
What You Can't Say (2004) - ashish01
http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html
======
hkmurakami
Closet conservatives (and other moral minorities) across the Valley are now
virtually guaranteed to shut their closet doors even tighter.

Post election, I recall my timelines erupt with emotion -- outrage, despair,
betrayal -- then subdue to reflection. Some called for the need to truly reach
out to those across the aisle and to listen and understand, earnestly lending
an ear even to views that we strongly oppose.

Recent events will be a step back in such relations, as dissent has been
dismissed demonstrably without such considerations.

When the people we must understand in order to reach bipartisanship go into
hiding for fear of being outed, broadening our perspective becomes difficult.

~~~
meri_dian
The problem is that reasonable political opinions motivated by nothing
resembling hatred are being targeted as indicative of hateful thought.

A perfect example is the stand one may take that 'Sanctuary Cities' are bad.
Voicing opposition to sanctuary cities can get you labelled as a racist, which
is ridiculous.

~~~
hkmurakami
In a separate thread I wrote this excerpt, which is related to what you are
getting at:

 _We 've always conflated moral leanings with truth. Previously, "the truth"
was right leaning; it is now left leaning. Unfortunately, many people find
(and have always found) that all it takes to dismiss an opposing moral
position is to point out that their opponent's position is untruthful, and the
discussion (or lack thereof) ends there._

~~~
meri_dian
Well said. The challenge is that good politics is not always nice.

As a general principle, much of modern Western thought seems to be obsessed
with minimizing any sort of discomfort in the present moment, regardless of
whether that discomfort is a temporary and necessary phase one must pass
through in order to reach a better future.

------
Qworg
You can say whatever you want. You can be as loathsome or virtuous as you'd
like on your own time and dime. But the moment what you say goes contrary to
the shared expectations of the company you belong to or negatively impacts how
business is done, you're finished.

Is this a difficult or arguable point?

~~~
redthrowaway
It's neither difficult nor arguable, but it's a bit of a cop-out. Google is,
of course, well within their legal rights to fire the employee. The 1A applies
only to government restrictions on speech.

But the larger question, of whether it is good that a particular political
ideology, adhered to by a small minority of the country, should hold such sway
over public discourse that to challenge any of its dogmas is to commit career
suicide, remains. This is a trend that is only accelerating, and it's going
nowhere good.

~~~
Qworg
If he held his opinion purely in the public sphere, I'd agree with you - but
he posted it in an internal companywide manner that directly impacts how he'll
be able to work with his coworkers.

Being divisive at work isn't good for business.

~~~
throwaway7430
Brendan Eich got fired from his CEO position for the offense of privately and
silently donating a few thousand dollars to a PAC which was against prop 8.

The above sentence is a fact but I am compelled to write it with a throwaway
account since even mentioning the idea that this may have been unfair puts my
career at risk. That's how bad it's gotten.

~~~
Qworg
Brendan's situation was very different - he's a public figure and you no
longer belong to yourself at that point.

------
gizmo686
(2004)

Prior Posts:

[https://hn.algolia.com/?query=what%20you%20cant%20say&sort=b...](https://hn.algolia.com/?query=what%20you%20cant%20say&sort=byPopularity&prefix&page=0&dateRange=all&type=story)

This one has 291 comments:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7443420](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7443420)

Follow-up:
[http://www.paulgraham.com/resay.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/resay.html)

Follow-up thread:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=956884](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=956884)

~~~
nsxwolf
Yes... things were different back then, weren't they?

------
jnwatson
So much comes to mind:

* hate crime laws are institutionalized double jeopardy.

* much of kitchen hygiene are just rituals.

* early infanticide isn't so bad.

(Avoiding gender stuff because that's been done to death)

~~~
gizmo686
In his follow-up, he makes the point that producing this sort of list gives a
false sense of comfort as (almost by definition) you produce controversial
opinions that are nevertheless acceptable to say. I personally have views that
are far more controversial than those, and which I am absolutly not willing to
post publicly (even pseudo-anonymously).

Having said that (and falling into the de-railing track):

>hate crime laws are institutionalized double jeopardy.

How so? I am not an expert (and only have any knowledge of the US system), but
aren't hate crimes considered enhancers to existing crimes. That is, to be
found guilty of a hate crime, you must also be found guilty of an underlying
crime; if you are found not-guilty of the actual crime, then you can not be
tried for the hate crime. Being found guilty of a hate crime only serves to
increase the severity of punishment for a normal crime that you have been
convicted of.

~~~
jnwatson
The enhancement aspect is jurisdiction-specific. I should have added "federal"
in front.

Most often when we hear about hate crimes, it is regarding a separate federal
case, prosecuted independently from the local or state case.

~~~
gizmo686
Ah, that makes sense.

Still, this is a more general issue that hate crimes. Each state (and the
federal government) are considered separate entities, which means that double
jeopardy does not prohibit being tried for the same crime multiple times, so
long as you are being tried by different states (or the federal government).
It is not nessasary to have a hate crime for this principle to be invoked. It
is also not unreasonable by modern standards to disagree with this; it is just
an odditiy of the American legal system that most people never think about.

------
amai
What you can't say: True democracy doesn't have elections. In fact already the
ancient greek knew: “It is accepted as democratic when public offices are
allocated by lot; and as oligarchic when they are filled by election”
(Aristotle, Politics), see also
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sortition](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sortition))

------
hasenj
> So another way to figure out which of our taboos future generations will
> laugh at is to start with the labels. Take a label—"sexist", for example—and
> try to think of some ideas that would be called that. Then for each ask,
> might this be true?

Might it be true that women are just naturally much less attracted to STEM
than men?

For the record, I think even among men, being attracted to STEM or even good
at it is rather rare. It's probably even rarer among women.

EDIT: I wonder if the downvotes are because I'm going offtopic or because I
can't say that?

~~~
Arcsech
> Might it be true that women are just naturally much less attracted to STEM
> than men?

No.

In India in 2015, 45% of CS undergrads were women[0]. In the US, in 1984, it
was 37%[1], as opposed to 18% in 2010. The downvotes are because you can tell
the answer to your question in about 5 minutes of Googling.

[0]:
[http://www.hcixb.org/papers_2017/hcixb17-final-37.pdf](http://www.hcixb.org/papers_2017/hcixb17-final-37.pdf)
[1]: [http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/what-happened-
all-w...](http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/what-happened-all-women-
computer-science-1-180953111/)

~~~
hasenj
I've noticed in third world countries more women go to STEM than in the west.
It's probably because of economic or social pressure. There's also no culture
of "following your passion"; instead people follow what they think will give
them a good career.

There's less economic or social pressure in the west so people tend to choose
more to their liking and "follow their passion".

~~~
dreamfactor
> people tend to choose more to their liking and "follow their passion"

Not to have a go at you personally but this is revealing of a highly middle
class bubble that a lot of people are trying to reason from within (including
that silly kid at google). It's like a moral and socio-political version of
the Blub paradox. It's the same reason that it isn't possible to be racist
against whites (in the West) or sexist against men, and why that is hard to
understand if you are white or a man (you don't know you are in the privilege
bubble and it seems inequitable).

~~~
hasenj
Not having a go at you personally, but saying it's not possible to be racist
against whites is an obvious tell that you want to make policies that
discriminate against whites, and therefore you are probably racist.

(I'm not even white).

~~~
dreamfactor
Yeah that's what I thought until a black friend very kindly and patiently
spelt it out and it still took me a while. It's counterintuitive and nominally
smart people don't get it - and are much more adept at finding justifications
as to why their thoughts are right, and taking down anything which challenges
that. 'Honky' doesn't carry the offence of 'nigger' and there's a good reason
for that. (I'm white and I don't really care what people call me.)

~~~
tomp
Have you ever considered the option that your black friends was wrong? (Hint:
if he was saying you can't be racist against whites, he was wrong and, funny
enough, racist.)

Edit: to expand on the above point, the funny thing is, people peddling this
kind of bullshit _know_ it's bullshit. For example, feminists want " _social_
justice", and try to redefine "racism" as " _institutional_ racism". But,
obiously, by prefixing other adjectives to the words, they're modifying the
words themselves - "justice" is just "justice", if you're talking about "
_social_ justice", you're obviously not talking about _actual_ "justice",
because if you were, you'd simply use the word "justice" without any
additional qualifying adjectives. But then, most people respond to emotional
arguments way more than to rational arguments, so that's where the war is
fought, and it keeps escalating until we get Trump.

~~~
dreamfactor
> Have you ever considered the option that your black friends was wrong?

Yes of course, it was the first thing I thought and I held onto that. If both
parties were on equal ground you would be quite right and there would be
equivalence so you could just flip the roles, but they aren't. Middle class
white men have greater opportunities in society. Racism and sexism are
oppressive by definition, and redressing inequality of opportunity isn't
oppression.

And btw talking about institutional racism is the opposite of an emotive
argument. It's a more precise way to highlight that the issue is systemic and
not the result of individuals being deliberately racist.

~~~
tomp
> Middle class

That's the key word, not "white" or "men". I fully support redressing
inequality of opportunity... as long as it's not sexist or racist.

~~~
DanBC
But black people are more disadvantaged than white people, so obviously any
programme aimed at reducing inequality will have more focus on black people.

[https://www.brookings.edu/blog/social-mobility-
memos/2017/01...](https://www.brookings.edu/blog/social-mobility-
memos/2017/01/13/trump-won-white-voters-but-serious-inequities-remain-for-
black-americans/)

~~~
tomp
That's fine. I'm in strong support of any such program, as long as skin color
is not an explicit factor. Such program won't be unfair (e.g. Obama's daughter
won't benefit from it, but the poor straight white orphaned guy from the worst
neighborhood will), and automatically self-adjusting (at the beginning it will
be disproportionately aimed at black people, but eventually - if the programme
succeeds - the representation of its beneficiaries will tend to reflect the
wider society).

Edit: in other words, if you want to help poor people, help poor people. If
you want to help black people, help black people, but don't pretend you're
helping poor people, and don't be surprised when you're called racist (like
white supremacists, who help white people) or when you receive backlash from
non-black people.

------
clamprecht
It's interesting how an upvote is "invisible" but can say so much.

~~~
redthrowaway
And telling how quickly this post got flagged off the front page.

------
codybrown
Who is voting this off the front page?

------
to3m
God, I hope people get over this shit soon!

------
dreamfactor
The irony of this post when you will get reported and hellbanned for
questioning libertarianism on HN. As for "political correctness" it was a term
that was first popularised by the right to attack college activism and shut
down people challenging the status quo.

I'd wager good money I'm a lot closer to that Conrad character than the author
will ever be and from where I'm sitting it's pretty clear that tech culture
has started becoming completely toxic. The article reads as if written by a
psychopath (and one begins to wonder whether Evgeny Morozov has a point about
SV's movers and shakers). Putting aside the shallow and barely informed
notions about fashion and art themselves, dismissing morality as no more than
a seasonal fad or craze is itself an unwitting confession of a deep-seated
amorality.

~~~
gizmo686
>The irony of this post when you will get reported and hellbanned for
questioning libertarianism on HN.

When has this happened?

>As for "political correctness" it was a term that was first popularised by
the right to attack college activism and shut down people challenging the
status quo.

Actually, it was a term first popularized by the socialists, to attack the
communists.

~~~
dreamfactored
...and hellbanned again for comments in this thread actually. HN doesn't like
disturbances to the appearance of right libertarian consensus it would seem.

(That's completely fine in the context of a private community with its own
specific set of values but it should be clearly advertised so that
participants understand it's not a wider consensus in the world at large and
that they aren't getting anything like an open discussion with a range of
views.)

------
ritchiea
I suspect this getting up-voted is about the Google engineer's diversity
essay. How about instead of framing it in terms of what you can't say
politically, let's rephrase it another way:

Imagine you make a post inside your company Slack complaining all your
colleagues are stupid and unqualified. You'd probably be reprimanded right?

Didn't that guy basically just do that but only about his female and minority
colleagues (and future female and minority colleagues)? Don't we all monitor
our words at least a bit at work for the sake of the day going smoothly?

And if he's so correct about Google's diversity initiatives being a problem
and/or failure why doesn't he start a company that only hires men to take
advantage of the market inefficiency in hiring (if you say hiring laws would
get in the way, when is the last time a company paid a serious price for
failing to have diverse hires)?

The most upvoted HN comments on threads about the diversity manifesto reek of
protecting the status of the people already at the top. And are as flimsy and
irrational as they claim the liberal values they decry are. White men have
traditionally been in power in this country and suppressed the rights of women
& minorities to vote, educate themselves & work for years. How can we know
that another group wouldn't be historically more powerful without a control
group study where each group is allowed to be a historical oppressor for an
equal amount of time?

~~~
hasenj
> Didn't that guy basically just do that but only about his female and
> minority colleagues

No, actually quite the opposite.

When a company/university/country enshrines diversity quotas, they are
basically telling minorities that they are by default stupider than average.

Also, enforcing these diversity quotas will create a (probably valid)
impression that minority members who make it _anywhere_ did not do so on their
own merit.

As a minority I would much rather know there are no diversity programs so that
I know that where ever I get, it's based on my merit, not some charity. Even
if I was the only one in the room from my ethnic origin (which is actually
often the case).

~~~
throwaway7430
Actually I think diversity quotas imply one of two things:

\- Underrepresented groups are by default less qualified than average

\- Hiring decisionmakers are incapable of assessing people objectively enough
to overcome inherent biases

Are there other possible consistent implications? Honest question.

It seems to me either scenario is fundamentally toxic.

~~~
ritchiea
I firmly believe hiring decision makers are incapable of assessing people
objectively.

~~~
throwaway7430
The only people who will be receptive to working for someone who feels that
way about them will only be those who have decided for themselves they are not
capable of assessing people objectively either. A less charitable way to put
it is these people have decided their own biases are beyond rehabilitation, so
these are the people you are selecting for if you hold that view. (In reality,
I think people who support these quotas agree with you but think _they_ don't
have biases, it's everyone else that can't be trusted. An equally toxic
scenario.)

