
Anil Dash's analysis of Sam Altman's free speach essay - korethr
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/941431220952584196.html
======
tedivm
I had a lot of issues with Sam Altman's post-

* He really doesn't seem to understand the difference between free speech and being free of consequences, and as a result he's in danger of suppressing free speech. He wants people to be able to say controversial things without there being blowback, but the only possible way to accomplish that is by suppressing the free speech of people who disagree. You're either for free speech- which includes the right to criticize ideas- or he's arguing that specific people's speech (the person with the "novel physics idea" for example) are more important than others.

* His example of China, one of the worst human rights violators who has been known for violently suppressing free speech, is just a continuation of that. He's happy because as a privileged person with money China is super excited to hear his ideas, but he's also ignoring the fact that China literally jails and kills people who speak out with ideas that their government doesn't like.

* He completely ignores the damage done by hate speech. Just completely ignores it. If you were to read this blog as is it seems like he thinks people being driven out of companies, schools, education programs, and development communities by bigotry and sexism were never going to contribute or that their losses aren't as important as the ideas being lost to people uncomfortable being called out for bigotry.

* The blog seems to put a higher value on innovation and corporations than it does people.

~~~
striking
1) Restriction of speech, as he put it, is not equal to the ability to
criticize ideas.

"When we move from strenuous debate about ideas to casting the people behind
the ideas as heretics, we gradually stop debate on all controversial ideas."

It's the ability to even discuss them without being branded a heretic that he
desires, rather than a lack of criticism.

2) He's saying that the people he knows in China were more willing to hear
about his ideas than the people he knows in SF. He did not mention anything
about privilege, nor do I think it is fair to assume that the Chinese are only
more willing to accept his ideas based on his money. Many people do that, not
just the Chinese. He's mentioning (anecdotally) that the people he spoke with
in China were more open-minded than the people of SF. Perhaps we should take
it as a wakeup call rather than an indication of Altman's privilege.

3) Hate speech != "driven out of companies, schools, education programs, and
development communities by bigotry and sexism". How can you equate what is
strictly speech with that of hateful action?

4) Would you like to pick a quote as an example for why you might feel that
way? The common refrain in this essay to me seems to be "we can’t just call
the person a heretic", which seems very focused on the individual rather than
a theoretical corporation.

~~~
tedivm
1) I don't see people getting arrested for having ideas in the bay area. At
worst they don't get funding, but that doesn't seem to be the topic here.
Perhaps Sam needs to widen his social and professional circle a bit- there are
7.5 million people here, and I can't imagine I'm the only one who has found
open minded ones. If anything he should be encouraging more diversity if he
wants to bring in more ideas, not arguing for policies that will drive people
away.

2) It is entirely anecdotal, and it completely skips over the _fact_ that
China does not have free speech. You know those NFL protests that are
happening here? In china that would get you three years in prison[1]. Being an
American in China alone is enough to grant privileges that don't exist to the
people born there. Shoppinglifting is an offense that carries a minimum
sentence of three years, maximum of ten, and the American college students
caught there were let go.[2] It's naive to think that his experience was
typical in any way.

3) If speech didn't have consequences we wouldn't be having this discussion.
If the "anti gay" physicist wasn't hurt by the words directed at him then he
would just ignore them and keep doing his thing. If the founders working on
life extension weren't upset at being told there are environmental
consequences to this then maybe the blog post would never have been written.

If someone who is gay walks into a company and is told by another employee
that they are deviants in the eyes of god then the gay person is likely to
leave. If a woman is told to "go make us sandwiches", even in a joking way,
she's not going to feel respected. Bigots who are given free reign drive away
the minorities they target.

4) The simple fact that this blog did not discuss any of the consequences of
the hate speech shows that he doesn't think they are legitimate. He argues
that we need to be more lenient in allowing bigotry if it means that we also
get more innovation.

[1] [https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/nov/04/china-
disrespe...](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/nov/04/china-disrespect-
national-anthem-criminal-offence-xi-jinping) [2]
[https://newsone.com/3757629/china-shoplifting-laws-
liangelo-...](https://newsone.com/3757629/china-shoplifting-laws-liangelo-
ball-arrested-punishment/)

~~~
aestetix
I think getting arrested is only one way in which these consequences can
occur. Remember, government is at least in theory a formalized reflection of
social arrangements.

Think more about what it was like during McCarthyism. If you were accused of
being Communist, you became an outcast. You would no longer get invitations to
events. If you were applying for a job, it would suddenly be filled already.
If you wanted to get coffee with a friend, they would suddenly be busy.

As a more recent example of this, look at what happened to Rachel Dolezal, the
"trans-racial" woman who was born white and claimed she identifies as black.
After the media fiasco, she couldn't get a job, and most recently I saw an
article about her struggling to get by on food stamps, and about to be
homeless. There was no government action against her, and yet, nobody would
say she hasn't felt the consequences of what she did.

Note: I'm not suggesting that Dolezal and Communism are related, just using
them as two separate examples to support the larger point.

------
bthornbury
Disagree with Anil.

(Writing this with an expectation of backlash) (irony?)

Everyone expects the judgement of their peers for their controversial
opinions, which is one reason why people tend to have like-minded friends (as
much as possible). Or at least friends open to a discussion.

The issue is judgements on controversial opinions turn into all-too-public
smears on a person's character and that character is conflated with (over-the-
top) negativity, which misrepresents the original context (sliding). Naming
any such example bears the risk of the same thing happening to yourself (you
know what I mean).

Anil is guilty of it himself, calling Sam's position "actually dangerous".
When in fact, that labeling is the exact thing Sam is arguing against. Perhaps
Sam isn't dangerous, but just opinionated?

TLDR: Controversial opinions lead to ad hominem attacks that use conflation
with extremely negative topics to attack even the possibility that the
position is debatable.

------
aestetix
'First, the rhetoric of some of the most wealthy & powerful people in the
history of the world being "unable to say" things is ridiculous.'

I read this first line and already knew I disagreed with this essay. Speech is
the one thing that can equalize rich and poor, and has the ability to
evaporate decades of work and reputation.

I generally don't like much coming out of the Bay Area right now, and have an
especial distate for YC's contributions to this mess, but I am impressed with
Sam Altman's essay. He's going to get a lot of backlash for it, but I believe
he is correct.

~~~
rtpg
> Speech is the one thing that can equalize rich and poor, and has the ability
> to evaporate decades of work and reputation.

I feel like this is a bit of a passive way of saying this.

If someone says something, _they said it_. It evaporates their reputation
because _they did something_.

And when saying things, it's to communicate the idea to others. I don't really
think that speech exists in a vacuum. If you know saying something to somebody
could offend them, you're kinda signing up to the criticism.

It feels like a lot of the essay is trying to say "we should listen to other
people with controversial opinions." We were doing this in another domain for
a while, with sexism.

A lot of us have just nodded and grimaced when our coworkers would make "those
comments". When we'd see the berating of female colleagues. Even the words
already had such an obvious effect.

I'm not saying "ban bad speech", but I do think as society we should be
reinforcing the fact that words _are_ important, especially in this political
climate. And that people are responsible for what they say. And... you can
always apologize and change! And the world will be better for it.

~~~
aestetix
That's not entirely true. What if you get misquoted in a newspaper? By the
time the newspaper prints the correction, the damage has already been done.

~~~
rtpg
Sure, some damage might have been done. But this feels pretty orthogonal, more
of a problem of newspaper interests or simply the difficulty of cutting down
text into smaller pieces.

We all should be making sure we're hearing stuff properly. I don't think many
of these things are _really_ about misunderstanding, but it has happened.

Inversely, just because the speaker says "I meant X, but I didn't mean for it
to offend" doesn't completely absolve the person. The words have meanings, and
if you want to share you ideas, it's important to do it properly (just like
you should know how to drive before going out there with your car).

~~~
aestetix
I was more using that as an example to separate speech from the person saying
it.

In terms of speech that offends, we can only control what we say, not what
people think about it, nor whether their thought is reasonable. Therefore,
punishing someone for what they say because it offended someone seems pretty
illogical, unless you can make a damned good case, based on context, that it
was probably going to offend.

A simple way to resolve that question is to ask the person who said it, "Why
did you say that?" If they have a response that is not "because I wanted to
offend" that is also reasonable, then I'd suggest the onus falls at least
equally on the person who claims offense.

------
stanfordkid
I think the heart of the issue Sam is trying to address is that in today's
society you can excel at one field and yet be hindered from success in it
because you make a generalized statement that the majority of society
disagrees with, in a field completely unrelated to the one you participate in.

If a Nobel prize winning physicist speaks about the inferiority of gay people,
he is not necessarily a "threat to their safety". You don't have to like him,
you don't have to be friends with him -- hell I wouldn't. But he has a right
to not be fired as a physics researcher, because he is good at it. If he was a
student counselor you can bet he should be fired.

If he actively discriminates against a gay physics student should he be fired?
Absolutely. But I don't think he should be fired for simply holding the
opinion. But he would be in todays world.

That's the problem I have with the politics of today -- it's that people get
fired or disregarded if they make even a statement that makes other people
feel bad, and disaligns with the majority opinion.

~~~
CalChris
Such a physicist would hold tenure and would not summarily be fired for simply
holding that opinion. From a random school somewhere on the web:

> gross professional misconduct or serious failure of a faculty member to
> discharge his or her obligations

~~~
prepend
Tim Hunt, a Nobel winning biochemist with tenure, was fired for making sexist
comments. It certainly happens.

[https://www.theguardian.com/education/2015/jun/11/nobel-
laur...](https://www.theguardian.com/education/2015/jun/11/nobel-laureate-sir-
tim-hunt-resigns-trouble-with-girls-comments)

~~~
CalChris
He actually resigned (rather quickly) but you have a point.

------
haberman
I don't think Altman is afraid of hearing criticism of his ideas. I think he
objects to orthodoxy: political positions that are so sacred that people react
with slurs and rhetoric instead of rational rebuttal when they are called into
question.

Especially pernicious is the idea that even entertaining rational discussion
on these topics is harmful. When some things are too sacred to even discuss
rationally, we are really lost in our ability to discern the truth about the
world.

~~~
insickness
Dash is equating rational argument with violence. On average, gay people are
more creative. Is that hate speech? Obviously not. On average, gay men have
more sex than straight men. Hate speech? On average, more sex is worse than
less sex. Hate speech? Dash thinks he can draw the line where rational
argument becomes unacceptable. It's his line but he gets to draw it for other
people. This is not simply criticism. By equating a type of speech with
violence, it implies legal consequences, whether those consequences are
currently in place. It implies a physical enforcement.

------
mr_spothawk
Dash doesn't address the content of Altman's post.

Dash falsely equates the "lives" of gay people, with "disparaging things"
about them.

Link is a wonderful example of exactly the type of conversation suppressing
blowharding that the Bay Area is encumbered by.

~~~
mattbierner
Let’s be honest: both the original post and this rebuttal are basically long
form tweets, not intellectually convincing arguments. They are so vague that
you can read almost whatever you want into them

~~~
mr_spothawk
I'll concede the rebuttal is literally a long form tweet.

~~~
dnsco
Sorry to be pedantic, this reply hadn't appeared when I posted my response
yet.

------
hi-im-mi-ih
Remember that a lead dev for Node was attacked not too long ago for discussing
the potential downsides of CoC's.

[https://twitter.com/rvagg/status/887652116524707841](https://twitter.com/rvagg/status/887652116524707841)
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15073022](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15073022)

This is the kind of thing Sam is talking about - we should be able to discuss
things that are controversial without getting mobbed for it.

~~~
meowface
I agree with you and with the general thrust of Sam's essay. This kind of
knee-jerk heretic-branding of anyone who questions the status quo is toxic.
But Sam should've used something like the Node dev as an example, rather than
the less salient one he provided:

>This is uncomfortable, but it’s possible we have to allow people to say
disparaging things about gay people if we want them to be able to say novel
things about physics. [1] Of course we can and should say that ideas are
mistaken, but we can’t just call the person a heretic. We need to debate the
actual idea.

>[1] I am less worried that letting some people on the internet say things
like “gay people are evil” is going to convince reasonable people that such a
statement is true than I fear losing the opposite—we needed people to be free
to say "gay people are ok" to make the progress we've made, even though it was
not a generally acceptable thought several decades ago.

Of course Sam doesn't actually think it's acceptable for people to say these
things (he's gay himself, but even if he weren't I'm sure he still wouldn't
find it acceptable). But this leaves a lot of questions. If you're gay and in
a work environment where your boss incessantly makes disparaging comments gay
people and homosexuality - even if none of them are directed at you or anyone
else there - you could still feel very uncomfortable and hurt. Does this boss
really deserve a debate and an exchange of open ideas? If you tell them you
disagree and they just continue mocking gay people, what are you supposed to
say or do? In a scenario like this, it kind of makes sense to brand this boss
as a heretic.

This kind of situation is far away from your example (discussing potential
downsides of CoC). There's a spectrum of hurtful speech and ideas, and while
most Americans would agree these things should be legal to say, many would
also agree that the worst of them should result in ostracization (in a very
extreme example: self-identifying as a neo-Nazi). So should we really "allow"
people to make disparaging remarks about gay people beyond physically letting
them say it? Do we also need to allow them into our social circles and
workplaces?

~~~
bthornbury
> But Sam should've used something like the Node dev as an example, rather
> than the less salient one he provided

In my opinion, Sam wanted to share this with the least possible likelihood
that it would blowback (in a big way) on YC.

He did this by picking examples that would stimulate thought without a large
possibility of himself being branded in some way regarding a controversial
topic.

~~~
tedivm
If he honestly thinks that writing a blog post about how we should allow
people to make hateful comments about gays (and presumably other minorities)
and not have it blow back on the companies he helps finance and run then he
really isn't thinking clearly. This isn't something I say because I want it to
be true, but something I've learned from direct experience.

Last year while hiring people I gave was going to give someone an offer but
before I could they dropped out of the process. The reason they cited was that
we got funding from Peter Thiel, who helped Trump get elected, and that this
person could not work at a company that ultimately helped profit Theil.

There are always consequences to speech. If you advocate for allowing hate
speech then people will assume that you won't take hate speech against them
seriously.

------
jdoliner
It's amazing how quickly this goes from tolerating someone who says
disparaging things about gay people, to emboldening those people, to actual
violence to the conclusion that Sam's essay is DANGEROUS. It's the thinnest of
arguments but this seems to be how a lot of people think about speech today. I
find it to be very off kilter with reality, I don't think that anyone is
preventing violence by branding someone a heretic, quite the opposite in fact.

~~~
bthornbury
> I don't think that anyone is preventing violence by branding someone a
> heretic, quite the opposite in fact.

This is very interesting and I believe I tend to agree.

When a person is branded as a "heretic" for their ideas, doesn't it increase
the division between those two groups? The winning group (the one doing the
branding) begins to dehumanize and rage towards the losing group. The losing
group has to find other ways to fight back or remain in insolent silence.

------
apatters
Anil makes the classic mistake of this cloistered coastal elite which is to
paint everyone on the other side as murderers, rapists, Nazis and misogynists
-- his own take on Hillary's "basket of deplorables." If the world was
everything Anil thinks it is then he would be right: we would be best off
limiting speech because everyone is a violent maniac just waiting to be
activated.

In reality however, racist murderers rapists and Nazis are a minority, and the
majority of people who hold views in opposition to Anil's are not criminals.
They're people who support same-sex marriage but don't want any gays living on
their block. They're people who don't go to Nazi rallies (yet) but think it's
dangerous that no one's talking about how most crime is committed by blacks.

The quickest way to turn these people into real extremists is to bar them from
public discourse. Because they value their opinions as much as you value
yours, and they're not going to stop talking about these things -- if they're
not allowed to discuss their ideas in public, _they 're going to discuss them
with a Nazi instead,_ which will lead to their radicalization.

When they're part of the public sphere you have the opportunity to engage
them, entertain their ideas, present counterpoints, and generally treat them
like a human being with whom you merely have differences of opinion -- this is
the path to changing hearts and minds, or at least getting them to peacefully
coexist.

When they're not their speech goes underground into an echo chamber and being
cut off from the rest of society really does foment extremism.

Unless Anil plans on running for governor of CA and seceding from the Union,
he _needs_ their hearts and minds -- otherwise they'll keep on voting for guys
like Trump, who's President in no small part merely because he was willing to
tell sanctimonious guys like Anil to go f*ck themselves.

One of the original long reads on this matter is Federalist No. 10 and it's
just as relevant today.

------
olivermarks
Isn't Altman's argument ultimately about free speech? Surely my right to
criticize Altman or Dash is the point Altman is making, and which Dash is
exercising in his rebuttal?

~~~
mandevil
Altman's original essay is about how there is too much criticism of ideas in
San Francisco right now. That people are saying things and then having other
people mock them, or complain about them, so much that they are going silent.

The reason that his essay sucked was that this isn't about free speech. Free
speech protects you from the government restricting you from saying something,
and he never once cites anything about an American government[1], it's always
complaints from other regular old people. Other people judging you and finding
you an asshole[2] is totally consistent with free speech.

If someone says something bad about gay people (or women, or black people,
or...), then by all means make them feel bad for saying something like that.
Try to make sure that they never say something like that again, because they
are so socially embarrassed and isolated. One of the lessons I've learned over
the past two years is that people feel emboldened when they hear other people
say something bad about some minority, and so if you make a big deal about one
person doing it, you prevent other people from even trying to say something
similar.

1: Other than starting out in China, where the government actually _does_
limit your ability to say things, and does not have free speech.

2: Obligatory XKCD: [https://xkcd.com/1357/](https://xkcd.com/1357/)

~~~
sowbug
Yes, sigh, there is a constitutional right to freedom of speech. That is not
the only meaning of freedom of speech. "Try to make sure that they never say
something like that again." Do you agree that this would restrict that
person's freedom of speech? Again, we're not talking about whether First
Amendment rights are being violated. We're talking about whether you are
restricting that person's freedom of speech.

If you're OK with your self-appointed right to restrict others' freedom of
speech, then you also have to be OK with _me_ suppressing _your_ speech. And
you'd better believe that _this will be speech you care about_. You have to be
OK with the 1950s version of me ostracizing you for saying the positive things
you believe about the protected groups you enumerate in your post.

It does you no good to claim that you're one of the good guys. Freedom of
speech means _everyone_ is a good guy when it comes to expression of ideas.
You don't get to pick which speech is free.

Do you honestly want to live in a society where ideas you disagree with are
withheld from expression because those who hold them are "so socially
embarrassed and isolated"? Is that _really_ your idea of a free society?
Again, assume that the person being ostracized is _you_ because of what you
believe today.

If you do want a genuinely free society, don't ostracize the bigots. Instead,
respect them. Debate them. Change their minds if you're right. Nobody is
saying you have to have them over for dinner or be friends; ignoring them is
perfectly fine, as well. The price -- and in the long term the benefit -- of a
free society is that people get to live normal, ordinary lives even if they
have despicable, reprehensible, _even dangerous_ beliefs.

~~~
mandevil
The way that society is set up, of course most of the pressure is on
minorities to be silent and just take abuse. That's why all of the "MeToo"
movement was pent-up and then just now exploded, because so many women were
afraid of saying something for fear of the response for so long. That is what
is happening every single day, and has for millennia. What is happening now,
for the first time in US History, is that the dominant group (meaning, in this
particular case, white men who are good with computers and very well off) have
to worry about what members of the non-dominant group thinks of them.

As for your ideas on how to win over bigots, I've lived my entire life
surrounded by them, and I have to say that respecting them does not work.
Debating them and treating them as equals just encourages others that it's all
okay. Forcing them to hide in the darkness does work, because it makes them
less likely to express their ideas at other times, when you aren't around, and
other people will then hear it and be more likely to say it themselves.

Bigotry is a communicable disease.

~~~
sowbug
Do you see the nearly perfect asymmetry between the first two paragraphs in
your reply?

Why is it that Paragraph 1's suppression leads to an explosion of progress,
but Paragraph 2's suppression is the only way to exterminate ideas you don't
like?

~~~
mandevil
P1 is about suppression that has worked, very well, for pretty much all of
human history. It is only losing a little bit of its effectiveness now.

Which is why I'm so sure that P2 is an effective strategy- because I've
observed how well it works.

~~~
sowbug
I think you overestimate your understanding of human history. I am especially
sure of this because you think something just changed.

I don't think you want a fairer game. You just want to win the current one.

Best of luck.

------
andr
For me, the example of a physicist who dislikes gay people is particularly
worrying, because it involves setting very arbitrary lines in the sand of what
is acceptable and what is not. What if it was a biologist that dislikes gay
people? Or a doctor? Or, say, the person in control of the CDC, as happened
today? Those lines, moved once, are as good as gone.

What if Trump was the same Muslim-hating, gay-hating person he is, but also a
brilliant physicist? Would he than be OK in Sam's book?

~~~
prepend
Do you have a link for the CDC thing?

------
RcouF1uZ4gsC
[https://medium.com/message/the-tech-diversity-story-thats-
no...](https://medium.com/message/the-tech-diversity-story-thats-not-being-
told-9a36fb40530f)

I believe Anil Dash is propagating hate speech when he accuses Asian men as a
group of being responsible/complicit in the exclusion of minorities and women
from tech.

There are many dangerous stereotypes about Asians and he promotes harmful
stereotypes. An Indian man was even murdered in Kansas because of Asian
stereotypes.

Because of his embracing of hate speech, I urge that he either step down as
CEO of FogCreek or he be fired. We cannot tolerate such hate speech.

------
rhapsodic
Quoting Anil Dash's tweet:

 _" Maybe not today, but sometime we’re gonna have that conversation about
Christian supremacy in this country, too."_

[https://twitter.com/anildash/status/928800919810117632](https://twitter.com/anildash/status/928800919810117632)

Kind of reminds me of a drunk in the neighborhood where I grew up who always
wanted to have "that conversation" about Jewish control of the banking system.

Anil Dash is the CEO of Fog Creek Software, BTW.

------
solidsnack9000
It seems weird to turn over responsibility for policing hate speech and
intolerance to VCs. They are not public servants by any stretch of the
imagination.

------
rhapsodic
Anil Dash thinks that "Trumpists" support terrorist violence against Muslims:

[https://twitter.com/anildash/status/942040324645572609](https://twitter.com/anildash/status/942040324645572609)

As a Trump supporter, I feel that Anil Dash has placed my life in danger.

------
dnsco
I think it's interesting that this post was flagged by the mods but Sam's
original essay was not.

~~~
sctb
This post wasn't touched by moderators, and it also wasn't flagged (that has a
specific meaning on Hacker News). What makes you think that it was?

------
nborwankar
It is ironic that we are complaining about how polarized our discourse has
become, when we created the social networks and the dopamine-drip feedback
loops that genrate mutually disjoint echo chambers.

------
pfarnsworth
Anil Dash’s main point appears to be that allowing hate speech will embolden
racists/bigots to commit violence against minorities.

My question to him is: what if a proper study was done and it found that
suppression of hate speech actually emboldened racists and bigots to commit
more violence against minorities? Would he advocate then Altman’s proposal?

It appears that his entire thesis is based on his own conjecture. I would love
to know if there are any studies that support his theory.

~~~
nl
There are plenty of natural experiments showing how hate speech leads to
violence.

Look up the history of the Rwanda genocide for one of the clearest studies.

~~~
mr_spothawk
hmmm... wikipedia doesn't support your claim, tho [1].

it seems like a lot of folks were encouraged to go out and kill, given
machetes and told to kill, and in the end there's one study that suggests 10%
of the violence could be attributed to the radio station (which was created to
broadcast racist propaganda and obscene jokes).

specifically, I take issue with the notion that "hate speech" is a meaningful
descriptor of a way of talking. racism, bigotry, etc... are more specific.

tangentially, I did find this:

> On March 20, 2017, Pope Francis acknowledged that while some Catholic nuns
> and priests in the country were killed during the genocide, others were
> complicit with it and took part in preparing and executing the genocide.

[1] -
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rwandan_genocide#Preparation_f...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rwandan_genocide#Preparation_for_genocide)

~~~
nl
_one study that suggests 10% of the violence could be attributed to the radio
station_

I’m not sure what you are expecting here. Social sciences aren’t clean, you
can’t go back in time and setup control groups etc, and being able to clearly
show a causal link like that is pretty decisive.

Put it another way: 10% of the violence is at least 60,000 deaths.

------
CalChris
_If SpaceX started in San Francisco in 2017, I assume they would have been
attacked for focusing on problems of the 1%, or for doing something the
government had already decided was too hard._ \-- from Sam Altman's essay.

First, SpaceX _wasn 't_ founded in SF because SF would have been a lousy place
for it to start. It was founded in El Segundo because of the talent base there
working for companies like TRW.

Second, if the success or failure of SpaceX or any other company is dependent
on the mean things people say when checking their iPhones at morning coffee
then that's more a judgment of the weak backbone of the startup founders +
employees. Blow it off and get back to work. I personally think the vast
majority of BitCoin and Ethereum work ranges from crap to fraud. I doubt that
anyone cares about that opinion and it's such an important opinion.

Anil is wrong. That essay wasn't dangerous. It was drivel. If what you do has
merit it will come out regardless of what people say. This isn't high school.

------
panarky
We're thinkers and makers. We move fast and break things.

We break laws and social conventions to disrupt entire industries.

We dictate how billions of people interact and transact.

But don't dare criticize us, we're so fragile we can't take it.

~~~
nv-vn
It's not about criticism. It's about harassment and smear campaigns. The thing
is, most people want criticism because they want to have conversations. Sama
is saying that when you have a controversial opinion, you shouldn't feel so
threatened and alienated from society that you must relocate. I'm sure he'd
like to hear true arguments against his positions, but that's different than
labeling him as evil and trying to enrage people so that he can no longer be
respected at all.

~~~
kajecounterhack
What if your "controversial opinion" harasses and alienates other people?
According to his logic that pain is collateral damage. And any innovation from
the people who would have been productive except for that collateral
alienation / harassment is now lost -- and this is a story as old as time in
the valley particularly from women and PoC.

But his writing indicates that he's only thought from the perspective of some
innovator he's perceived to have been unfairly branded a heretic.

~~~
hi-im-mi-ih
> What if your "controversial opinion" harasses and alienates other people?

So then, as the victim, are you cleared to harass and smear whoever you
please?

> he's only thought from the perspective of some innovator he's perceived to
> have been unfairly branded a heretic

Ah, so his identity as a wealthy man invalidates his opinion, and his writing
should be disregarded?

~~~
kajecounterhack
> So then, as the victim, are you cleared to harass and smear whoever you
> please?

No, and that was not any part of what I wrote.

However as a victim you ARE entitled to share your story. You are entitled to
tell people "hey this person did something bad and it hurt me." And people can
choose to respond to that. That's OK.

> Ah, so his identity as a wealthy man invalidates his opinion, and his
> writing should be disregarded?

Nowhere did I mention wealth or that it would invalidate his opinion. The
quoted sentence merely indicates that the argument he made failed to consider
other sides and nuances.

~~~
hi-im-mi-ih
> What if your "controversial opinion" harasses and alienates other people?

> as a victim you ARE entitled to share your story. You are entitled to tell
> people "hey this person did something bad and it hurt me."

An employee at a SV company writes on a forum that he's not a fan of diversity
quotas and equity. Then, someone reads it, and claims that they feel harassed
and alienated by that quote. They tweet an angry message accompanied by a
screenshot of the forum post. Then, a twitter mob forms, calling the employee
a Nazi. He's conflated with real racism now, though he originally was talking
about diversity quotas and equity. Because his language was "harmful", the
victims have their justification; by any means necessary they must remove this
hateful Nazi.

The employee gets fired for PR reasons. Other employees stay away from those
topics, self-silencing for fear of retaliation like the 1st employee received.
Ideas are stifled; democracy is weakened.

Can you see how your chain of logic leads to this?

~~~
prepend
The part that bothers and even scares me is that people (perhaps OP) do see
how their chain of logic follows through your example. But they agree with and
don’t find it morally wrong.

It’s like there’s this bro-Catholicism where everyone has original sin of
racism or whatnot and must be punished through ex-communication. And the whole
moral system is understood and agreed to.

I only hope that some sort of racism/redeemer emerges who can wash away the
sins of bigotry and allow the excommunicated to no longer cause racism and be
allowed to work again within society.

------
wildermuthn
Unfortunately, I am so afraid of the professional and social repercussions of
sharing my opinions, that I've decided not to express an opinion about Sam's
essay. I hope this reckless act on non-expression doesn't come back to haunt
me.

~~~
bthornbury
So many who agree with you will stay silent.

~~~
wildermuthn
Maybe the best response is not to stay silent, but rather to craft a non-
opinion that looks like an opinion of agreement no matter who comes across it.
But maybe not.

~~~
prepend
You have to walk a fine line and post some material, but not offensive. No
response at all can be judged poorly. I’ve been in multiple situations where
“silence = supporting the perp” so statements must be made.

If you’re completely off the grid it can be difficult to get jobs in tech.

------
rhapsodic
Wow, I just checked out Dash's twitter feed, and he has a deranged hatred for
Trump supporters. I'm going to be calling Fog Creek Monday morning to find out
if the company has as low an opinion of me as he obviously does.

------
rhapsodic
Here's a thought experiment: If someone makes a disparaging remark about
Christians, as a monolithic group, it the workplace, should they be fired for
it?

------
evangelista
Sam Altman was headed in the right direction but his point is completely
malformed.

He shouldn’t have used the term “Political Correctness.” He also shouldn’t
have provided the examples he used because they distracted from what he was
trying to say.

I am sad that he took an opportunity to have this conversation (finally) and
gave the people who are actually ruining Silicon Valley more ammunition to
push their agenda.

What Sam is talking about is the insane level of unidirectional groupthink
that has invaded Silicon Valley and turned everyone against one another under
the guise of protecting minorities and other victims.

Proponents of this approach - which, frankly, overwhelmingly demonizes and
targets white men - will point to the endless list of infractions that keep
surfacing in the media.

They have a great point. There is abundant evidence that minorities and women
are being unfairly treated in Silicon Valley.

Unfortunately, the constant warring against this unfairness has gutted Silicon
Valley and now no one trusts one another. Everyone looks at white people as
the enemy and the level of discourse has become so toxic that everyone is
fleeing the state.

I have experienced this myself in interacting with my Bay Area colleagues. I
feel that every word I say is being policed for content, that I have to walk
on eggshells constantly with certain people or risk getting drawn and
quartered on Twitter the next day.

So Liberals can have this version of safety. People focused on building things
aren’t willing to live in a cultural police state.

The biggest problem in attempting to argue against this trend is that it is an
argument of degree. These are the hardest Arguments to have because your
opppnent automatically rounds everything up to the “nearest Hitler.”

Example:

You: Hey we shouldn’t focus so much attention on gender diversity.

Them: you hate women.

You: Maybe your theories on diversity and privilege re not entirely true or
accurate.

Them: You hate minorities.

You: Maybe we shouldn’t excommunicate this person because he tried to hit on
someone at a company party while drunk, men do stupid things and are motivated
by sex genetically.

Them: You hate women. Don’t give bad men a pass, you are enabling rape
culture.

You: I am really sick of having 80% of conferences focus exclusively on
diversity topics, I can’t stand being lectured to constantly.

Them:You are Hitler.

So I don’t see a resolution. It is impossible to push back on what has
happened to Silicon Valley’s culture without being labeled a bigot.

Arguments of degree are the hardest to have, and at this point I think only a
severe economic downturn and reset is going to fix it.

The culture of the Bay Area is dead, it was caused by having the culture of
our educational institutes teach these ways of viewing the world.

I have no hope that will change. We are living in the most privileged country
in the world but we have taught all our kids that they are oppressed. It’s a
lie.

------
vonseel
Speach?

~~~
Cyphase
There's a typo in the title, in case anyone is confused.

------
QAPereo
It’s the same old nonsense, with people conflating their right to expression
with their right to expression free from judgement, or censure. The latter has
never and will never exist at the level of billions of different people.

~~~
0x00000000
The whole point is to judge the ideas presented not just attack the person and
say "you're a ___ist and I'm going to do everything I can to ruin your life
because I feel morally superior"

