Cont: Cancel culture IRL Part 2

[autumn1971]

I think it is fair to say that restraint is warranted until we have heard both sides and can be highly confident of the relevant facts.

You think that the problem would be solved if every human on Earth just stopped acting like every human ever has always acted.
Good luck with that

 

[smartcooky]

You keep going back to this false dilemma, when you must realize those are not the only two options.

I'll tell you what.... you go learn what a false dilemma is, because you clearly do not understand what the term means.

Upchurch's is view is NOT a false dilemma. In order to stop people from objecting to the behaviour or others, it WILL be necessary to restrict their free speech rights, and their right to choose who they deal with.

 

[Upchurch]

Fire is caused by oxygen, fuel, and heat. In order to fight fire, you must alter one of those address one or more of those three components.

Financial consequences to free speech are caused by free speech and a free market. In order to fight financial consequences to free speech, you must alter one or more of those two components.

Arguing that there is another option where fuel should, when convenient to a certain perspective, choose not to combust is a fantasy.

 

[wareyin]

If you want personal details, send a PM.

No, I want you to grok that this fantasy you have of a guarantee of employment no matter how badly you make the company employing you look is just that: a fantasy.

 

[d4m10n]

But if you want to criticize someone else's religious beliefs and it upsets them, that's just too bad for them. No need for you to exercise self-restraint in that scenario.

It sounds like you are thinking about making an argument for even more self-restraint than I am. I'd say it is fine to attack ideas but not people, whereas you seem to want to protect people even from being offended when someone else expresses a contrary view in a highly pluralistic society.

I see that you're trying to make it a distinction so you can thread the needle between excusing your own behavior and criticizing others without appearing hypocritical. It's all just a free expression of speech.

If you don't see any difference between "Andy holds false beliefs" and "Kroger should fire Andy, taking away his livelihood and health insurance" then there isn't anything I can do to persuade you.

But no regrets for the people you might upset when you criticize their religious beliefs, right?

Not to mention their deeply held beliefs in haruspicy, homeopathy, cryptids, and Q anon. People need to learn to live with the fact that we don't all agree about such things.

All of this would be a lot more convincing if you were advocating for people to just be nicer to each other in general.

I would think it's a significantly smaller lift just to ask for a baseline level of "live and let live" rather than trying to get art professors fired for *checks notes* teaching students about art.

When someone who proudly proclaims their right to act like a jerk tells me that I need to exercise more self-restraint, you'll excuse me if I don't take it very seriously.

We all have to draw the line somewhere, but I'm not sure whether or where you do.

You're arguing that sometimes the things we say have consequences, and that we must accept those consequences as a condition of saying those things, is that correct?

I am happy to accept the consequences of giving offense to people by openly questioning their silly beliefs. I would think that most skeptics take a similar view, since questioning unsupported beliefs is sort of the entire project here.

 

[d4m10n]

In order to stop people from objecting to the behaviour or others, it WILL be necessary to restrict their free speech rights, and their right to choose who they deal with.

Do you see any significant difference between objecting to someone's behavior (e.g. "This professor was wrong to show that art to her students") and trying to get them deplatformed or sacked for what they did?

 

[d4m10n]

In order to fight financial consequences to free speech, you must alter one or more of those two components.

Self-restraint is an alteration, but it is not imposed from without. What happened to Gelato Andy could have been easily prevented if the cybermob (and particularly its ringleaders) had enough sense to ask themselves whether it was really ethical to try to put that small business out of business given the ephemeral nature of the offense.

 

[Upchurch]

Do you see any significant difference between objecting to someone's behavior (e.g. "This professor was wrong to show that art to her students") and trying to get them deplatformed or sacked for what they did?

Well, they're all forms of protected speech. What is the significant difference you see between them?

 

[wareyin]

If you don't see any difference between "Andy holds false beliefs" and "Kroger should fire Andy, taking away his livelihood and health insurance" then there isn't anything I can do to persuade you.

In not at all a transparent ploy, you've reverted from whining about your podcast hosts who do objectively unpopular things losing popular support to pretending your only concern is for the little guy who can already be fired for *checks notes* literally no reason at all. If you want to protect the little guy, then we need to strengthen worker protections. Whining that the already wealthy or powerful people have to face any consequences at all for their actions really dilutes the "protect the little guy" message you're trying to portray here.

All that said, this whole "meh, I'm kicking away the religious crutch lots of people rely on to get through life and/or build their entire identity on, but at least I'm not taking away their health insurance" schtick is also a self serving excuse to get away with your own lack of self-restraint while saying everyone else needs to use said self-restraint.

 

[Upchurch]

Self-restraint is an alteration, but it is not imposed from without. What happened to Gelato Andy could have been easily prevented if the cybermob (and particularly its ringleaders) had enough sense to ask themselves whether it was really ethical to try to put that small business out of business given the ephemeral nature of the offense.

It's almost like you didn't read the part of my post you quoted at all.

 

[johnny karate]

It sounds like you are thinking about making an argument for even more self-restraint than I am. I'd say it is fine to attack ideas but not people, whereas you seem to want to protect people even from being offended when someone else expresses a contrary view in a highly pluralistic society.

I don’t advocate for that at all, nor have I have ever implied that I do. Free speech is free speech. I accept that whether or not I agree with the specific speech. You do not. I also accept that there are sometimes consequences for speech. You do not.

If you don't see any difference between "Andy holds false beliefs" and "Kroger should fire Andy, taking away his livelihood and health insurance" then there isn't anything I can do to persuade you.

Yes, you’ve tried nothing and you’re all out of ideas. If you want to argue that some speech is more harmful than others, that’s fine. But your subjective opinion doesn’t mean a whole lot to me.

Not to mention their deeply held beliefs in haruspicy, homeopathy, cryptids, and Q anon. People need to learn to live with the fact that we don't all agree about such things.

I agree with this outlook. Now apply it to yourself.

I would think it's a significantly smaller lift just to ask for a baseline level of "live and let live" rather than trying to get art professors fired for *checks notes* teaching students about art.

I’m on record agreeing that the professor shouldn’t have lost her job. However, the matter is being successfully adjudicated in her favor, so I’m not sure what there is to get outraged about at this point.

You continually bring up these “cancel culture” examples where things work out for the people who supposedly got “cancelled”, and it’s weird that you think this is a convincing strategy.

We all have to draw the line somewhere, but I'm not sure whether or where you do.

I draw the line within boundaries of the philosophical and legal doctrines of free speech. That doesn’t seem to be good enough for you. So specifically where should the line be drawn and what is the objective basis for drawing it there?

I am happy to accept the consequences of giving offense to people by openly questioning their silly beliefs. I would think that most skeptics take a similar view, since questioning unsupported beliefs is sort of the entire project here.

Okay, cool. So what’s your problem with what happened to Gina Carano again?

 

[johnny karate]

Do you see any significant difference between objecting to someone's behavior (e.g. "This professor was wrong to show that art to her students") and trying to get them deplatformed or sacked for what they did?

While you’re at it, throw in “I hate this person because of their race/gender/sexuality/religion and don’t think they should be allowed to exist”. Then you can rank them in order of most concerning to least and let us know how you arrived at that ranking.

 

[Stout]

Uh oh! Conservatives mucking about in the cancel culture sandbox.

In order to showcase the cultural and abilities diversity within the 2SLGBTQIA+ community Western University put out a poster in celebration of the International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia, and Biphobia last may which included a couple of hijab wearing women about to share a kiss. Unfortunately this sparked a homophobic backlash that included a 2000 signature petition demanding the poster be burned at the stake.

There appeared to be much clucking and flapping of wings in the university's diversity and inclusion department before they finally decided to kowtow to the conservatives demand and behead the "inappropriate" poster thereby erasing Muslim identity from the 2SLGBTQIA+ world.

Link

 

[wareyin]

Uh oh! Conservatives mucking about in the cancel culture sandbox.

In order to showcase the cultural and abilities diversity within the 2SLGBTQIA+ community Western University put out a poster in celebration of the International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia, and Biphobia last may which included a couple of hijab wearing women about to share a kiss. Unfortunately this sparked a homophobic backlash that included a 2000 signature petition demanding the poster be burned at the stake.

There appeared to be much clucking and flapping of wings in the university's diversity and inclusion department before they finally decided to kowtow to the conservatives demand and behead the "inappropriate" poster thereby erasing Muslim identity from the 2SLGBTQIA+ world.

Link

Oh no, religious people object to religious depictions they don't like. The horror. The newness. The absolute yawn inducing depths these "cancel culture" believers have to plumb to try to find something, anything, they can point to to prove that their "cancel culture" is real.

 

[Stout]

It's amazing what comes out of that folder of things I found while looking up other things but OK, enough of the butthurt conservatives and a return to kicking the crap out of butthurt wokesters.

And for the cancel culture deniers among us, here's a recent example of The Guardian using the term and as we all know, one good way to trash your progressive creds and out yourself as a closet conservative is to disagree with The Guardian.

 

[johnny karate]

Nothing drives home the idea that “cancel culture” is a problem like citing its reference in a work of fiction.

 

[wareyin]

Nothing drives home the idea that “cancel culture” is a problem like citing its reference in a work of fiction.

Go easy on Stout, would you? When you get your poutrage fix from sources that just make stuff up out of whole cloth, you probably aren't equipped to tell fact from fiction anymore.

 

[Stout]

Nothing drives home the idea that “cancel culture” is a problem like citing its reference in a work of fiction.

Wait what? Have we had a breakthrough here? Is it actually being acknowledged that the words cancel and culture can be put together and used to describe something that actually exists? It looks like we have a hallelujah moment here.

 

[wareyin]

Wait what? Have we had a breakthrough here? Is it actually being acknowledged that the words cancel and culture can be put together and used to describe something that actually exists? It looks like we have a hallelujah moment here.

I love it. I specifically pointed out that crappy news sources could cause consumers to have problems telling real life from fiction, and here you are, still thinking a work of fiction proves your scary bedtime story" actually exists."

 

[johnny karate]

Wait what? Have we had a breakthrough here? Is it actually being acknowledged that the words cancel and culture can be put together and used to describe something that actually exists? It looks like we have a hallelujah moment here.

The term certainly exists as shorthand for a phenomenon some people claim is a huge problem and also to reference that perceived problem. Acknowledging that in no way validates the underlying claims of the “cancel culture” hand-wringers.