Worst of Social Justice

[Ironchew]

http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/free-speech-on-the-run-even-in-the-home-of-the-brave-1.3084507

A few months old, but relevant. Witness the rise of the illiberal left.

Legally protected speech, no matter how offensive, is a glorious and uniquely American invention, a gift to the marketplace of ideas and an example to the world.

Coming from a journalist — me — that statement should not be even mildly controversial.

Increasingly, though, such a statement is being reviled even here in the U.S. as archaic, revanchist, bigoted, paternalistic, reactionary, sexist, probably tinged with racism or just out of tune with modern thought.

That would be no surprise in Canada or European nations where the impulse to regulate real or imagined insult, using hate speech laws, human rights commissions and the like, can trump free speech.

But in today's America, the domain of constitutionally protected expression, anti-free-speech forces are stepping up co-ordinated attacks.

All I got from that article was the author whining at length about how people have to deal with the consequences of the things they say.

What Kirsten Powers glosses over, though, is that not even America's guarantee of free speech safeguards anyone from consequences like shaming or termination of employment, or even expulsion from a (private) school or university.

Free speech means the government cannot arrest you for what you say. It doesn't mean anyone else has to listen to or provide a venue for your speech.

[Sigmaleph]

From the article:

But in America, the trend of applying "trigger/content" warnings about emotionally disturbing material to the works of many modern and ancient literary canons also seems more widespread.

To borrow a phrase, trigger warnings are the opposite of censorship. They are a way of saying "this thing you are about to read has material some people object to/don't want to be exposed to. Instead of not letting anyone read it, we are informing you ahead of time what those things are and letting you decide, for yourself, if you want to read it or not".

All I got from that article was the author whining at length about how people have to deal with the consequences of the things they say.

What Kirsten Powers glosses over, though, is that not even America's guarantee of free speech safeguards anyone from consequences like shaming or termination of employment, or even expulsion from a (private) school or university.

Free speech means the government cannot arrest you for what you say. It doesn't mean anyone else has to listen to or provide a venue for your speech.

Is it time to have this argument again? Oh well.

Free speech is not just the First Amendment. Free speech is also the philosophical principle that a civilized society has to allow people to have dissenting views and not be coerced into not expressing them. Protection from being thrown in jail is one aspect of free speech, but it's not the only one, because coercion can happen from non-government actors.

 If every time anyone says X they get fired from their job, people throw eggs at their house, they get letters threatening to kill them, etc. then very few people will dare say X. As a result, X vanishes from the public discourse, and funnily enough that happens no matter the truth value of X.

Speech is not free if certain opinions cannot be expressed without fear of disproportionate retaliation.

[rookie]

Government protected speech then?

[Sigmaleph]

Government protected speech then?

Sure, that's a reasonable name for it, but I don't object to nomenclature. I object to the idea that the only thing worth protecting speech from is the government.

[Ultimate Paragon]

Here's Github's new Code of Conduct:

https://archive.is/gGeh7

Count the red flags!

[guizonde]

Here's Github's new Code of Conduct:

https://archive.is/gGeh7

Count the red flags!

a shorter list would've been "what's allowed"...

[Ironchew]

Here's Github's new Code of Conduct:

https://archive.is/gGeh7

Count the red flags!

I don't see anything objectionable in there.

I mean, sure, it'll prevent UP and his buddies from stirring up shit over there, but that means it's working as intended.

[Ultimate Paragon]

Our open source community prioritizes marginalized people’s safety over privileged people’s comfort.

That alone sends off alarm bells.  It's very easy to use that sentence as an excuse to preserve double standards, provided they "punch up".

We will not act on complaints regarding: ‘Reverse’ -isms, including ‘reverse racism,’ ‘reverse sexism,’ and ‘cisphobia’

In other words, white male cishets are acceptable targets.

"We will not act on complaints regarding: Refusal to explain or debate social justice concepts"

So radflakes will be able to carpet bomb projects at will, and can simply refuse to explain any of their actions.

"We will not act on complaints regarding: Communicating in a ‘tone’ you don’t find congenial"

We all know one of the most visible attributes of social justice fanatics is their rudeness.  This rule gives a lot of freedom to troublemakers.

"we explicitly honor diversity in... technical ability"

So when newcomers will no knowledge or understanding of a project start making trouble on mailing lists of bug reports, they will be protected against those who explain why they are acting like idiots.

"If someone has been harmed or offended, it is our responsibility to listen carefully and respectfully, and do our best to right the wrong."

As Stephen Fry said, offense is taken, not given.  No-one has any control over which individuals will chose to claim offense over their words.  This rule lets troublemakers escalate the most trivial issues until an administrator is forced to give in to them.

Harassment includes: Deliberate “outing” of any aspect of a person’s identity without their consent except as necessary to protect others from intentional abuse.

Doxxing is forbidden unless it's in the good name of preventing harassment of marginalized people.  Fine in theory, but this seems like it could be easily abused.  Anybody could doxx somebody and claim it's for the greater good.

And that's not even mentioning the blatant inconsistencies...

[Ironchew]

Yes, UP, it means you won't be able to sustain your githubgate crusade.

Excuse me while I drink your tears.

[Ultimate Paragon]

Yes, UP, it means you won't be able to sustain your githubgate crusade.

Excuse me while I drink your tears.

Go ahead.  I'm crying with laughter at how dumb they are.

[guizonde]

Yes, UP, it means you won't be able to sustain your githubgate crusade.

Excuse me while I drink your tears.

i'm sorry ironchew, but your hatred of ultie's clouding your judgement. a lot of these rules can and will be abused. hell, i'm sure he missed some of the loopholes, but those are already pretty big. i might go troll there, after all, i'm a nonconforming neuroatypical pluricultural person, so i've got free passes at dipshitery left, right, and center.

[Thejebusfire]

[Ultimate Paragon]

Yes, UP, it means you won't be able to sustain your githubgate crusade.

Excuse me while I drink your tears.

i'm sorry ironchew, but your hatred of ultie's clouding your judgement. a lot of these rules can and will be abused. hell, i'm sure he missed some of the loopholes, but those are already pretty big. i might go troll there, after all, i'm a nonconforming neuroatypical pluricultural person, so i've got free passes at dipshitery left, right, and center.

And take a look at this:

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20150802/20330431831/github-nukes-repository-over-use-word-retard.shtml

Who wants to take bets on how long it will take for an unscrupulous open source product on Github to sneak in offensive words to get competitors removed?  Or someone starts going though hundreds of open source projects (whose opinions don't align with theirs) just to get the repos deleted and the users screwed?

I say 30 days at most.

[Art Vandelay]

And what about the purpleromantic kids, who are only romantically attracted to the colour purple?

Or the flupidoopiromantic kids, who only feel romantic attraction to someone dressed as a walrus and doing the macarena on top of a McDonalds?

Or even the hurskiloflionimaticromantic kids, who cannot feel any romantic attraction whatsoever to people with moustaches?

I mean, society these days is so oppressive, it makes me wish that ISIS would just take over the world already, so we can all live in a free and prosperous global utopia.

[Ultimate Paragon]

Difference is, hoes don't get 25 to life.