
We are all prisoners of groupthink - pseudolus
https://unherd.com/2020/07/why-the-prisoner-is-more-accurate-than-orwell/
======
hogFeast
I think a lot of people here have missed the point.

Social media has made it far easier to display your values to other people.
Rather than led to diversity, it has massively consolidated the range of
"acceptable" opinions to a serious of slogans and "approved" ideas that
everyone must agree with.

And btw, I don't think actual values have changed. But what has happened is
that we have a very vocal and determined minority that feels the need to judge
other people who disagree with them.

That is the point of the Village. Everything you do is controlled by social
pressure. To give an example, where I am the police now spend a lot of time on
social media prosecuting because it is so easy to build a case. Social media
is the avenue for this control.

Just personally, I was never the biggest fan of social media. I thought
Facebook was a conspiracy to steal my personal data in 2008. But I did use
Twitter to build a business a few years later. I would never do this again.
You are just exposed to far too many idiots. This was true back in 2011 when I
was using it, it is doubly true today. Social media encourages idiots to have
an opinion about things they don't understand.

------
commandlinefan
I'm old enough to remember the Christian conservative mob of the 80's - the
Jerry Falwell/Pat Buchanan/Tipper Gore crowd. When they went after you, they
were vicious. They were ruthless. They wouldn't stop until they had done
everything they could to destroy you. Slowly, people started waking up to the
damage they were causing - in particular, sexual deviants (like homosexuals)
were at the top of their hit list. Rational people started pushing back.
Although it seemed unimaginable in the mid-80's, by the mid-90's, they had
been made irrelevant by constant, gentle backpressure.

Now, though, the people that they targeted, instead of rejoicing that their
oppressors are finally powerless to harm them, are taking up the mantle of
oppressor themselves. There's a sense of "giving them a taste of their own
medicine" \- and if the actual perpetrators are too hard to find, anybody that
reminds them of the perpetrators will do.

History suggests that this, too, will ultimately be defeated, but not after a
lot of damage is done to very innocent bystanders.

~~~
at_a_remove
I am in the same boat as you. For me, I didn't dislike the people -- I pried
myself away from that habit -- and grew to dislike the tactics. Seeing them
taken up by the formerly oppressed is very disheartening. That jackboot that
has been stomping my face in, I wonder if it fits _me_?

~~~
banads
>That jackboot that has been stomping my face in, I wonder if it fits me?

"If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds,
and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy
them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every
human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart? During
the life of any heart this line keeps changing place; sometimes it is squeezed
one way by exuberant evil and sometimes it shifts to allow enough space for
good to flourish. One and the same human being is, at various ages, under
various circumstances, a totally different human being. At times he is close
to being a devil, at times to sainthood. But his name doesn't change, and to
that name we ascribe the whole lot, good and evil.

Socrates taught us: "Know thyself."

Confronted by the pit into which we are about to toss those who have done us
harm, we halt, stricken dumb: it is after all only because of the way things
worked out that they were the executioners and we weren't.

From good to evil is one quaver, says the proverb.

And correspondingly, from evil to good."

-Gulag Archipeligo

------
diffrinse
Fascinating myth that we all keep telling each other and ourselves that we
fully own all our desires and behaviors. Western secular life continues to
betray itself as a species of Christianity. European antiquity had no notion
of this kind of counter-social autonomy (and no, that's not what Stoicism is
about, much as people are mining it for the same gold they were trying to get
out of Buddhism and Taosim in the 80s/90s). Then you read through Levi-
Straussian anthropology and realize its probably the case most, if not all,
cultures on Earth don't sport this peculiarity. So many moral/ethical concepts
in the West, and American culture in particular as it seemingly double-downs
on most sof it, are just straight up blind alleys.

~~~
leereeves
In what way is the "counter-social autonomy" that led to religious freedom,
democracy, and the end of slavery a blind alley?

The social structures of antiquity (European or otherwise) were horrible. We
should be grateful to the people who had the courage to defy those social
norms.

------
disposekinetics
This is a good mantra, along with "You are not immune to propaganda"

------
spinach
It only became obvious to me when I found out about the transgender debate,
and that you aren't allowed to discuss reality. Just repeat 'transwomen are
women' and anything against that is hate speech. You can't acknowledge they
are male. It's insane. So many people are banned from twitter just for saying
men can't be women, youtube channels are demontized, and the big Gender
Critical sub on reddit was recently banned, for 'hate speech'. Simply because
they don't believe transwomen are women.

It's identity politics and this push of feelings and individual's 'truth' over
actual reality and data. I've never felt so terrified. You can't talk about
reality, about a lot of things. The BLM movement is the same. If the actual
facts don't fit the narrative, you can't say them. How can we fix the problems
if we can't even acknowledge what is real?

~~~
ptd
Trans people are killing themselves at alarming rates along with a slew of
other issues. Why is your ability to disagree with them more important than
their lives?

~~~
AmericanChopper
If any other medical procedure increased the risk of suicide by about 2000%,
it wouldn’t be controversial to suggest that it might be a bad treatment.

~~~
dragonwriter
Being transgender isn't a medical procedure.

~~~
AmericanChopper
Sexual reassignment surgery is, which increases the risk of suicide by about
20x, the risk of suicide attempts by about 5x, the risk of inpatient
psychiatric hospitalization by about 3x.

If you want to discuss the plight of transgender individuals, then the
tremendously harmful medical treatment they receive should be right at the top
of your list of grievances.

Unless that’s hate speech, and you’d prefer to discuss only alternative, less
hateful realities.

~~~
dragonwriter
> Sexual reassignment surgery is, which increases the risk of suicide by about
> 20x, the risk of suicide attempts by about 5x, the risk of inpatient
> psychiatric hospitalization by about 3x.

No, it doesn't. The source for that claim [0] doesn't control for people being
transgender, comparing instead recipients of the surgery to the general
population, which is not be a fatal flaw for some uses of the research (such
as the conclusion of the actual report, that sex reassignment surgery is,
alone, seems to be _inadequate_ as treatment and needs supplementation), but
it certainly is for the question “is sex reassignment surgery harmful,
helpful, or neither for transgender individuals?”

Studies that are actually directed at that question find that it is
beneficial,

[https://medicine.yale.edu/news-
article/21447/](https://medicine.yale.edu/news-article/21447/)

[https://williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu/publications/suicidal...](https://williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu/publications/suicidality-
transgender-adults/)

[0]
[https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal...](https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0016885),
mostly entering American right-wing propaganda as an argument for the position
you use it for via [https://www.heritage.org/gender/commentary/sex-
reassignment-...](https://www.heritage.org/gender/commentary/sex-reassignment-
doesnt-work-here-the-evidence)

~~~
AmericanChopper
The study you linked measures a completely different thing all together. It
measures psychiatric treatment over time after surgery. It makes no mention of
suicide, and seems to just gloss over the fact that psychiatric treatment
tends not to be sought by the dead.

I also don’t think it’s a very valid criticism to dismiss the most
comprehensive research on this topic to date, performed at Sweden’s largest
medical research institution, as “American right-wing propaganda”.

~~~
grraaaaahhh
>I also don’t think it’s a very valid criticism to dismiss the most
comprehensive research on this topic to date, performed at Sweden’s largest
medical research institution, as “American right-wing propaganda”.

However, it is valid to dismiss the Heritage's conclusions on the study as
American right-wing propaganda as the study doesn't support their conclusions
whatsoever. That study compares the effects of gender reassignment surgery to
the general population, not a population of transgender people who never
underwent surgery. Any statement you would make about gender reassignment
surgery would necessarily be confounded by the affects of being transgender at
all.

------
psquared2
I think the biggest take-away from "cancel culture is bad" letters and
articles is that they never come with specific examples. For example, Gareth
Roberts says he was cancelled but never say why
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gareth_Roberts_(writer)#Transg...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gareth_Roberts_\(writer\)#Transgender_controversy)
He said transgenderism is "It's almost like a clueless gayboy's idea of a
glamorous lady." It's ok to have an opinion, but if you insist it beyond being
respectful and/or scientific evidences, you deserve a backlash.

It's almost as if actions have consequences.

~~~
Vomzor
Here's a list of examples:
[https://twitter.com/SpeechUnion/status/1269314030663012352](https://twitter.com/SpeechUnion/status/1269314030663012352)

~~~
jchook
Imagine using your career position as a platform to argue that Black Americans
should use “separate but equal” facilities in 2020.

Should you get fired? Or is that free speech?

~~~
asdf21
>Imagine using your career position as a platform to argue that Black
Americans should use “separate but equal” facilities in 2020.

Isn't that one of the core tenants of the BLM campaigns? "Separate but equal"
community policing for African American neighborhoods..

~~~
gerbal
That's not true at all. This sounds a lot like the random anti BLM propaganda
you see on facebook.

The core tenants of BLM are that __CURRENTLY __black communities are policed
in a radically different way than white communities. BLM activists want
everyone to have a just and fair policing.

~~~
asdf21
No, it's nothing new... here is an article about the same thing from 2017...
unless they have changed, BLM is a separatist movement.

[https://www.nationalreview.com/2017/07/black-lives-matter-
ra...](https://www.nationalreview.com/2017/07/black-lives-matter-racial-
exclusion-lisa-durden-tucker-carlson/)

~~~
gerbal
The assertion in that article is that all BLM activists and the whole movement
are black separatist and racists because a "media commentator" taunted Tucker
Carlson? That article also does not mention that she lost her job as a result
of that interview (cancellation works both ways).

While there may be black separatists who support BLM, BLM is not a black
separatist movement. Ultimately any black separatists will be frustrated by
BLM's goals of an inclusive and just society.

Also, National Review is about as unbiased as Daily Kos, and has other
ideological goals when discrediting BLM.

------
tech_timc
I've been thinking that, too. . .

------
jfengel
It's kinda remarkable to watch people respond to "All people groupthink" with
"Yeah, all those other people out there groupthink".

~~~
dwaltrip
It stands to reason that some people, for whatever reason, are somewhat less
susceptible. It would be a strange world indeed if the susceptibility was
exactly the same across all humans.

Many questions quickly surface, though. How can we tell who is less
susceptible? How can we mode this variance? A single fixed number from 1 to
100 is certainly insufficient. And even if we can start to understand these
phenomena, under what conditions can we actually apply the new knowledge for
widespread benefit? What are the risks?

------
d_e_solomon
Speech has consequences. If you make statements that are blatantly: \- Racist
\- Anti LGBT \- Anti Trans \- Misogynistic Then don't be surprised when other
people call you out on it and you face consequences.

We're not discussing some random philosophical pie in the sky question. Speech
that oppresses minorities deny their fundamental right to exist. Wouldn't you
fight back if someone wanted to take away your life?

~~~
PaulStatezny
I'm not a hateful person nor a supporter of them, and I haven't read the
article.

But can you explain why you think someone saying hateful things to someone
else "denies their fundamental right to exist"?

This is a core argument that keeps getting spouted, and it's irrational
nonsense.

If I said, "all programmers are terrible, lazy people and they can all go to
hell", that's a terrible thing to say. But it in no way affects your right to
_exist_, let alone any other right.

The burden is on you to give evidence, because it's total nonsense.

~~~
d_e_solomon
There's this crazy fallacy that speech doesn't cause people to change
behavior.

If I influence people consistently by saying that Programmers are terrible
people; convince a bunch of people that it's true; then policies that target
programmers are much easier to make into law.

Slavery existed in part because people thought black people were subhuman and
plenty of people argued that quite publicly.

Or consider a gay child whose teachers say that gay people are going to hell?
Do you think that wouldn't have an impact?

I really don't understand this idea that speech doesn't have consequences that
cause disparate impact.

~~~
slowmovintarget
> Slavery existed in part because people thought black people were subhuman
> and plenty of people argued that quite publicly.

Slavery has existed in every human society, everywhere in the world.

You are correct that this was the pathological, disgusting justification for
keeping it, at least in the United States in the 19th century, but that isn't
why it existed, not even in part.

~~~
banads
It's funny (and quite stupid) how people try to define slavery and racism as a
uniquely white American problem from the past, and not a human problem of the
present.

Slavery still exists. There are more people living in slavery now than ever
before in history.

------
chadcmulligan
Probably off topic but Patrick McGoohan was in a couple of good series for
those at home at the moment, apart from The Prisoner, Danger Man was another
(A bond like spy), and he also turns up in a few episodes of Columbo. If you
like those then try the Avengers - the one with Patrick McNee and Emma peel,
there are other series but the Emma Peel one is recognised as the best.
Surrealist Spy dramas were at their height in that era, if you want to go
further 'The Champions' is another - three spies crash land in Tibet and monks
teach them some powers.

