* 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.
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.
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.
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.
> He really doesn't seem to understand the difference between free speech and being free of consequences
This is silly. He's not saying you can't criticize ideas, he's saying don't assume ill-intent.
The examples were clear. If someone wants to extend life, you can't assume they don't care about the environment. If someone wants to send a rocket to Mars, you can't assume they don't care about poverty.
China was used as a counter-example explicitly because of their lack of freedom of speech. The entire point is that when people feel more free to discuss ideas in China than in San Francisco, we have a problem, because China is not an exemplar.
Please include all of his examples, not just the ones that most people would agree with.
> 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.
Not every idea is worth debating in every setting. Someone who just wants to go to work and program shouldn't have to spend their day debating people who think their lifestyles are a sin- they should be able to focus on their job. If you're building rockets for SpaceX what should it matter whether the dude two seats over knows how much you really dislike gay people?
And again, if you have a bunch of people bashing gay people in your company and you just allow it you are going to push those gay people out. All of their "novel physics ideas" are going to go out the door with them.
As to his entire point about China- it is patently false! It is literally not true. If a bunch of people in the bay area want to talk politics they can do so. If you do it in china and it goes against certain things you go to jail. His example and claim that china has more free speech is a slap in the face to all of the people murdered in china for that speech.
> Not every idea is worth debating in every setting. Someone who just wants to go to work and program shouldn't have to spend their day debating people who think their lifestyles are a sin- they should be able to focus on their job.
I fully agree, but I didn't read it as Sam advocating that people should feel free to discuss highly sensitive subjects in every setting, but rather that he feels that said ideas can't be discussed in any setting. (For this post, I specifically don't take any position on this.)
>As to his entire point about China- it is patently false! It is literally not true. If a bunch of people in the bay area want to talk politics they can do so. If you do it in china and it goes against certain things you go to jail. His example and claim that china has more free speech is a slap in the face to all of the people murdered in china for that speech.
I think he's implying that even though in China the government will jail you for speech they deem subversive, people don't feel like they can't approach taboo subjects in normal social situations. On the other hand, in a politically free environment like California, you can be excluded by your friends or colleagues for speech they don't like.
> I fully agree, but I didn't read it as Sam advocating that people should feel free to discuss highly sensitive subjects in every setting, but rather that he feels that said ideas can't be discussed in any setting. (For this post, I specifically don't take any position on this.)
I completely disagree with him then. It is possible that his own professional and social circles are like this, but there are 7.5 million people in the bay area. There are people outside of his group. I have had "difficult" discussions with plenty of people, both in professional and social settings. Perhaps this is the disconnect- maybe the dude just needs better friends.
This comment, and the response from Anil Dash, both think of free speech in a very limited way that only takes into account what the government is allowed to do to you. To my eyes, this way of thinking is America-centric. The extremely rigorous protections given by the US constitution make it easy to assume that the constitutionalist view of free speech is the only one that was ever believed in.
I believe something different: that free speech is open discourse between people, and that anything which prevents people from talking to each other openly and honestly stands in the way of free speech, be it bigotry or be it no-platforming. To say something and receive "mean words" or "consequences" can usually means that nobody is engaging your argument.
Sama gives the example of the controversial physicist, where someone has one good idea and some terrible ideas, and asks whether the good idea should be ignored because of the bad ideas. I don't think this means that the physicist has more important ideas as a whole, but rather that the ideas should be engaged in isolation to one another lest we throw the baby out with the bathwater.
> To say something and receive "mean words" or "consequences" can usually means that nobody is engaging your argument.
Advocating genocide (e.g.) is not deserving of engagement.
Anyone attempting to persuade you that genocide is in any way beneficial to humanity is not going to be persuaded by your "open and honest" counterargument. Their intent isn't even to persuade you. Their intent is to persuade other viewers of your argument that "reasonable people can disagree"
I'm more worried about people trying to make themselves the authority on what is or isn't permitted to be deserving of engagement, than I'm about people advocating genocide. For one, there's a lot more of the former and they seem to be getting more all the time.
* “You’re fired” isn’t free speech. “You are not allowed to attend a Python conference because of your political views” isn’t free speech. It’s not guaranteed by the First Amendment that people can’t be fired or blacklisted for their opinions, but when Communists were blacklisted from the film industry, that was seen as a disgrace—despite the fact that, in the 1950’s, the activities of the Communist Party were a much greater threat to American (and, in general, Western) society and values than the kinds of things people get in trouble for saying now.
* The entire point of civil liberties and human rights is that we, as a liberal society, have deemed some freedoms so important that the damage done by allowing them to be restricted almost always outweighs the damage done by their free exercise. There are exceptions, but these tend to be very severe in nature—ones freedom to travel around and associate with others might be restricted if they are infected with Ebola, or one’s freedom to keep the police from breaking down their door might be restricted if the police see and hear someone in the window yelling and screaming for help.
Along that vein, there are some obvious limits to freedom of expression: you can’t literally yell “fire” in a crowded theater, you can’t lie under oath, and so forth. But it stretches things too far when you make up categories like “blasphemy” or “sedition” or “hate speech” to block out actual ideas, regardless of the danger you think their free expression presents to society. The infamous “shouting ‘fire’ in a crowded theater” analogy was used in a Supreme Court case that upheld the conviction of a man who advocated resisting the draft during World War I. That decision was later, and rightly in my view, superseded by a different ruling.
So let’s break that down a bit. If you use your freedom of speech to convince people to resist the draft, you impair the ability of the country to win the war, which only extends the war, which causes real suffering and death for a large number of people. And ultimately, that wasn’t considered enough “damage” to outweigh restricting free speech.
> It’s not guaranteed by the First Amendment that people can’t be fired or blacklisted for their opinions, but when Communists were blacklisted from the film industry, that was seen as a disgrace—despite the fact that, in the 1950’s, the activities of the Communist Party were a much greater threat to American (and, in general, Western) society and values than the kinds of things people get in trouble for saying now.
They still are, for that matter. People today seem to be extremely worried about the so-called "KKK" and "Nazi" groups, most of which consist of about five yokels meeting in somebody's garage. They're nasty pieces of work on an individual basis, certainly, but hardly an existential threat to the country as a whole. There haven't been any real Nazis in close to 70 years, and there hasn't been a real KKK for about a hundred.
Communists, on the other hand, not only racked up a far higher body count than Nazis and the KKK combined, they still control entire countries, with standing armies and nuclear weapons.
If we're going to start ejecting people from the public sphere on the basis of their ideas being dangerous, pragmatism would seem to dictate that we start with Marxists.
I agree with your overall point, but this tactic seems almost as disingenuous as the other side. I don't think we should be equating speech with body counts, even if it was the same view that brought about both. Though this is a good example of why the argument for hate speech laws doesn't make sense, I think it's important to preface it as such or else your comment comes across as the same kind of attack that Sam A is criticizing.
> I agree with your overall point, but this tactic seems almost as disingenuous as the other side.
I don't actually advocate that Marxists be ejected from the public sphere. I'm merely pointing out that if we are going to start ejecting people for "dangerous speech", they are the obvious first candidates.
Nah, just nah. You're conflating violence enacted by the state with the political philosophy the state uses to remain come into and remain in power. If you're going to blame the Khmer rouge on communism, then you also need to factor in the conflict in the middle East, American Indian genocide, slavery and more and attribute that to capitalist philosophy.
> If you're going to blame the Khmer rouge on communism, then you also need to factor in the conflict in the middle East, American Indian genocide, slavery and more and attribute that to capitalist philosophy.
No, actually, I don't "need" to do that.
Communists have murdered more people than any other single group in the history of the world. Sorry, but they have.
The Middle East has been a bloodbath since the dawn of recorded history, and likely before.
"American Indian genocide" had nothing to do with capitalism per se, nor does slavery have any connection whatsoever with a free market. It is, in fact, quite antithetical to it.
sure, you don't need to do that, but it's disingenuous if you don't and reveals a biased interpretation of history.
Communist _regimes_ have killed a a lot of people.
I'm not sure why the American Indiana genocide is in quotes. As if there weren't policies at the federal and state level that promoted the theft of land from the original inhabitants and the ensuing displacement and murder of them?
You're corroborating my point that those violent acts weren't expressly mandated by the underlying political philosophy but were instead carried out via the state powers who latched onto those philosophies in order to gain populist support for the policies that would ensure their power.
"Communist _regimes_ have killed a a lot of people."
And Nazi _regimes_ have killed a lot of people. So you're saying that Nazis are okay, then?
"I'm not sure why the American Indiana genocide is in quotes."
Because most of the Indians were killed by diseases, not by deliberate genocide. Most of them died without ever seeing a white person (e.g., the former inhabitants of some of the Missisippian culture cities). There were certainly genocidal incidents, some of which were horrifying, but that's not what caused the large-scale depopulation.
In any case, that had little or nothing to do with "capitalism". The colonization of the Americas (and, indeed, much of the world) was primarily driven by mercantilism, not capitalism. I'm trying really hard not to sound condescending here, but do you even know what "capitalism" means? It doesn't just mean "not communism".
Besides, my argument had to do with current threats, not things that happened hundred of years ago. That Nazis (the real ones) no longer pose a threat while Communists do was the whole point.
Can you name a Nazi regime that is constantly threatening to launch ICBMs at the United States, as North Korea does on a seemingly daily basis?
People seem eager to blame the Holocaust on fascism; do you take exception to that?
Conversely, what if instead of censoring all Marxists, we just censor the various apologists for Stalin, Mao, Castro, etc., ban that “heroic” portrait of Che Guevara, and just focus on the glorification of these actual regimes that murdered people?
I think that you're the one who misunderstands free speech. Free speech means precisely the ability to speak freely without negative consequences. In our constitution, it is guaranteed that you can speak freely without any legal consequences. The principle of free speech goes further though. The principle is that society is better if people can discuss things openly and honestly without fear, and that open discussion will lead to a better society than having people afraid to express their true thoughts. Hardly anyone is a true free speech absolutist, where you can say literally anything without any consequence whatsoever. On the other hand, if you're not in jail for your speech -- if you're merely on a universally adhered to employment blacklist, you still don't have free speech.
What this really comes down to is people's ability to compartmentalize. If I'm willing to be on your software team even though I think you're a sinner who is going to hell, I'm compartmentalizing. If you're willing to serve on a school board with me, even if you think I'm evil for eating meat, you're compartmentalizing. This sort of compartmentalizing is how we build a functional society that provides what we all need even though we don't all agree on everything.
> He wants people to be able to say controversial things without there being blowback
When the blowback is to smear your character, conflate it with other unrelated negativities, and avoid actual discussion on the topic at hand who can disagree?
Edit: several assertions therein, feel free to debate :)
The issue is not that people are criticizing people who have certain ideas. That is fine. That is free speech. The issue is that people are taking actions that actively harm those people. Whether by excluding them from events, preventing them from speaking, firing them from their jobs, etc.
If you fight words with words, that is good. If you fight words with actions against the people who said those words, then you are against free speech.
Note: the principle of free speech is much broader than just the Bill of Rights.
> 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.
Sam's article is a criticism of the form of criticism received when on the "losing" side of a controversial topic. The criticism is not of the opinion (which leads to actual discussion) but of the person. That criticism of the person tends to be over-the-top.
Pushing back against this over-the-top criticism will open up free speech by letting people who are scared to share their opinions for risk of extreme consequences (being fired?).
> 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.
I think you're making Sam's point for him. He feels more comfortable in a place as bad as china for speech than San Francisco. What does that imply? China's treatment may not be equal, but this is not the implication. The implication is in how uncomfortable he feels in SF.
> 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.
You are ignoring the damage of calling someone a bigot for sharing their opinion. I think we both have a point here, and a further discussion would be interesting.
> The blog seems to put a higher value on innovation and corporations than it does people.
I'd assert it's putting a higher value on the quality of society which he asserts is improved when controversial topics are free to be discussed without risk of extreme personal attack. People make up society (and corporations btw), so it can be assumed that assertion of higher value applies to them as well.
Because Sam brought it up in the first paragraph of his essay?
> Earlier this year, I noticed something in China that really surprised me. I realized I felt more comfortable discussing controversial ideas in Beijing than in San Francisco.
It's entirely relevant that stating the wrong 'controversial ideas' in Beijing can get you killed or imprisoned.
he's talking about speaking directly with Chinese individuals in China.
the original post is about discussing these topics in person-to-person situations... not about posting politically motivated speech online, not about challenging the government.
(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.
'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.
"become actually dangerous, in ways he is unwilling or unable to understand"
The author intentionally (mis)interprets sama's writing in the least charitable way and then spends the rest of it arguing a strawman (with insults sprinkled throughout) ending with a comparison to nazis.
If I wasn't sure I agreed with Sama before, I'm definitely more inclined to now.
> 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.
There's a difference to me between truly abusive comments and offensive opinions. I wouldn't argue in favor of workplace sexism (at least my definition of it), but if someone gives their genuine opinion then it should be tolerated to the extent that we should listen, allow them to speak, and then engage in dialog if we disagree. If they're making abusive comments for the sake of hurting another person, that is an entirely different matter. I don't think that's what the author had in mind either based on the examples given in the first blog post.
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).
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.
> Speech is the one thing that can equalize rich and poor, and has the ability to evaporate decades of work and reputation.
Unconsidered speech from the rich and influential can disproportionately hurt the poor and disadvantaged. For example, the US President is not a shining example of "using influence for good." His behavior and speech has lowered the bar across the board for how we expect our politicians to behave, has given confidence to racists and those who would commit hate crimes, and has claimed all criticism to be invalid with faulty reasoning.
A major fault in @sama's essay is a false dichotomy: that we must choose between some sad world of uncontested ideas (even if they have major faults e.g hurting marginalized groups in society a la "gay people are evil" -- his example not mine) and one where innovation can happen. It paints political correctness (which is a movement couched in concern for peoples' well-being) as being antithetical to being able to make technological / societal progress.
This is just not true. In fact you NEED a world where people give a shit about each other so that people who would otherwise be excluded by jerks and awful behavior can be productive, moving us forward.
And he uses Galileo, who was silenced by religious elements, as a comparison point vs a small group of startup ideas perhaps lambasted by media for being out of touch. It's not an accurate comparison.
"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." I'm curious to hear just which cases comprise his experience of valid ideas being cast as heretical.
Is it unscientific for me to not "strenuously debate" with someone who is a flat earther out of judgement for how well my time is spent? And does it hurt progress for society to brand flat earthers as unscientific (which influences our "worth my time" metric)? I don't think it is. There's a lack of nuance in Sam's argument.
"A major fault in @sama's essay is a false dichotomy: that we must choose between some sad world of uncontested ideas (even if they have major faults e.g hurting marginalized groups in society a la "gay people are evil" -- his example not mine) and one where innovation can happen. It paints political correctness (which is a movement couched in concern for peoples' well-being) as being antithetical to being able to make technological / societal progress."
But that is precisely what is happening. The aim of political correctness seems to be to make things "safer" for other people. I would argue that safety and freedom are inversely related: a free society is inherently unsafe. But in the same way that we learn and get stronger by making mistakes, I think that erring on the side of freedom helps to strengthen individuals in the long term.
The other issue that comes up with these topics is arbitration. If you're going to cast a safety net across speech, you have to figure out who decides what the standards are, and how they are enforced. And if you disagree with those standards, what recourse do you have?
When you talk about a "free" society you fail to acknowledge that some groups in a rule-less landscape are conferred natural advantages over others. For example, without societal shifts and rules protecting people who are LGBTQ, an entire group of people would be harassed and discriminated against, and be strictly less "free" than others in the society.
The idea that "safety and freedom are inversely related" is not true. You're saying we move along a curve. Why not push the curve instead? Here's a way: freedom strictly increases when you give it more equally to all people. Security doesn't decrease from that in actuality; people who were taking unfair advantage of their relative privilege are the only ones who feel "unsafe."
For example: in the current state of things women face disproportionate amounts of mental load when interacting at work. "Am I coming across as sexually interested via the way I dress or talk?" << This is something that actually has to cross womens' minds from forever ago to now.
Given today's societal landscape, many men claim "I feel unsafe" because now that same thought has to cross their mind -- society is shifting toward less tolerant toward bad male behavior so you have to be careful not to make mistakes.
But when men consider/improve how they communicate and how their words may make others feel, they really increase freedom and safety for all women. And in net we are all both more free and more safe.
If you argue that the man is now less safe than he was before, you have to ask yourself, is it fair that he was more safe than a corresponding woman to begin with? And is he really being deprived of anything at all, other than a gross privilege he had (to not be accountable for his actions toward others)?
It's all well and good to talk about maximizing freedom, but if that freedom is not equally distributed it becomes significantly less noble.
I disagree with pretty much everything in this post.
I think what is reasonable to say is that while we are all created equal in the sense that we are human, that's far as as natural equality extends. Some of us are taller, shorter, we have different interests, etc.
So this begs the question, what is the role of government. Should government treat us all equally, in the sense that we are humans and thus rational beings? Or should government (a set of formalized rules and people who enforce them) attempt to equalize the playing field, and thus treat us all unequally? In your own example, by ensuring in your model safety for women, we must treat men differently from women, and therefore ensure that for women to be safer, men must be less free. IMHO government should treat us equal in the human sense, and no other.
On the obvious response that government and society are different, I would reply that government is at least in theory a set of formalized rules intended to reflect what the informal rules of society are. Therefore, while the match might not be 1:1, it's still quite relevant.
> I think what is reasonable to say is that while we are all created equal in the sense that we are human, that's far as as natural equality extends. Some of us are taller, shorter, we have different interests, etc.
Your observation that "humans aren't all the same" is orthogonal to the ideal that humans should be treated equally despite their physical characteristics which are outside of their control. I cannot control what gender, sexual orientation, or ethnicity I'm born as, and you should not assume anything about my abilities based on those characteristics.
Good and bad are things we decide together because we're stuck living together; that's what society is. Equality is something a lot of us decide is good. It's not "natural" but that doesn't make it bad. I think it's good to aspire for a more equitable society.
Racism is bad exactly because it assumes things about people based on a physical characteristic outside of their control (skin color). That concept is general.
> > Or should government (a set of formalized rules and people who enforce them) attempt to equalize the playing field, and thus treat us all unequally?
Equalizing the playing field does not "treat us all unequally." That's the point of equalizing. A government trying to equalize the playing field is a government that acknowledges the playing field is already unfair. If you're born rich you are already advantaged. If you're born white you're already advantaged. Government is within its rights to say "oh shit 1% of the citizens who participate in this system have disproportionate power compared to the vast majority; we should equalize it so everyone can have a better life." << This is what a progressive income tax is for.
> In your own example, by ensuring in your model safety for women, we must treat men differently from women, and therefore ensure that for women to be safer, men must be less free.
Wrong. By ensuring model safety for women, we must hold them to the same standards that we hold women to. Both women and men who harass people should be ostracized. Historically only women had to bear the burden of "how do I come across" because of men. Today men should equally bear the same burden and be responsible for how their words and actions make others feel.
Men aren't "less free" in this model, they just have to be "more responsible." A level of responsibility women have already been forced to have. E.g why is it that women have to watch what they wear? Feminists aspire to a world where men should not assault or harass women, regardless of what they wear. We should all be equally responsible for our own behavior.
> government is at least in theory a set of formalized rules intended to reflect what the informal rules of society are
Agreed, this is a fact. Which is exactly why people who seek equality lobby government to update laws, to reflect our evolved societal norms. Laws should protect LGBTQ from discimination in the workplace for example, and help bridge the pay gap for women in the workplace. Laws were responsible for first freeing slaves in the US and then ensuring equal rights.
>"Your observation that "humans aren't all the same" is orthogonal to the ideal that humans should be treated equally despite their physical characteristics which are outside of their control. I cannot control what gender, sexual orientation, or ethnicity I'm born as, and you should not assume anything about my abilities based on those characteristics."
Maybe you misunderstand my point. I mean that humans are all the same in the way that there is a Platonic form "human", which manifests itself in different ways. So one could say that they are all the same in that they share in humanity, and differ in application. I'm far more interested in a system that focuses on the common humanity than whether someone is tall or short.
>"Equalizing the playing field does not "treat us all unequally." That's the point of equalizing. A government trying to equalize the playing field is a government that acknowledges the playing field is already unfair. If you're born rich you are already advantaged. If you're born white you're already advantaged. Government is within its rights to say "oh shit 1% of the citizens who participate in this system have disproportionate power compared to the vast majority; we should equalize it so everyone can have a better life." << This is what a progressive income tax is for."
I very strongly disagree with this. I believe a government should equalize the playing field by focusing exclusively on the platonic form "human" rather than whether someone is tall or short. I think it is reasonable to say that someone's background might play a role in how they wind up, but it is by no means conclusive. I'm all about creating opportunities for people who work hard, such as scholarships for people who meet all standards for school except financial, but all those opportunities require someone to voluntarily choose that path.
These points, as well as the progressive income tax, ultimately lead to the tax dodges and loopholes that rich people slip into the system to get around them. They punish people who honestly work hard and reward the crooked.
>"Wrong. By ensuring model safety for women, we must hold them to the same standards that we hold women to. Both women and men who harass people should be ostracized. Historically only women had to bear the burden of "how do I come across" because of men. Today men should equally bear the same burden and be responsible for how their words and actions make others feel."
And how precisely can you ensure their "safety"? I'm a huge fan of individual empowerment, but not of infantilization. I'm not in favor of protecting anyone but myself unless the other people ask for it. It begins a slippery slope that leads to a boy in the bubble effect, which the helicopter parents of the 90s/00s, tried, which IMHO is one of the major factors that has lead to the mess of "safe space" nonsense on college campuses to begin with.
I have more opinions on this topic, but I defer to Camille Paglia, who is far more eloquent than me.
>"Agreed, this is a fact. Which is exactly why people who seek equality lobby government to update laws, to reflect our evolved societal norms. Laws should protect LGBTQ from discimination in the workplace for example, and help bridge the pay gap for women in the workplace. Laws were responsible for first freeing slaves in the US and then ensuring equal rights."
This sounds like a reasoning that we need more laws to fix injustices, which implies that laws are reactions to said injustices. Shouldn't laws be elaborations of first principles upon which a society has agreed? Otherwise we get a long list of laws that become out of date, and a government which no longer reflects the society it is supposed to represent.
> they share in humanity, and differ in application
You think women have one "application" and men have another. I disagree. We have what application we choose, that's real freedom.
> I think it is reasonable to say that someone's background might play a role in how they wind up, but it is by no means conclusive
What is the purpose of that kind of speculation? All it does is cast doubt on other members of that group. "Oh that's an Asian who's bad at math." "Oh that black guy is surprisingly successful." "Oh this woman is surprisingly unemotional." << These kinds of things perpetuate harmful stereotypes. These are not helpful in society. It's not reasonable to assume / "say" anything about a person based on their physical characteristics. They don't capture nuances like: black people make up of less of our GDP because, I dunno, the _legacy of slavery_? Women have less scientific achievements than men in history because, I dunno, _society didn't give them career opportunities and forced other responsibilities on them_?
Instead of giving people the freedom to define themselves, you do the injustice of pre-defining them.
> These points, as well as the progressive income tax, ultimately lead to the tax dodges and loopholes that rich people slip into the system to get around them. They punish people who honestly work hard and reward the crooked.
You think progressive income tax leads to tax dodges that rich people slip into? Think again. It's the fact that rich people earn lots of money from capital gains and capital gains isn't progressive. Progressive income tax as an algorithm does not cause inequity.
> And how precisely can you ensure their "safety"? I'm a huge fan of individual empowerment, but not of infantilization.
You ensure the safety of members in your society by making it socially unacceptable to harass and assault people, and punishing people who violate these basic requirements. You hold individuals responsible for individual behavior. For example, allowing men to get away with harassment is the real infantalization; "boys will be boys" takes responsibility away from them and puts it on the people they hurt.
> IMHO is one of the major factors that has lead to the mess of "safe space" nonsense on college campuses to begin with.
Crash course on safe spaces: speech is free so we can say stuff. But society is free and we can organize into groups and run those groups. For educated society there is a wide consensus that intolerant speech has chilling effects and silences others, and is ultimately at odds with free exchange of ideas. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance
So the rational response is: create safe spaces. Reject intolerance. Those voices have been heard enough, they have other platforms and groups, they have no place on college campuses which need to allow free exchange of ideas.
> I have more opinions on this topic, but I defer to Camille Paglia, who is far more eloquent than me.
Thanks for citing this woman. I disagree with her views and web comments are probably not going to solve our disagreements here.
> This sounds like a reasoning that we need more laws to fix injustices, which implies that laws are reactions to said injustices. Shouldn't laws be elaborations of first principles upon which a society has agreed?
American society originally agreed that slaves were not human. And then 3/5 human. You said it yourself; laws are loose reflection of societal norms, but norms change and laws need to be pushed. Therefore yes, laws ARE reactions to injustices, because injustices are addressed by changing norms, and then laws.
> You think women have one "application" and men have another. I disagree. We have what application we choose, that's real freedom.
I wasn't actually referring to sex here, I was using this to explain why everyone is different. Some are tall, some are short, etc.
> What is the purpose of that kind of speculation? All it does is cast doubt on other members of that group. "Oh that's an Asian who's bad at math." "Oh that black guy is surprisingly successful." "Oh this woman is surprisingly unemotional." << These kinds of things perpetuate harmful stereotypes. These are not helpful in society. It's not reasonable to assume / "say" anything about a person based on their physical characteristics. They don't capture nuances like: black people make up of less of our GDP because, I dunno, the _legacy of slavery_? Women have less scientific achievements than men in history because, I dunno, _society didn't give them career opportunities and forced other responsibilities on them_?
I focus on individuals and individual circumstances rather than groups and group identities. Identity is complex and multifacted, and while we are indeed influenced by our upbringing, I also believe that individuals with drive to succeed can surpass things that might hold other back. Thomas Sowell is probably my favorite example of this, but there are many others.
> Crash course on safe spaces: speech is free so we can say stuff. But society is free and we can organize into groups and run those groups. For educated society there is a wide consensus that intolerant speech has chilling effects and silences others, and is ultimately at odds with free exchange of ideas. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance
I generally answer this reference (and have elsewhere on this page) with that of "On Liberty" from John Stuart Mill. This goes back to one of my original questions which I don't think you answered, which was about arbitration. If you consider limits of tolerance, who do we trust to judge where those limits are, and why do we trust them with this?
> So the rational response is: create safe spaces. Reject intolerance. Those voices have been heard enough, they have other platforms and groups, they have no place on college campuses which need to allow free exchange of ideas.
This is actually not true for publicly funded universities, which is one of the reasons the deplatforming that UC Berkley did has drawn so much ire. I'm still impressed that they managed to get both Bill Maher and Bernie Sanders defending Ann Coulter.
> Thanks for citing this woman. I disagree with her views and web comments are probably not going to solve our disagreements here.
Yep, we can agree to disagree. But thankfully we're able to do so with civility, through our use of free speech. It's a pity there aren't more such discussions these days, so thank you!
> American society originally agreed that slaves were not human. And then 3/5 human. You said it yourself; laws are loose reflection of societal norms, but norms change and laws need to be pushed. Therefore yes, laws ARE reactions to injustices, because injustices are addressed by changing norms, and then laws.
Which is why I push back and suggest that the laws need to also be based on first principles of some sort. One of the reasons the 1957 Civil Rights Act was passed is because the only thing it actually did was reaffirm the right for blacks to vote, which was a first principle the South couldn't argue against.
On a side note, it sounds like you believe the purpose of laws is to enable freedoms, something with which I could not disagree more. I argue the purpose of laws is to restrain government from infringing on our freedoms. Notice how in the US Bill of Rights, the statements are all "Congress shall make no law..."
Money has always been able to amplify or suppress speech, even before the supreme court rule that it was speech. Toilets, death, pant legs: these are among the things that equalize the rich and the poor. Speech is not and has never been one of those things.
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.
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.
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.
Do you see the irony of calling someone a blowhard just because you don't agree with their opinion? You're literally engaging in the exact same behavior you're attempting to call him out over.
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
The rebuttal is literally "long form tweets" ( https://twitter.com/anildash/status/941431220952584196 ). Sam's post is presumably something he edited and had people check over before he posted it. That's not to negate your essential argument, but the two pieces do have different origins.
it's literally that. if you live in the Bay Area, and find that you can express countervailing opinions without encountering blowhardism, then I challenge you to make the case (in public) that nazi-punching is a bad idea.
I live in the bay area and I have heard many people debate these issues without issue.
To be honest I'm wondering if Sam Altman just needs to expand his social and professional circle a bit and get out of his own bubble. There's 7.5 million people in the bay area, and it's a joke to think they are all alike.
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?
> 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.
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.
Consider Chick-fil-a’s policy of being closed on Sundays for explicitly religious reasons. Is that oppressive to atheist employees who lose an extra day of the week to work?
First off, I like your example, it embodies the core dynamic that people refer to when discussing hate speech vs. free speech.
Does this boss really deserve a debate and an exchange of open ideas?
YES. Both the employee and the boss in this situation need to sit down and talk about it. Even if the boss is of the rough, conservative demeanor, he can be very receptive! You must simply approach the boss without a chip on your shoulder, and be very respectful. Any man worth his salt will reconsider their position after this. Express yourself fully, express your existing and continuing respect for the boss, and watch as he becomes reasonable. For this is the core tension between the liberals and the conservatives: There is no respect given to each other before both sides begin to engage.
If you tell them you disagree and they just continue mocking gay people, what are you supposed to say or do?
Well, that depends on the outcome of the discussion you two had. Did you come out of it friends, with a stronger relationship, and mutual understanding? Then the boss probably is just being careless in his use of homophobic slurs, and dare I say the onus is on the gay person to restrain their disdain - and such restraint should be easy, because you respect and are friends with the man uttering slurs. You know that he is your boss, your provider and guide; you know that you can approach him honestly and be safe from retaliation, so why would you feel fear in this situation? You should feel nothing at all if not slight irritation.
Now, suppose you come out of the discussion about homophobic slurs, and the boss was not at all receptive. Perhaps he uttered a slur to you as you left. Then you must leave the company, and rightfully declare him a homophobe when appropriate.
Let's get to the meat of the issue. Do you pre-judge your slur-uttering boss? Do you assume him to be homophobic, and begin attacking his character in all avenues? Do you never attempt discussion, instead tweeting about how he's committing hate crimes?
Or. Do you approach him honestly with your guard down, to admit both your sexual orientation and your devotion to your job, while requesting that he try and restrict his use of the word ft? Do you listen silently while he riffs against political correctness, nodding and acknowledging, until he comes around and apologizes for making you uncomfortable?
You may take the path of the coward, or the path of the hero.
> Now, suppose you come out of the discussion about homophobic slurs, and the boss was not at all receptive. Perhaps he uttered a slur to you as you left. Then you must leave the company, and rightfully declare him a homophobe when appropriate.
This is the exact opposite of the point being made by the blog post, which is why people think it's an awful blog post.
Brendan Eich was pressured to and then did resign for taking action to remove the ability for homosexuals to marry.
He was not fired, and he didn't "say" controversial things about marriage. Again: he took action to remove (the time line was: gay people can marry in California, prop 8 removes that, prop 8 is ruled unconstitutional) rights from people.
This seems nitpicking. He unwillingly left his job due to pressure. It’s like when a company fired you and you respond with “I quit.”
The important fact is that he was forced to leave based on his political contributions supporting prop 8. Call it fired or resign or whatever you want, that’s the h important part of the story.
More or less important than him taking action to remove legal rights from thousands (hundreds of thousands? millions?) of Californians?
ETA: also the difference between resigned and fired is significant without a large number of Mozilla Corp. Board members being on record as saying they would have fired him if he hadn't.
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.
> 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.
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.
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?
'It is bad for all of us when people can’t say that the world is a sphere, that evolution is real, or that the sun is at the center of the solar system.'
It is therefore equally bad for all of us when people can’t say that the world is flat, question evolution, or argue the sun isn't at the center of the solar system...
Imagine people saying prison rape is part and parcel of the person sentence.
Imagine people saying Holocaust denial never happened.
Of course, we can't stop people from saying stupid things but to say that we can't criticize careless or even dangerous ideas is a violation of my free speech.
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.
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.
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.
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?
> Try to make sure that they never say something like that again, because they are so socially embarrassed and isolated.
Except that doesn't work, does it? If it did, right-wing movements wouldn't be burgeoning all across the globe. _You cannot threaten a human into sharing your beliefs._ All your stance does is buy a frightened silence through intimidation and in that silence grow the seeds of resentment and anger.
It's so obviously self-sabotaging, not to mention morally repugnant, that it is nearly beyond belief that people calling themselves liberals would advocate it.
"in that silence grow the seeds of resentment and anger"
You mean like women have felt for thousands of years? And look where it got them. Just ignoring it and hoping that the creepy guy would pick on someone else didn't work. What did work was standing up, saying what happened to them, and forcing people to stop groping them or making inappropriate comments to them for fear of losing their jobs.
For damn sure no one like Judge Kozinski or Al Franken was going to be changed by reasoned, impassioned debate about the nature of personhood. What prevents future young women from being harassed by them and other creepy powerful men is seeing people like them losing their jobs. Seeing consequences for what they've done and said is what is protecting minorities from being hurt, and it is morally repugnant to allow other people to be hurt.
> What prevents future young women from being harassed by them and other creepy powerful men is seeing people like them losing their jobs.
Mmm-hmm. And what happens when your social movement loses steam over time or public attitudes toward it change and you lose your power to tear down these powerful men? Are those individuals going to remain enthusiastic supporters of your beliefs afterward? You know, deep down, what the answer is.
Of course there will be backlash. There already is. That doesn't mean it doesn't lead to progress overall. The rights of black people were meaningfully better in 1930 than in 1830, even though they were better still in 1870, before the Redeemers took control and the backlash went into full gear.
> Free speech protects you from the government restricting you from saying something
No. The First Amendment (in the United States) protects you from the government suppressing your speech. Government suppression is far from the only free speech issue.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
> 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.
> 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?
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.
> 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.
So you're referring to the James Damore situation, and I take it that you felt his firing was unjust. Your characterization makes it clear that you don't think his writing was actively disparaging and harassing of huge swaths of people, or objectively discrimination. We're probably done discussing then if you don't see that, a lot of good treatment has been given to this subject if you look at it's not my responsibility to educate you.
His firing and silencing of sexists makes the workplace a lot safer for people who are guilty of nothing but being born women. It makes it a lot less safe for people who espouse views that hurt others. I'm 100% OK with that -- that should be how the world works.
Perhaps those other people can share their opinion that they feel harrassed and alienated and we can have a discussion on the matter (in some other form than branding the opposing party as a heretic)?
The way you've formulated this makes it seem like people who think political correctness is important also must espouse branding people as heretics for no reason. That is not true, and obviously valid opinions deserve discussion. Sam's essay takes your comment's tack and extrapolates, saying in order for us to never accidentally brand people as heretics we should live in a society that has a higher level of tolerance for shitty things like "gay people are evil." That we should have a higher tolerance for all ideas so we can "discuss" them.
But the consequences of "higher tolerance" for harassing and alienating speech is a chilling effect on another section of the population (people who get harassed and alienated). More "freedom" for one group comes at the cost of depriving another.
> The way you've formulated this makes it seem like people who think political correctness is important also must espouse branding people as heretics for no reason.
The "for no reason" part here is actually throwing me off. Not sure what you're implying.
I've made the statement that discussion on the topic is preferable to branding, even in the case where people feel alienated.
> The "for no reason" part here is actually throwing me off. Not sure what you're implying.
It implies that Harvey Weinstein should be branded and ostracized. That abusers are rightfully alienated.
> I've made the statement that discussion on the topic is preferable to branding, even in the case where people feel alienated.
Right. You made that statement in response to 'What if your "controversial opinion" harasses and alienates other people?' -- so it follows that you're OK with giving airtime to hateful views even at the expense of chilling others' free speech and/or you don't recognize that this chilling effect is real.
I responded to you words in their context: as a response to something I wrote. There is no conflation. "Discussion" as mentioned in your statement isn't as neutral as you think.
> And, pray tell, who gets to decide which opinions are "valid"?
Society decides what's valid by responding to what you say. If what you say is bad, you'll get mostly negative responses. If what you say is good, you'll get mostly positive. If you disagree with most of society, you can hang with your niche. If you give a shit about what society mostly agrees on, you get with the program.
Seems like right now we mostly agree "be considerate of one another." It's not much to argue against.
> How do we find out in advance which opinions we are permitted to discuss?
This isn't rocket science. Some ideas for you:
1. Ask a friend. "Am I an asshole for saying this?"
2. Think critically. "Am I an asshole for saying this?"
3. Own mistakes. "Shit sorry I was an asshole, please forgive me."
4. General education. You learn from history, interacting with other members of society 1:1, stories of perspectives beyond your own, etc.
> Society decides what's valid by responding to what you say.
Is that really the heuristic you want to advocate?
- If, a millennium ago, an individual had questioned the divine right of kings to rule, s/he would have been called an asshole.
- If, 750 years ago, an individual had called into question the primacy of the dominant religion for his/her region, s/he would have been called an asshole.
- If, 500 years ago, an individual had suggested women's suffrage, s/he would have been called an asshole.
...etc...
In short, all your heuristic says is that the opinions that are "valid" are whatever the current status quo for your local societal norms happens to be. Forgive me for saying this, but that seems more like a conservative viewpoint than a liberal one.
> all your heuristic says is that the opinions that are "valid" are whatever the current status quo for your local societal norms happens to be.
I'm not advocating for a heuristic, I'm saying how functionally it works. Liberal / educated society has a different opinion than conservative society, for example. In your examples, societies of different time periods had different measuring sticks. Clearly we don't agree with the opinions of those societies but that's not surprising.
If modern liberal/educated society agrees that flat earthing and anti-vaxxing beliefs are unfounded and dumb, then people who believe those things will find themselves better accepted in niche groups who share their views. Similarly political correctness arises out of a subset of society saying "wow we find some things to be hurtful" and contrary to how it's being painted in Sam's writing it's not some minefield of things that hinder free thought; it's just that there are ways we interact that can hurt and silence others. Being mindful of these things is, in some opinions including mine, a low bar and not much harder to achieve than observing what's going on and concluding "gee the world is round and we should be kind to one another."
> In short, all your heuristic says is that the opinions that are "valid" are whatever the current status quo for your local societal norms happens to be.
Again no espousing of any heuristic here, only a description of functionally how society works. The great thing is the the subject here is specifically _modern liberal silicon valley educated society_ and what it finds acceptable. The thread is mostly to discuss whether this specific society's net opinions today are chilling on innovation or beneficial for innovation. Sam thinks it's chilling; Anil and many others think it's beneficial / necessary.
I’m not sure that matters? Or rather, the specifics of the controversial argument matter a lot.
If someone is unable to find people who agree that helping people live longer then perhaps there is something else going on, because that doesn’t seem a hard argument to make.
OTOH, if they are making the argument that Hitler was correct, then yes I would unashamedly hope there are social consequences.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
If your post is being downvoted it is not because of its content, but because it brings absolutely nothing of substance to the conversation, breaking HN’s posting guidelines.
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.
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"
I can see your point but I don't think it's something that can be boiled down to a quick summary and then dismissed. The idea isn't about an inherent right, it's more about a courtesy of respect towards others no matter how much we disagree with them. The first article isn't demanding it, it's pointing out the lack of it and leaving it as an exercise to the reader to decide the right path forward. In my opinion this is something the government should never enforce, but I am happy to allow other people to voice whatever it is they have to say even if I disagree. I think a good example of this idea in practice is /r/Libertarian on Reddit: it's a community that's very protective of the right to free speech and I would say they largely agree with the first article. The courtesy is extended to others (socialists, fascists, communists, etc.) and their comments appear on most posts. There is no strong desire to censor or even ignore these posts, instead they are often met with well thought-out rebuttals or the agreement to disagree. Though the two people may judge each other based on views, it rarely if ever devolves to name-calling, downvote brigades, or censorship.
But could it be that tolerance of different opinions is a virtue for a free people? One that can't flow from the power of the state but from the strength of our individual characters.
How are we to solve our problems if we replace the reason of thoughtful discussion with the power of social censure?
The TL;DR on The Paradox of Tolerance, a much discussed philosophy intro topic, is that for tolerance to exist society must be intolerant of intolerance.
> In 1971, philosopher John Rawls concludes in A Theory of Justice that a just society must tolerate the intolerant, for otherwise, the society would then itself be intolerant, and thus unjust. However, Rawls also insists, like Popper, that society has a reasonable right of self-preservation that supersedes the principle of tolerance: "While an intolerant sect does not itself have title to complain of intolerance, its freedom should be restricted only when the tolerant sincerely and with reason believe that their own security and that of the institutions of liberty are in danger."
> In a 1997 work, Michael Walzer asked "Should we tolerate the intolerant?" He notes that most minority religious groups who are the beneficiaries of tolerance are themselves intolerant, at least in some respects. In a tolerant regime, such people may learn to tolerate, or at least to behave "as if they possessed this virtue".
> Thomas Jefferson addressed the notion of a tolerant society in his first inaugural speech, concerning those who might destabilise the country and its unity, saying, "...let them stand undisturbed as monuments of the safety with which error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it."
I believe we should tolerate the intolerant, for we may get them to change their minds. If we push them away, they won't get any closer to tolerance.
I agree that forgiveness is powerful. I also linked to that page because it shows a balanced view intentionally.
It is easier for one to be forgiving when the problem is abstract and one's life is not directly threatened by the intolerance (please forgive the unwieldy "one"'s, I don't want to make any assumptions about "you"). I have a lot of respect for people who are able to hold forgiveness in their hearts, I also understand the value of the self preservation in drawing a firm boundary in saying "I will not be attacked". It's complicated.
One's life is not directly threatened by intolerance when it comes strictly to speech. It is only action taken upon that speech (or imminent action caused by it) that threatens lives.
And preventing the restriction of ideas such that "augmenting intelligence" or "radical life extension" are not suddenly unspeakable is very much unlike being intolerant of others anyway.
Self-preservation is important, but it's also important for people to avoid being drunk on their own self-righteousness.
Anil's argument was that tolerating hatred of groups emboldens those who would be violent against those groups. In that, I agree violent speech threatens the lives of those who it is is violent against.
There also degrees to this. There are certainly instances of people being drunk on their own self righteousness.
- If I were a non-christian and you were to wish me "Merry Christmas", if I took the interpretation that you were threatening my life that would be unreasonable.
- If you were to announce "I'm not killing anybody, but I pray that all the gays are killed" I think my understanding of that as endangering my life (as a gay person) is totally reasonable.
This is a nuanced conversation, it helps to remember that different people have different things at stake, and it's difficult to say things that apply to every level.
Organized violence begins with the organization, and why most countries in the modern world have some provision to prevent inciting violence, riot, etc.
You're falsely presenting that as the only solution to the philosophical problem.
In fact, when it comes to government regulation of speech, the philosophical approach taken by the First Amendment, and the very thoughtful jurists who have interpreted it, is the opposite: that we must tolerate intolerance.
And as for the social sphere, where legal freedom of speech does not apply of course, the problem with too liberally being intolerant of "intolerance" is that the definition of "intolerance" is itself a political thing, inevitably expanded and wielded as a weapon against dissent. For example, opposition to more immigration becomes branded as inherently intolerant.
I certainly err on the side of agreeing with the thesis that we shouldn't tolerate intolerance, which is Anil's point as well, that said the source material I linked to (wikipedia), gives attention to both the argument and its counterpoints. I do find it interesting and relevant to this conversation that we have both been downvoted for our points.
There is a depraved desire in all of us to use our momentary power to achieve final victory. The right tried with McCarthyism half a century ago when it had cultural dominance, and the left is currently trying now that it has achieved cultural dominance.
Our political order can do a lot to stymie such attempts, but it cannot replace the need for personal virtue. No constitution can save a people from itself.
If the left has achieved cultural dominance, why has it not achieved political dominance? I think that divide speaks to the argument that bigotry is dangerous and powerful. I agree that there can certainly be a chilling from leftist critiques but don't see that it as equaling McCarthyism.
Cultural dominance, in the form of media, entertainment, social media stardom etc is controlled by a relatively small group of gatekeepers who exercise a tight grip on their respective Overton windows.
Cultural grassroots swells of a certain flavor on Twitter and YouTube in particular were quickly handicapped when they started to go viral. I think the cultural/political discrepancy reflects this.
Upon further reading I find myself chuckling and agreeing with your thesis statement: "There is a depraved desire in all of us to use our momentary power to achieve final victory."
tl;dr: The choices made in these examples are political, but the words communicating them are not always so flexible.
the problem with too liberally being intolerant of "intolerance" is that the definition of "intolerance" is itself a political thing
It can be, but it can also be an attribute of the text. The fact that "Jews should be eradicated" advocates an intolerance of the very existence of Jews isn't a political interpretation because it's right there in the text. The advocacy, the desire to utter the sentiment, is political for sure, but the words that express those politics leave no room for interpretation.
If "too liberally" was meant to communicate this, it's kind of doing a lot of work for its mention in passing.
For example, opposition to more immigration becomes branded as inherently intolerant.
Is this an actual thing? Most of what I see is about a reduction in current immigration, including the deportation of people who have already been here for decades, which is indeed a kind of intolerance for the status quo of border policy. If there's a more charitable interpretation of this state of affairs I'm all ears/eyes.
So when are things too intolerant to tolerate? And what other behaviors would you call "tolerant" besides those that tolerate intolerance? Thats the only time you're really being tolerant of somerthing that requires an effort to tolerate.
* 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.