
What Is the “Social Justice” Endgame? - alexandercrohde
https://blog.alexrohde.com/archives/603
======
SCdF
This is one of the most "HN" things I've read in awhile.

Their first bullet point asks their audience to define a term they just made
up, and implies that grouping people via this term is important to social
justice, said as someone who has trouble making sense of social justice.

This list feels like they're trying to disprove a math proof or something. As
if, if you can "catch them out" with some edge case you can blow this thing
wide open. This kind of approach doesn't work outside of maths, physics and
CS. It barely works there.

My advice: step back from your 12 highly specific "smoking gun" bullet points
and start asking some more general questions. Or, even better than asking,
doing some of your own reading.

~~~
alexandercrohde
It feels to me that you're treating this as more of a power game than a mutual
pursuit of truth.

~~~
SCdF
What does that even mean? What possible power could I (?) have over you (?).

Again: your list is a large barrage of insistent questions that require your
readers to contort to a set of terms you've made up. It is not open minded, it
is treating the subject as already wrong and here's why.

It reminds me of when you have a "discussion" with someone and they aren't
actually interested in listening, they're just waiting until you say something
they can "ah ha!" you with.

~~~
civilian
Man I'm so confused here. Questions are good! Even if alexrohde is trying to
bait you, you have an opportunity to lay out arguments.

I'm a libertarian and I love it when people ask me questions, even if they're
trying to bait me. I've got a consistent ideology and someone asking me
questions doesn't threaten it.

I think alexrohde is a systems kind of thinker, and he's trying to understand
the values and ideology that social justice lives by, because it feels
inconsistent to him. But again, maybe I'm being too generous.

The post also reminds me Double-Cruxing:
[http://lesswrong.com/lw/o6p/double_crux_a_strategy_for_resol...](http://lesswrong.com/lw/o6p/double_crux_a_strategy_for_resolving_disagreement/)
but.. granted, it's one sided.

~~~
kthejoker2
Your post is Poe's Law for sea lioning. I can no longer differentiate satire
in this space.

[http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/sea-lioning](http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/sea-
lioning)

~~~
civilian
I'm serious, I wasn't trying to be satirical. I also wasn't asking any
questions? I was just doing my best to... idk, lay out my own thoughts.

I know that Poe's Law applies to a lot of the internet, but I feel like HN is
one place where people are more likely to honestly engage.

------
notacoward
> what is harder is presenting a superior alternative.

...and the OP doesn't even try. Instead he asserts his privilege by asking
others to justify themselves and their actions to him individually according
to his framing and questions. Does he even ask, for example, about the _other_
culture(s) at play here, racists and sexists and so on pulling in the other
direction? Surely understanding them is just as important, but that would be
inconvenient. No, only one group has to be completely transparent and explicit
and specific, while others remain free to roam around the rhetorical
battleground changing claims however/whenever it suits them.

This doesn't seem to be about understanding. It's a delaying tactic. Keep
people busy answering an endless series of questions and objections, so they
can't spend that time doing anything else. It's not like we haven't seen this
before. It even has a name: sea-lioning. To the author: show some evidence
that you've tried to educate yourself before you expect others to do it for
you.

~~~
Pilfer
> _It 's a delaying tactic. Keep people busy answering an endless series of
> questions and objections, so they can't spend that time doing anything else.
> It's not like we haven't seen this before. It even has a name: sea-lioning._

Something I find quite amusing is you accuse the author of sea-lioning while
you blatantly do so in the rest of the thread
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15029410](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15029410)
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15029531](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15029531)

~~~
notacoward
Yes, it's very amusing that I deliberately put the shoe on the other foot. I
even explicitly pointed out that I was doing it. Some people recognize their
own bad behavior much more readily when it's reflected back to them. There,
now you're all caught up.

~~~
Pilfer
But the author isn't sea-lioning, you're the only one doing it. @civilian
explains why in a followup comment. Sea-lioning yourself reflects badly on you
and makes it hard to take your other comments seriously. You admit half your
comments here are troll comments, so why should readers take your other
comments seriously?

> _I even explicitly pointed out that I was doing it_

It's not clear to anyone reading the thread. You never explicitly point out
you are doing so.

------
orwin
Hey a game!

Disclaimer: not a native english speaker, i might lack vocabulary and do some
grammar mistakes.

1/ I have no idea of what a protected group is. A discriminated group however,
depends on where you live. Erythreen jews in israel are discriminated against
by the “dominant” group (white conservative isreali). Chinese suffer
discrimination in some parts of India and Philipines, while people from
Philipines suffer some in China (sorry, no idea how englsh call them).

Past oppression is only relevant if some discrimination is done because of
this (Hello Rwanda). Let’s take South Africa. Past oppression was relevant
even after Nelson mandela because the culture was still related to the
apparteid. This is less true today, so this is not as relevant now (my
question: how did you not figure this on your own? Do you like asking leading
question that much?)

2/Leading question, again, nice. None. But people in discriminated groups
should have an easier time joining profession that brings power or visibility,
so related to law (even if it is as paralegal), politics or television, or
company management. Again with the S.A example, the culture changed because
there were more and more black people in courthouses, politics and at the head
of national companies. The fact that there is some racial inequalities there
come from class inequalities (not the subject here) and not racism.

3/ What agenda?

4/ None. I don’t see your point there, it might be lost in translation.

5/ What? Why would you punish statement made at work? Except if there is a
client (let’s say, the state want to buy your product, and you say “public
worker are paid doing nothing” to his face, get ready to be fired or put in a
closet). Is this a leading question?

6/ Victims are defined by law in my country, i don’t know about the us though.
I’d define “offensive” a statement that i would not say out loud to all my
friends or family. Like “i find that any theism is dumb as f…”, which i would
never say to my grandmother, despite being my real feeling, is offensive. 3rd
part is a leading question, but my response is that i do not care about you
and you can tell whatever you want to anyone, but if you say the previous
sentence to anyone and get called out, i would not help you

7/ I’m not advocating for anyone, but i can see (in my country anyway) that
some people (obese people) have it worst than anybody in some places (hospital
mainly). I defend them orally with my friends and on internet when i feel like
it (not often in english though). Well, since i’m 20 i don’t really hang with
anybody that would judge people for their looks (because its tiring /time-
consumming to defend people i’m not related too for no reason but my personal
ethic) but i did that.

8/ Do you know that apostasia is punishable by death in pakistan, but not in
other countries (tunisia come to mind), and in some, nobody cares. So it
depends on WHERE you live, obviously. Do you feel that in USA/UK, the way most
of the people treated Cat Stevens/Yusuf Islam when he choose, after nearly
dying twice, to change his religion, was justified/ subjectivly fair/fair
isn’t the question? Where i lived, no one cared about this. So probably MORE
protected if you live surrounded by dumb a-holes, about the same else.

8bis: Sorry about the passive-agressive subtitle there, i might have no
personnality and just mimic the way of expression of the people i’m talking
to.

9/ Well, you can see my response in 6/. Yes, there is studies that make
correlation about IQ and how religious people feel, still, making any remark
about that out loud (or on a forum where religious people gather, on a video
about gregorian chant) is just rude.

10/ Depending on where you live, discriminated people are not the same, so i
don’t really care. I spent entire vacations with my racist cousin, we had no
problems. He is quite honest with his hate and while i disagree, i still quite
like him. Honestly, most of those are leading question and i decided early to
go away from people i perceive as manipulative, so i would never hang out with
you anyway, but we could coexist just fine.

11/ No, i don’t care about the majority, i’m old enough to think on my own.

12/ Sorry, how does work safety come with guilt and social pressure? I think
this is manipulation, but w/e. Guilt and social pressure are sadly two
educational levers, that are used and abused with children in school quite
often (and in dog training too). Using it against adult are less effective,
but it still works for some reason. I do hate this way of doing things, but
whne i was a youth camp consellor, i had to use social pressure to make
activities run smoothly. I’m still feeling guilty about it. I disliked doing
it because i feel this was dishonest, even if this was the easiest way to get
thing started. Those questions being a bit dishonest, are you feeling a bit
guilty about it or do you feel its fine being dishonest to try to convince
people they are mistaken (or do you think those question where objectively
honest and i’m mistaken)?

It was an interesting game, thank you.

