
On Committing Suicide - lettergram
https://austingwalters.com/on-committing-suicide/
======
BJBBB
"Unfortunately, many of our would-be leaders have opted out or have been
pushed out of this system. They've become engineers, scientists, bloggers --
too scared to share their opinions (even shutting down). To hold a nuanced
opinion different from the "socially accepted" by one group or another will
get you "canceled". In this case, "canceled" can mean anything from losing
your job, to losing financial platforms/instruments (i.e. PayPal, VISA,
YouTube revenue, etc.), to receiving threats on your life."

Our consulting consortium is, not by design, a freakin UN assemblage of
engineers. About 1/3 are female and includes two Indians, one Iranian, one
Canadian, one Irish, two Mexicans, one Brazilian, one Polish, and the token
Texan. With the exception of the guy from Texas, we are all the offspring of
immigrants. The guy from Texas talks a bit funny, but being from a distant and
strange land, that is to be expected; and his great grandmother was born into
an enslaved family in the Carolinas. All except three have served in the
military.

The one rule we have is there will be no sexual, political, racial, or
religious discussions once at the client's site; that is, we only talk about
solving the customer's problem. We do not have lunch or take breaks with
clients, we do not accept invitations to any client's social functions, and we
have 'physical protection' clauses in each contract.

During the last five months, all members have seen clients' technicians,
engineers, or managers either sent home or fired for sexual, political,
racial, or religious comments. The workplace has become a very hostile
environment, which probably reflects the generally polarized and intransigent
American environment. We have decided to give the U.S. another 10 to 15 months
to see if America is lost (not my words); otherwise, were splitting up and
heading to other places. Also, one of our Indian engineers was being recruited
last year by a political committee to run for a local position, but decided
the risk to the family was not insignificant.

~~~
RickJWagner
I can totally understand that US life looks crazy to an outsider right now.

I work for a company with employees around the globe. The Americans are
polarized-- on the left, they mostly seem to support 'cancelling' people that
don't agree with them. On the right, they are mostly silent, but quite upset.

Colleagues in overseas locations are likewise polarized. Some hold liberal
opinions and agree with the left-side views. I've been especially surprised by
some people that come from former Soviet-block countries, though. They are
mostly horrified at the statue toppling, language 'cleansing', etc. They
believe it looks too familiar and is leading to worse things.

~~~
wbazant
I'm Polish - a post-Soviet block country - and I enjoy a good statue toppling!
Why has it taken the US so long to start removing statues of racists, slavers,
and shitty men from the bad times when they still had power? Poland changed
all the street names named after bolsheviks and everything. Like, in Philly
where I live there once was a mayor whose campaign slogan was 'vote white' and
he still had a statue dedicated to him until a month ago.

------
AnonC
Some rambling as I try to figure out what I intend to convey.

During normal times, humans behave in irrational ways. During testing times
(with a pandemic, unemployment, violence, corruption), humans seem to behave
irrationally and exhibit frustrations akin to taking it out on someone/some
group even though the cause and the resolution (or the ability to bring a
resolution) lie elsewhere. Somewhere in this mix, from well intentioned and
otherwise logical or educated people, we see utterly incomprehensible support
for certain non-progressive ideals, bigotry and outright violence.

I don’t know what could really help. But there seem to be some fundamental
problems (in Maslow’s hierarchy of needs) that have become exacerbated and are
snowballing and manifesting in many other areas. To those on the fence or
amenable to change their views, solving some of these problems could help
bring them to the table and be willing to listen (and then change).

------
apta
> You would suspect everyone would agree that we “own” our bodies.

No they don't. This is one of the causes of many issues we see in the US
today, and it seems to be infecting many "Western" countries, particularly
English speaking ones.

------
tzs
>By and large, I believe this is due to the “absolute” nature of our current
social strife. Take the question:

>> Why can’t I be anti-vaccine and pro-choice?

> You would suspect everyone would agree that we “own” our bodies. If that
> were true, then you would effectively have to be pro-choice AND support
> people’s right to choose what to put in their bodies;

That's only true if you believe that ownership of something means you are the
sole determiner of what can or cannot be done with it, regardless of how that
affects others.

One could agree that we "own" our bodies but still be in favor of mandatory
vaccination of people who do not have a medical reason to avoid it on the
grounds that losing herd immunity could cause widespread harm.

Similarly, one could agree with body ownership but be anti-abortion because
they believe that the fetus is a person and being aborted harms that person.

For most things short of actual slavery, the body ownership argument is pretty
weak. It really just sets the default rule for cases where there are no other
people involved, but once you get societies more complex than very small
isolated groups of people there are almost always other people involved.

------
mgamache
We've (in the US) have been captured by two parties that are exploiting us to
prevent democracy from breaking out. How does the elite stay elite? Take the
anger that people have from being in a rigged system and focus it on the other
party or someone else instead of the people that write the laws.

I would argue that Occupy Wall Street, Tea Party, Trump 2016, and the latest
social unrest are all symptoms of an unresponsive political system. People are
angry, and looking for someone to blame. With social media amplifying the
anger, the whole situation may get out of control and damage the US for years
to come.

------
raxxorrax
> Why can’t I be anti-vaccine and pro-choice?

That is not a box others want you to be put in. People want a justification
for their views. There are the nazis and the people that think they are better
than nazis (hint: not hard) and build their raison d'être around that. Well,
nazis are quite unpleasant. Still, anything that might convince them of being
wrong, which a position that cannot put you into firmly defined groups will
do, will result in hostilities. Furthermore the tactics of both opponents will
become the same with time. In the end there isn't even much difference between
fascists and their opponents. Again, you fight the former most effectively by
ignoring them and see the rights of people protected, that are target of the
mobs. Those involved will quickly loose any conscience. It is the result if
you believe you were wronged because people are somehow oppressing you. That
is also when you loose your believe in meritocracy/fairness.

I don't think your perception of people not working in your interest is true.
You should differentiate between public statements and deeds though.
Meritocracy will still prevail in the long run.

------
Kednicma
Meritocracy is incompatible with justice. Either some people are better than
others, and deserve more, or they aren't and they don't.

~~~
raxxorrax
I disagree. Meritocracy is an euphemism for fairness for the vast majority of
people valuing it. Is that incompatible with justice?

It is not a value judgement of people. If you work harder, you earn more. Some
don't even want to do that and are not lesser beings for it.

freedom is incompatible with equity is a response on the same level, but there
is much more truth in it.

~~~
Kednicma
As explored in the original book [0], it is hypocritical to both succeed
because of a meritocracy and also support the idea that the meritocracy is
just. The underlying principle is that justice empathizes with everyone, not
just those with merit, in determining a path forward. To quote the author,

> Educational injustice enabled people to preserve their illusions, while
> inequality of opportunity fostered the myth of human equality.

To get a glimpse at true justice, please consider the following thought
experiment, which leads to what I call "algorithmic justice." There is a
traditional game that children play where there are two children and a cake.
The first child cuts the cake, and the second child selects which piece goes
to whom. Let us do the same, but more broadly. Take the resources of our
society, the raw inputs and the processed goods and the man-hours of labor,
and apportion them to each person as seems fair and just, by asking each
person to apportion them amongst each other, and going to the iterated
minimization of disagreement and regret.

This is a game that many political ideologies have attempted, but they have
all failed because they chose to take a shortcut and use some sort of
heuristic rule for judging people. However, it turns out that people are too
unique to be judged as a single collective group fairly by any single metric.

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rise_of_the_Meritocracy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rise_of_the_Meritocracy)

~~~
raxxorrax
I don't take the term as serious as the author of the book, nor do I have
political ambitions to implement it. I think it was a rug that appealed to
fairness. It was pretty ugly, but that is another story.

How the author formulates the critique is specifically not how it is
understood by adherents from my experience. Not only for justice, imagine
access for disabled people in public services like extra ramps or similar
facilities which society provides. Do they have "merit" under natural law?
Perhaps not. Does that mean adherents want to just ignore them? No, on the
contrary. There are different a priori assumptions by people that like
meritocracy and its critics.

What about social justice? Which metric do you use here to judge people. By
frequency of occurrence by immutable characteristics? You can take both terms
to mean the exact same thing. Doesn't mean you cannot have two groups
endlessly fighting about who is correct about it.

It is not a political ideology. Maybe it is now, but that is more reactionary.
But normally it would get some laughs if propped up that much.

What it certainly never meant is that you somehow need to earn your keep to
receive justice and be treated fairly. But I understand the critique if it is
conceived this way.

edit: We currently need to earn our keep in society for economic survival. I
think working towards changing that is preferable.

