At least in large cities, lots of (mostly young) people are already fully on board with a largely car-free future. It's increasingly common to dream of not owning a car at all, instead of having a dream car. All of my american friends my age have some resentment that they're practically forced to own a car even in dense cities. So urban planners just need to enable a car-free lifestyle, and the shift will happen on its own.
Contrast in European and Asian cities, it is already extremely common to not own a car. In my city, even the people I know who own cars only use them for long journeys or when public transit is insufficient. And these bike/trike EVs are the dominant method for deliveries (mail, packages, food, etc... all use electric bikes) since they're cheaper to drive and maintain, drivers don't need a special commercial license, and they can be faster than traffic a lot of the time.
It's a lifestyle shift, but it's definitely doable to sell this idea.
It looks like the outboard "wing" is on the windward side. Is it actually a counterweight to prevent the vehicle from tipping over in the wind? I would have expected it to be more like a sideboard on a sailboat being a sort of leeward stabilizer.
Regardless this is absolutely crazy, hard to believe they think they can go even faster. And 22 knots isn't even that unusually fast wind (over water, speed records have more like 25-30 knots) I wonder if on land the speed improvements are more about material sciences and preventing the vehicle from breaking apart or tipping over
Ah yes. A famous best-selling author featured in the BBC is completely censored and her career is wrecked because... she got some angry tweets? What are you talking about?
> > Not every thought that goes through a person's mind the need be put out into the open immediately.
>
> Straw man.
Doesn't sound like a straw man to me. What is self-censorship if not thinking through what you want to say before speaking? Generally when I speak I try to think about what effect my words will have, and if they would have what I consider to be a bad effect either on myself or others, I self-censor.
The difference between thinking before speaking and self-censorship is that in one case you don't say something because you think it isn't true, and in another you don't say it because you are afraid of people finding out that you think it isn't.
Self-censorship is the result of thinking before speaking. The arguments which made you reach that result can vary. You can choose to self-censor whether you're right or wrong.
Nobody thinks they're wrong. So I'd make the bold claim that more often than not people who think before speaking are going to self-censor because their opinion is unpopular even if objectively correct. One right statement to the wrong crowd can "sink your ship" with some terrible consequences.
The combination between this "thinking" process and the reaction of certain groups selects in favor of the opinions held by the most belligerent group. You're more likely to self-censor when your audience will throw a brick at your head compared to when they just give you a stern response.
Anyway you can have a stupid opinion on one topic and a very sound one on another topic. You can promote equality of gender while rejecting equality of race/color. Even if you believe both are equally correct you may censor your second opinion to not have it sink your first one.
Thinking before speaking is filtering out anything where its cons for being said outweigh its pros. It has nothing to do with whether or not you think something is true or false. It doesn't even need to be a truth statement.
Self-censorship is a different name for the same concept. The only reason I avoid saying certain things in certain contexts is because I believe there will be negative backlash that outweighs any possible gains in communicating my thought.
I don't quite agree with your argument.
In the literal sense thinking before speaking is just that. It can lead to you rephrasing your thoughts multiple times before you find a way to convey what you want to say in such a manner, that a listener is able to understand you.
Of course, it can also lead to an act of self-censorship if the cons outweigh the pros.
Originally, the word "censorship" was not used in a context where this consideration was done, be it thoughtfully or at all.
So while defining self-censorship like you do is certainly possible, it is inconsistent with other meanings of censorship, where multiple parties may be involved.
It is up to you, of course, to expand its meaning to "thinking before speaking", but other people seem to mean similar, but not quite equal, things with these words. Unifying them by using a weaker definition (Although I don't believe that "think before you speak" is well defined at all) will only lead to a loss of information that facilitates misunderstandings. I'd rather know that I might be misunderstanding something instead of having peace of mind with a definition that is so broad it becomes meaningless.
If someone is convinced that black people are inferior to white people, I want them to be afraid to express that. I don't care about hearing evidence on certain subjects, and I want there to be societal repercussions for disagreeing about things like that.
While I do agree "cancel culture" in the way of "someone misspeaks once, so the twitter mob digs up their entire past and puts them on trial for every shitty thing they've ever said" is toxic and unhelpful, I'm perfectly in agreement that deplatforming bigots is actually helpful. As a concrete example, I'm very happy Kanye West has lost essentially all of his contracts and a lot of his supporters; he thinks "Jews secretly control the world" is true and wasn't afraid to say it, maybe others will be now and will self-censor.
The problem, as usual is that "bigot" is just another word in the long list of words used to silence people. To quote Paul Graham:
<<In every period of history, there seem to have been labels that got applied to statements to shoot them down before anyone had a chance to ask if they were true or not. "Blasphemy", "sacrilege", and "heresy" were such labels for a good part of western history, as in more recent times "indecent", "improper", and "unamerican" have been. By now these labels have lost their sting. They always do. By now they're mostly used ironically. But in their time, they had real force.
The word "defeatist", for example, has no particular political connotations now. But in Germany in 1917 it was a weapon, used by Ludendorff in a purge of those who favored a negotiated peace. At the start of World War II it was used extensively by Churchill and his supporters to silence their opponents. In 1940, any argument against Churchill's aggressive policy was "defeatist". Was it right or wrong? Ideally, no one got far enough to ask that.
We have such labels today, of course, quite a lot of them, from the all-purpose "inappropriate" to the dreaded "divisive." In any period, it should be easy to figure out what such labels are, simply by looking at what people call ideas they disagree with besides untrue. When a politician says his opponent is mistaken, that's a straightforward criticism, but when he attacks a statement as "divisive" or "racially insensitive" instead of arguing that it's false, we should start paying attention.>>
Coming from an ex-communist country, where the word: "reactionary" is still useless after being used as a weapon for so long, I find it really scary that it is now, again, used unironically in the west and appears to be regaining its power.
My grandmother lost her job because she was part of the anti-communist, democratic opposition, and the reason given to her was that she was "divisive, and anti-worker".
So you suggest that everyone can express any opinion, no matter how inflammatory, without any repercussions? To be honest I find an absolute stance on that ridiculous. The questions I would ask are:
- what kinds of speech are unacceptable?
- what reaction does society take when someone crosses the line?
To continue on the Kanye example: essentially he lost his job, and I think that's perfectly acceptable. His employers/contractors found his speech disgusting, and fired him/ended his contracts. You can compare that to what happened with your grandma, and the only reason I think it's wrong is because I think pro-capitalism should be an "allowed" opinion, even though I disagree with it. To me the difference is that her opinion was a matter of political opinion, Kanye's directly targets jews, a marginalized group (note: in your grandma's case, "anti-worker" is no targeting a marginalized group since in a communist country the workers are definitionally not marginalized).
Every country I'm aware of (even the United States, for instance bomb threats are illegal) agrees that some speech should be prohibited. Where they disagree is what is prohibited and what the punishment is. In Germany, you can be jailed for denying the holocaust. Is that just? I don't really know but most of the Germans I've met agree with the law in this case.
Yes, you've gotten exactly to the heart of what I was trying to say. Of course there are people who get unfairly maligned for saying the "wrong" thing (or when the things they say have been taken out of context).
But people pushing back on what someone says is a normal, healthy part of discourse and it absolutely should scale with the power and influence of the person voicing that opinion (Kanye is the perfect example).
>If someone is convinced that black people are inferior to white people, I want them to be afraid to express that.
Elaborate on how and why exactly you think they should be afraid.
Should they be afraid for their physical safety because you want violence against them to not be punishable (or the state to have to enact such violence by law)?
Should they be afraid for their freedom because you want hate speech laws instituted that would land them in jail?
Nobody is afraid to voice their opinion because of the disapproval of leftists and "liberals" so it should be one of the 2 above or something similar.
No. Communists are not nazis. Communists do not advocate for the extermination of any marginalized group. I made it very clear that the opinion being expressed matters here, so I'm not sure why you'd think this is inconsistent?
As a person from an ex-communist country, whose family was killed by the communist government for being farmers I would disagree with that. So my question would be - why jail nazis but not communists?
Oh wow, you are talking about my grandfather who was killed because he owned 2 acres of land and his family was sent to Siberia.
At least now I know why you have such blind spot re. communists, as you do sound like a tankie alright.
Please don't perpetuate flamewars on HN or use it for ideological battle. It's not what this site is for, and destroys what it is for.
Please also omit name-calling and swipes and personal attacks from your comments here. Believe me, I know how intense it can get when other people's points land on old wounds, but we're all responsible for managing our reactions.
> racists should find it hard to make friends and find employment.
It may surprise you but any form of social ostracism that is not government sanctioned will not achieve any of that regarding regular people. It will affect only celebrities and a segment of the public intellectuals. (But there will be a different segment that will benefit)
Regarding kanye west, his biggest problem was that a significant chunk of his "sponsors" (=board members of companies) and business partners were actually jewish. Had he said the same thing about Australian Aboriginals (or the same thing about jews but if his main market was East Asia), he'd be completely fine after the initial outrage subsided. So I don't think you actually understand anything about your example at all.
It is a straw man in that it implies that anything self-censored this way is something not worthy of being put out into the open, completely missing the point that a thought very well may have been been worth sharing.
In essence, only the thoughts that "should not be put out into the open immediately"(1) are attacked, instead of the original meaning, in which all thoughts are included. It is left open to the reader to select (1) in such a way that the argument becomes strong for them.
How so? I personally prefer to live in a world where expressing certain opinions in public is socially unacceptable and will make you an outcast. For example, I don't want to hear anyone's transphobic opinions, as is the case with this author. I really wish she would self-censor like she claims is such an epidemic, instead of being featured in the BBC doing the exact opposite.
Obviously in general I don't want someone to face violence for expressing an opinion, but I don't want to hear bigotry like this being echoed in the news, in social media, by my friends, etc... because I like living a peaceful life.
No it does not. Just another generic "person with huge public reach complains about being criticized for their bigotry" article from the BBC. Somehow these people never see the irony about articles like this being in the biggest news outlet in the UK.
I've always loved math, but one class I didn't expect to like as much as I did was The History of Mathematics. The mathematical content was usually very basic of course, but putting all the things I was learning in my other classes in a historical narrative was eye opening and magical.
It also gave me a way better understanding of why we do math the way we do today. Of course mathematical truths are the same regardless of notation and method, but even simple things like the prevalency of the "=" sign are choices we made along the way in history. Today algebra is almost synonymous with math for many people, but it didn't even exist as a branch of mathematics until al-Khwarizmi he just wrote his equations out in words! But we made a concise notation over time and we're all much better for it.
And some parts are just funny. Like math "duels" over cubic equations in 1500s Italy
As a fellow ADHD-er, the way I handled this as a student was to customize my note-taking system. My whole life people had told me how to take notes in an extremely structured way, and insisted they must be detailed. That required so much focus like you that I couldn't learn. So when I was allowed to stop taking notes, I did, and my grades slightly improved.
Then in university it was too much information to not take notes, and I started on my own again, in my own way. Most importantly there was almost no structure, and very little detail. Never take notes in full sentences, just keywords that are semi-digestable to you, and in math there were lots of equations and diagrams. Secondly I got a tablet with a pressure sensitive pen. This allowed me to still take hand "written" notes that looked and felt like my real handwriting, but I didn't have to deal with trying to organize my notes in real space, which inevitably would end up crushed at the bottom of my backpack or strewn around my room; digital notes are self-organizing.
Sounds like you were primarily having trouble balancing focus with the content side of making notes. With many people, the challenge is actual mark making. We need to intellectualize writing words the way I've heard some people with autism need to intellectualize ingesting and responding to social queues. That muscle memory just doesn't connect the way it does for most people... it's like I'm using the mental process for drawing and don't have some parallel, more automatic mental process for writing. For me, typing is an instant cure for that.
This is actually how Mycroft handles it, more or less.
The wakeword ("hey Mycroft") is done on-device, but everything you say after that is sent to a speech-to-text API. That text is then routed to the appropriate skill to handle. So when you're writing the skill you only worry about the content of that text
Contrast in European and Asian cities, it is already extremely common to not own a car. In my city, even the people I know who own cars only use them for long journeys or when public transit is insufficient. And these bike/trike EVs are the dominant method for deliveries (mail, packages, food, etc... all use electric bikes) since they're cheaper to drive and maintain, drivers don't need a special commercial license, and they can be faster than traffic a lot of the time.
It's a lifestyle shift, but it's definitely doable to sell this idea.