
Sam Altman and the fear of political correctness - mcenedella
http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2017/12/sam-altman-fear-political-correctness.html
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whatyoucantsay
>"Political correctness often comes from a good place—I think we should all be
willing to make accommodations to treat others well. But too often it ends up
being used as a club for something orthogonal to protecting actual victims.
The best ideas are barely possible to express at all, and if you’re constantly
thinking about how everything you say might be misinterpreted, you won’t let
the best ideas get past the fragment stage."

> -@sama

These words wouldn't have been out of place in the very PG essay that inspired
me to join this community.

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gamblor956
It depends on what part of the US you're in. The Bay Area and Northwest are
ultraliberal, so conservative and even moderate voices get suppressed. The
Midwest/Bible-Belt is ultra-Christian so non-Christian voices get suppressed.
The South is ultraconservative, so moderate, liberal, progressive, non-
Christian, and non-white voices are suppressed.

The best places for free speech are SoCal and NYC. Both areas lean liberal but
have large conservative populations, so extreme viewpoints on either side of
the political spectrum get suppressed, but everything in the middle comes
through just fine.

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yostrovs
Anyone wanting to experience this effect without going to San Francisco can
try it here on HN. I've seen smart and reasonable but unpopular comments
disappear with amazing speed and also seen people wondering why our government
would do something even though there's seemingly nobody that supports that
decision.

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AmIFirstToThink
Rampant shadow-banning on HN if you comment on immigration or terrorism or
Net-Neutrality that the PC crowd doesn't agree to.

I am sure this comment will only be seen by me, only through this browser.

Peter Thiel or Sam Altman speak for free speech, yet HN comment auditors keep
using their jurisdiction in deciding what is OK and what is not.

Lot of work that engineers do and then social operatives hijack the work and
enforce their agenda on top of that engineering work.

I have no clue how they feel being American, operating on American soil, under
the protection of American law enforcement, and at the same time stopping
American people from having a discussion, that too after specifically creating
a platform for that very reason... to have a public discussion.

This is same crowd that gets angry when ISPs want to kick out a packet that
the ISP doesn't like, but are super comfortable blocking, hiding and in case
of reddit even editing user's comments. How they are able to hold this
cognitive dissonance in their head at the same time is beyond me.

I am sure nobody will read this but at least I said it. Hi, HN auditors, have
a wonderful day full of opportunities to ban users and comments, enjoy!!!

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Cryptid
>I am sure this comment will only be seen by me, only through this browser.

hi!

Since your model has led you to an incorrect conclusion, are you going to
revise it?

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rdtsc
> Whatever you are free to say in America, you have said many times already,
> and the marginal value of exercising that freedom yet again doesn’t seem so
> high. But you show up in China, and wow, your pent-up urges

Except that one country has built up a perception of allowing more freedom of
speech than another.

The analogy doesn't cut to the core of the issue.

And the whole "pent up" phrasing makes it sound like Sam was just waiting to
express some horrible things and couldn't do it here and had fly to China.

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whatyoucantsay
Only in the same sense that Renaissance-era scientists wanted to "express
horrible things" about the nature of our solar system.

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YouAreGreat
Getting blacklisted will cost what, 50% of remaining lifetime earnings?

That's a lot, given the country promised _free_ speech on the tin.

