation based on a political/ideological opinion they have expressed publicly - IS cancel culture, authoritarian, suppression of free speech
Should people never demand the sacking of someone for their views, ever? Suppose someone is in charge of children and publicly demands the legalisation of paedophilia, should there be demands for their sacking or not? The standard you walk past is the standard you accept, and there are certain things people should refuse to walk past.

Perhaps we differ on the idea of "free speech", to me it means the ability to speak without facing criminal prosecution for your views. It doesn't apply to defamation, calls to violence or faking an emergency. And it certainly doesn't mean freedom from consequences. So I don't see sacking campaigns as a suppression of free speech, it's simply a demand for there to be consequences.

So, let me entertain the one you threw at me. I think that this is a complex one and I don't have a clear answer. It looks from the story as though Karen was being a bit of a douche.
And damaging private property.

What are the "beliefs of the company"? How can a company even have beliefs?
Very simply, it's whatever will make their money. Associating their brand with such people will lose them money.

A company is not a sentient being with the capacity for consciousness or cognition.
Correct, but, corporations are made up of individuals. Individuals who usually want to make money and don't want to lose money.

What does "inclusive workplace" mean? Inclusive of what?
It's a subjective term, but I'd say it means a place where people feel they will be treated well based on who they are, aspects of themselves that they cannot change.

How do I take Mc D's statement and lay out a list of behaviours that are grounds for firing?
I'm sure their code of conduct covers it, and it will include things like bringing the brand into disrepute. Or essentially, will it lose them money?
 

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This thread explains how and why an old school leftie has given up on the left:

That fellow just waffled on and on about how he's socially conservative. He engages in moral relativism to say that the modern left shouldn't complain about anything because of how bad things were in the past. And the anti-intellectualism is laughable. What's he suggesting, that people be less educated to protect the feelings of others? And "tradition" is a very loaded term, is he a fan of traditions like lynching and women being forced to retire upon marriage/pregnancy?

I also think it's an absurd straw man to suggest the left in general think all prisoners are in prison due to the immorality of the criminal justice system. You'll find very few people on the left defending violent crime that isn't in self-defence. Rather, the criticisms of the criminal justice system come from disparities in sentencing between different groups of people, idiotic rules like the three strikes law (and mandatory minimum sentencing), the focus on punishment over rehabilitation as a goal, and whether certain crimes should be crimes at all, like drug possession.
 
Jun 18, 2003
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Ah, crap, Johnny Bananas, I left this hanging for far too long, and I've forgotten a lot of the context; apologies for that. I might just cherry pick a few things here but do let me know if there is anything I've missed that you'd like me to explore further, or if I've removed something that was key to your arguments.

The only alternative explanation I have that I think is credible is that they've been hoodwinked by corporate media into distrusting scientific authorities. There has been a narrative peddled for decades now that feelings are more important than scientific fact. The media has encouraged this by intentionally reducing the public's esteem for science, either overtly (publishing nonsense like scientists all fomenting a global conspiracy to obtain piddlingly small research grants) or subtly (publishing sensationalised editorials of individual research studies, often before they've been properly peer-reviewed. This is how we get alternating stories in different weeks, first declaring coffee causes cancer and then declaring it prevents cancer).
As a result, people have been conditioned to ignore the facts and identify with a tribe on this issue, as they have for basically every aspect of politics. This causes people to cherry pick the studies that support their preconceived notions and ignore those that don't, instead of looking at the overall body of work to see how the scientific method has been most effectively carried out and the conclusions it reached.
The left aren't immune to this either, as plenty of left-leaning people suffer from similar delusions about the evils of vaccination and GM food, due to being told to distrust the scientific community and the scientific method. I probably have my own biases too, none of us are perfect.
Just to start with an aside, the GM and Vaccinations conspiracies you mentioned are quite interesting as it turns out that the claim that these are myths that are largely held by the left apparently does not fit with the data from scientists looking at ideology and conspiratorial ideation. It surprised me a lot when I learned about it - if you're interested, I can try find links to the primary studies for you (I think it's a guy called Gordon Pennycook who does work in that space; I see a lot of it on Twitter).

What also hasn't helped is a swathe of 'bad science' from the science community itself. Examples include publication biases, "p-hacking", cherry-picking specifying hypotheses after seeing the results (let me know if these terms don't mean anything to you and I'll grab some definitions). You can trace a lot of this to a combination of: egos and incentive systems that have pushed the intersection of 'being a good academic' and 'being a good scientist' circles in the 'Venn diagram' further apart over time. I wonder whether COVID will change things there.
On the coffee (or red wine) is good/bad/good/bad/good/bad phenomenon, a lot of the problems there relate to poor understanding among the scientists themselves of what to control for in the statistical analyses and other matters that affect what causal claims can be made from observational data. Those decisions are often based on what data are available, but also 'gut feel' or some other random factor, and they can affect the conclusions quite considerably. For a fun example, check out this paper: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/2515245917747646 (if you can't get the article, google the topic for blog posts, as there are tons!). For a less fun example, check out the history of research on hormone replacement therapy. Anyway, I digress...

SJWs, certainly. I don't think it has to be a negative term, anyone who is aware of discrimination happening in front of them ought to push for what's right. In the sense that some people overreach the desire for social justice, yes, that exists too. For example, I believe cultural appropriation as a negative thing, it's just that 90% of the things that activists claim as cultural appropriation is simply cultural exchange.
I've spent some of 2020 learning about the differences between Critical Social Justice and social justice, and it has really helped me work out why SJW has become a slur. What prompted me to return to this thread was this article I was reading this morning:
I'd be interested in hearing your thoughts about, if you have the time to spare.

Yes, it's racism. It involves instantly forming a negative impression of someone due to their skin colour being different to yours. Does that make you a "racist"? In a word, no. Perhaps we need different terms for things. It just makes you a person who had a problematic thought in that moment, likely as a result of social conditioning rather than a conscious choice. It's quite obviously not on the level of Fraser Anning or a KKK member, not just in terms of severity but also because it doesn't show a repeated pattern of behaviour.
(I recall this was in reference my crossing street to 'avoid black person in Northbridge' example I provided.)
I noticed you mentioned specifically "being different to yours". Is that a precondition for racism? In other words, is it not racism when the protagonist in my story is also black?
I also wonder if you could tell me more about what you mean by 'problematic thought' here. I get a bit nervous when people talk about thoughts in this way because it implies there are morally right and morally problematic ways to think. I am not sure I am on board with setting moral boundaries around cognitions; our minds are the only places where we are truly free. I may have misconstrued your views here though so perhaps you could clarify this one.
Lastly, on this one, what role do you see 'prior data' playing in these sorts of situations? By prior data, I mean things like observations, past experiences, and so forth. More concretely, what if I read in the news that the spot in question was a recent 'hotspot' for street crime and that the main offenders were of [people with dark skin]? What if I have had bad experiences with people from that same ethnic group? Is it still racist or problematic?
I am finding it a bit difficult to understand the relevance of societal power in this equation. My societal power as a white person won't protect me if the person in question is aggressive or has a weapon. I am also not a physically big guy, and think most (prob 95%) young blokes would find me easy to best in a wrestle. Anyway, you did mention that assumptions had to be made, and perhaps these talking points I've added were the things you were thinking about. It's because of these assumptions that I find words like "racism" and "sexism" have almost no utility.

No. Women live their entire lives with some level of fear of men. The more I talk to women, the more I realise that the level of sexual harassment and assault is much greater than I ever thought; practically every woman I've talked to has some experience from some time in life of facing it.
I agree that the woman in my story has the right to be afraid in that case. I would say she is being sexist - in terms of its actual definition - in that moment, but justifiably so. I certainly wouldn't label her behaviour/thinking as being problematic. Instead, I'd consider it adaptive.

(I've skipped a bit about bigotry - happy to engage that some other time if you want, or to let it go)

But relating it back to BF, I think most of the people on BF in general and SRP in particular aren't open to having their minds changed on many issues, they're here to engage in keyboard war, to puff up their own ego, score points the other side and gain likes from similarly-minded people. I'm sure I've been guilty of that many times.
Yes, we're certainly all guilty of it at times and I think that when dealing with 'text boxes' rather than people that it's easy to make the assumption that a person's mind is not open. This can happen simultaneously on both sides of a debate too. Another issue is that it takes time and patience to understand what another person is trying to say. Long posts take a while to write and a while to read, and some people really react negatively when you ask them to explain something (I had a recent experience of that here). That being said, I've had some good experiences too - this convo with you is one example of that. Same with CM86 and Evolved1 in several threads, and I felt I was about to head somewhere interesting with sdfc in the correspondence above but he hasn't returned yet. But:
That's interesting. I don't care anywhere near enough to do what you do, but I admire you for changing the way you choose to engage with it all.
Thanks for saying that. The truth is I am burning out a bit. I've found that I have had to block people whose posts I don't get any value from. Nearly all of those people are Trump worshipers or conspiracy theory nutters. I truly believe that it's possible to have productive conversations even with these people, and change their minds, but it just isn't going to happen in an online forum. So I block them, because their position on things is nearly 100% predictable, and there is almost no diversity in viewpoints among them.

Do you have any suggestions? I don't care about him all that much perhaps. I'd like to see him finally see the light and understand, but it won't make that much difference to my life in the end. There are billions of other people I can engage with if this issue becomes a dealbreaker. But it isn't.
The Impossible Conversations book might be a good starting point for some tips with this fellow.

I disagree with some of that. Everybody has the right to their views, but nobody has the right to a particular soapbox to broadcast their views on. I don't agree with violence to interrupt speech though. Tell me, if protesting is all well and good, why should protesting not involve interrupting a speech? Does everyone have the right to be listened to? If so, are people compelled to listen if someone wants to talk?
If someone is standing out on the street or any public space really, then I see no problem with interrupting them; that's how free speech works. If you want the right to be heard, then book a private room, invite an audience. I agree nobody has the inherent right to have an audience, but if someone has managed to assemble one in a private venue, then I don't think protesters should have the right to directly interfere with that. I am not sure whether we agree on that or not.

Should people never demand the sacking of someone for their views, ever? Suppose someone is in charge of children and publicly demands the legalisation of paedophilia, should there be demands for their sacking or not? The standard you walk past is the standard you accept, and there are certain things people should refuse to walk past. Perhaps we differ on the idea of "free speech", to me it means the ability to speak without facing criminal prosecution for your views. It doesn't apply to defamation, calls to violence or faking an emergency. And it certainly doesn't mean freedom from consequences. So I don't see sacking campaigns as a suppression of free speech, it's simply a demand for there to be consequences.
With your paedophile example, I would certainly like to see an investigation into the situation at a minimum. There is a clear association between the views espoused and the person's ability to perform their job safely. I am far less comfortable with situations where the connection between the two is less clear. E.g., Israel Folau's comments about homosexuality. I don't endorse his views at all. Frankly, he sounds to me like someone who copped a few too many knocks on the head. I am not sure though I understand how his views about homosexuality have anything to do with his role as a professional rugby player. This is usually the point where vague concepts such as diversity, inclusiveness, 'our values', culture, and so forth are brought up. These are all taken as valid reasons for organisations (i.e., groups with societal power) to instigate 'consequences' for expression of free speech. This is fine when those values happen to match your own, but things can change on that front very quickly. That is why I am very uncomfortable; it's essentially a version of authoritarianism.

May I ask, do you think it was appropriate that Bo Winegard was fired from his university? I know we don't have all the details, but let's assume for the sake of keeping things simple that it was because of his ideological views and choices of research topics (indeed, it would be hard to justify from his research productivity and student ratings). Some details:


Is the sort of behaviour he describes in this Tweet appropriate?



BTW - he ain't a particular hero of mine, but just an example of what I am afraid of. There are more.
 

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