> (Those audio codecs were written by two engineers with advanced degrees from Berkeley and Stanford. When they weren’t teasing each other about which school was better, they were writing mathematical audio code that I was scared to touch. You would no more let a regular engineer mess with code like that than you’d let a bike mechanic rebuild the transmission in a Porsche. They had an occasional poker game I played in. The only reason I didn’t lose all my money was that one of them enjoyed his vodka.)
To add some context to the side-note, for those unfamiliar with the story, the BBC used that word in an editorial/journalistic context, quoting the racial abuse a man suffered after being intentionally hit with a car while waiting on the bus. The victim's family were determined that the BBC show pictures showing the extent of his injuries and quote, in full, the racist tirade he was subject to during the attack.
Whether or not you agree with them using that word on a news report, I think the context and intent are really important.
That’s the fastest u-turn I’ve done in a while. Context matters.
So by avoiding the BBC site, you're going against the victim's wishes?
Edit: on reading further on this, there seems to have been more outrage at the BBC reporting what was said, as they were asked to do, than at the near murder of the guy in an unprovoked racist attack.
> on reading further on this, there seems to have been more outrage at the BBC reporting what was said, as they were asked to do, than at the near murder of the guy in an unprovoked racists attack.
That's modern society in a nutshell for ya. It seems like the priority is more about virtue signaling than it is about seeking truth and justice in all things.
For most non-racists, it goes without saying that race-related violence is unacceptable.
Sadly it also happens often enough that we aren't going to tweet/write a comment saying "this is bad" every single time it happens.
Whereas the BBC journalist using that word was a) not a common event b) as seen in this thread not such a binary good/bad thing even among non-racists and c) affects news standards that broadcast to huge numbers of people.
If I could prevent one physical attack by allowing one use of the word on the TV I would, but I don't think it's at all hypocritical or virtue signalling that many people felt it more important to talk about the journalism than the case being reported.
You remember the good old days when all politics was local? Now it’s all International. All of it. The British Broadcasting Corp. is a Crown Corporation mostly funded through TV licenses charged to British subjects when I last checked. Maybe that’s changed, but it’s not in my wheelhouse as an American citizen on American soil to help regulate your lexicon. Do what you think is right, but consider the place in which you choose to proselytize with greater care. That’s what the Twatter is for.
> The victim's family were determined that the BBC show pictures showing the extent of his injuries and quote, in full, the racist tirade he was subject to during the attack.
Sorry, I'm having trouble parsing this sentence -- could you elaborate? I think my confusion is centered on the word 'determined'.
> The victim's family were [resolute] that the BBC [should] show pictures showing the extent of his injuries and quote, in full, the racist tirade he was subject to during the attack.
The victim's family specifically requested that the journalist repeat the phrase used in full. The journalist/editors obviously made the choice, but they chose to go by the family's wishes rather than by the general consensus on whether it's acceptable to say that word even in the context of reporting about it.
It got auto collapsed because it's a reply to my comment that got flagged and killed. Almost certainly users flagging it (although oddly it's also positively upvoted) not a mod decision.
Yes you're right, sorry if anyone read my comment to imply that BBC actively used that word to describe a black person themselves.
But it's pretty much accepted in the UK and especially UK media that if reporting on it, you say "the n word", especially if you're a white reporter.
A lot of people were extremely offended, even in the context you've added, and the BBC have now acknowledged it was wrong.
The reason for today's boycott is partly their delay (and initial defence), and partly a wide, subjective view of institutional racism among large parts of the BBC.
This is obviously a very complex topic, but for now can't we at least agree that we don't need to hear the n-word purposefully spoken by BBC News?
It's the same thing as saying "the n word" to me. You're still telling someone the word and it shouldn't matter in this instance, because they're reporting on what was said, written, or done.
Context and intent matter. If a single word causes so much outrage, you need to look at who exactly is getting offended. I wouldn't be surprised if the majority of black people don't find offense in it being said at all - again, if you give them the context. Just telling them "BBC guy said the word!" is a bit disingenuous.
> It's the same thing as saying "the n word" to me
The difference IMO is that one is a reminder to anyone listening that they should never use that word, whereas the other is a normalisation or hearing it.
I'm certainly not an expert on this subject though, and being white myself I take my lead in this area, and on this story, from non-white people who I know or who I follow in politics/media/etc. I can't speak to how the majority of black people on the UK feel, but definitely plenty of them understood the context and were still very outspoken against it.
I don't like the BBC because of its political slant, but in this case I feel their reporting it verbatim accurately absolutely helps the cause against racism. That's my problem with suppressing hate speech. Best way to get rid of it is to keep the people who deploy it out in the open, where the free market of ideas will dispatch with them efficiently. It's how someone like Daryl Davis can literally change the world:
> the free market of ideas will dispatch of them efficiently
This is a bad concept that is far detached from reality. Participating in public discourse is not like selling wheat or steel.
Sticking with the theme, a "free market of ideas" has significant transaction costs, information asymmetry and some actors wield significant market power (media organisations, public figures).
It's a nice theory but there are many classic market failures at play here that should dispel any idea of reaching an efficient outcome.
BBC news and political reporting (the thing politicians care about) have a massive bias towards the current UK government - for the last 5+ years that means a pro-austerity xenophobic anti-EU bent. If they veer from that they get their funding cut.
BBC radio and drama/comedy/kids' TV studio content is generally very "politically correct" left-wing as the vast majority of employees in these industries are left wing. The stereotype of the BBC show with exactly one gay, one black and one disabled kid among its three-strong casts is not far off the mark...
Take a list of countries in the world that have the best HDI rankings, press freedom rankings, universal healthcare and so on. Almost all are run by parties who are described primarily as being center-right or center-left.
Thank you. Do these people not realize that centrist basically means stable and successful? Probably just sad sacks who want things to go sour.
And I want to be clear, in the U.S. Dems are a center-left party and GOP is a (increasingly) far-right party. You can see this objectively by the percent of the time each member flips. Approx. around 80% GOP never flips versus only 20% Dems.
The Democratic party as an institution is not very left at all.
There are people who identify as Democrats who could be described as extreme left, and they may get a lot of airtime, but they do not represent the party and do not influence it's policies.
> Everything I've read and heard about US politics would seems to suggest that the Dems are being pulled increasingly towards the extreme left
We are either reading very different news, or your use of “extreme left” is highly out of sync with anything approaching common usage. Wake me me up when they start nationalising pensions
> Almost all are run by parties who are described primarily as being center-right or center-left.
They're described like that by the local standards of the country they're in. But if you were to transplant e.g. some "right wing" parties in certain European countries to a country like the US you'd have an extremist left wing party by local standards.
So it's no more evidence that things move towards the "center" in general than people in Venice and Mexico city saying "uphill" and "downhill" being evidence that those two cities are situated at the same altitude.
Most developed European countries have a tax to GDP ratio 10-15% higher than the US.
Fiscally conservative right wing parties in those countries typically run on a platform of at most reducing that by 3-5%.
If you then take what they'd do to military spending (at most 1/2 or 1/4 what the US spends per capita), social services (maybe a bit less spending, but not dismantling it), the state's regulatory role, fuel taxes etc. I don't think this is a far-fetched assertion.
Eisenhower's idea is attractive, but incorrect. The extremes are where the most enthusiasm is. People in the middle who lean one way or the other can find themselves pushed to go further and further that way, or risk being treated as unreliable allies. The "gutters", in turn, are thus encourage to drift further and further from the center.
People don't turn out for centrists. They turn out for extremism. You'd like to think that sooner or later people would find that they've veered so far one way that the only correction is to jump over the center line, and restore Eisenhower's faith, but I don't see much evidence of that.
If you consider the current leadership of the United States to be "centrist", then you and I have irreconciably different definitions of "center".
It has has a history of veering more and more wildly to each side. The previous leader was an exciting cipher when elected -- he turned out to be centrist, but was only elected because a lot of people imagined he was more to the left than he turned out to be. And at that, he was completely stymied in his progressive platform by an extremely right-wing legislature -- which turned out to be so popular that their party repeatedly increased their power in the legislature. Before him, the country elected a clear idiot, and then re-elected him after starting a war on clearly false provocation.
People were more likely to appeal to Eisenhower's approach in the 20th century, but in the 21st, the extremes have better access to mass media, making them better able to cast the center as extremist and shifting the Overton window. I see this only increasing. It's possible that it won't succeed this November, but even if it doesn't, I don't believe that the trend will change.
America is an abomination, but it’s very far from the only country, and the vast majority of rich, free countries are run by centrists who were voted into power
I find that America tends to export its culture. Its genius is its willingness to appeal to the lowest common denominator, which others find repulsive and yet, gradually, succumb to.
Already I find hints that other English-speaking countries are studying the effectiveness of our extremist tactics (goaded, in part, by our geopolitical opponents). I think you'll see more of it elsewhere in coming decades. They'll do it because it works.
It's not a foregone conclusion, but watch out for it. I don't know how to tell you to prevent it; it works inexorably. I hope they figure something out, even if it's just having a national character that's more repulsed by it than ours turns out to be. But do not rely on that, because we're just 65 years removed from Eisenhower ourselves.
It's how someone like Daryl Davis can literally change the world
I'd forgotten about this story, but it's a really good one. Sometimes we forget our humanity. If you want to convince people, don't browbeat them or belittle them. Do your homework, understand what they believe, and just generally show you're a good person.
We need a new narrative to bubble up through the media that empowers voices of reason and calm, not voices that divide.
Every single instance of genocide in the last 150 years or so started as just some folks expressing a relatively fringe ideology, with plenty of others debating against it vigorously. For whatever reason, that ideology caught on, and then the mass murders start.
People, as a general group, don't evaluate their beliefs in a rational manner. They are biased in favor of the first things they heard; and whatever is most palatable given their emotions and things they already believe.
It's how you can get into a situation where massive numbers of people believe some combination of the ideas earth is 6000 years old and also flat and also that 5G causes covid and also covid was a hoax and face masks are just a mkultra trauma psyop run by the pedophile satanic illuminati cabal run by Hillary Clinton and George Soros.
If people can hold all that in their heads, and not believe any evidence to the contrary; then the idea of suppressing the notions that Black folks/Jewish folks/Muslims/migrants/whatever are the root of society's problems and we should do violence to them starts to make a lot of sense.
I also think that the idea that markets, particularly abstract ones, such as the "free market of ideas" are capable of producing long-term positive outcomes for most participants is, at best, without evidence and at worst pure fallacious thinking.
I think it was a charismatic figure convincing others that they are victims in most cases.
That is not the whole truth of course, but far more accurate than saying the freedom of expression hurts minorities and leads to genocide. That is some class-A bullshit and revisionist of history.
On the contrary, restricting people from stating their opinion reinforces their believe that the world is conspiring against them. You need to have some trust issue to come up with ideas like that.
Flat earthers are only a problem to themselves so I don't understand your fascination with that group.
The free market of ideas has produced the most free societies. Not just in history, it can be also be seen today.
> They are biased
That is true for nobody or everybody. In both cases it wouldn't matter, would it?
Flat earthers may only be a problem of themselves, but climate denialists, anti-vaxxers, and creationists are not. (Creationists are constantly fighting to have theology taught as science, and even today biology textbooks isolate and underplay evolution to avoid offending them.)
As you say, they all respond to attempts to restrict their falsehoods play into the paranoid narrative. But sunlight doesn't disinfect it, either. They've set themselves a very attractive head-I-win-tails-you lose scenario, making them impossible to stamp out or even mitigate the damage.
https://tidbits.com/2020/08/17/the-case-of-the-top-secret-ip...