It is political in so much that it is something that should be decided by the people voting and case law. Lets be honest, thats not what I meant though and you should see that. Both sides are unfortunately polarized in their commentary as exampled by the poster I replied to. Instead of it being a discussion about privacy it devolved immediately into a go live somewhere else and throwing in a republican reference. Thats bringing in the wrong kind of politics into the conversation but lets ignore that. I identify with neither party and find it depressing when people are so polarized by either side, it becomes an immediate them vs us conversation.
>BTW, the term "Leopards Eating People's Faces Party" refers to a lot more than just Republicans
I stopped watching politics about 5 years ago and I constantly have to fight my YouTube feed to keep it out. I've never heard that term and I'm glad I don't know what it means. It shows the political deprogramming is finally happening.
Possibly controversial take, but I don’t think it’s helpful to gossip about who the bad apples are. Either take a risk and name names, or wait until the dust settles.
“To many conservatives, trigger warnings are a symptom of a world gone mad: a fragilizing ritual meant to insulate the delicate worldview of a weak-minded generation.”
Conservatives routinely get upset about the presence of gay people in media, among many other things. Is that somehow in a different category?
(This is in reply to the article linked by the author of the study in that Twitter thread)
I think the overall concern is that people in general seem all too willing to ignore reality. I can't really speak for any particular group in US ( or even in the old country ), because I am sufficiently weird that I do not really fit anywhere. Yay me.
That said, trigger warning is already a trigger word and may need to replaced with something else to avoid emotional reaction ( although I admit I do not have a good replacement off the top of my head ).
Some of the other posters mentioned movie ratings I almost chuckled a little, because I imagined a future, where I send an email in corporate settings with various tags to allow other people to ignore it in time and corporate code of conduct, where you agree to always read some upsetting tags..but I digress.
<< Is that somehow in a different category?
<< Conservatives routinely get upset about the presence of gay people in media, among many other things.
Please correct if I am wrong ( I have done my best to limit my news intake lately ), but conservatives being angry over gays does not ring true to my ears. If I understand current zeitgeist correctly, it is, currently, about a 'conveyor belt upon which progressives plan to place their children'(paraphrasing certain host). The difference is notable. Is it possible you are using old caricature for specific effect?
And this kinda brings me to the other point. Lately, it seems, it is not conservatives are not the ones calling for boycots, bans, deplatforming and demonetization. It is actually their opponents, which, in itself, is already interesting.
> That said, trigger warning is already a trigger word and may need to replaced with something else to avoid emotional reaction ( although I admit I do not have a good replacement off the top of my head ).
"Content warning" is fairly well-accepted (and broader, in that it makes more sense to use it to describe things that people simply _do not want to see_; see discussion of NSFL elsewhere.
The point I was probably trying to make is that I suspect that the author of this study and the accompanying article probably has a particular political axe to grind. That's mostly just conjecture, though.
Moral panics are nothing new, and (self-)censorship is nothing new either.
I think it's naive to think that conservatives have "gotten over" gay marriage, or gay rights more broadly, especially given how recent progress has been in those areas, and how much opposition remains to things like trans rights. I personally have a number of queer friends who are estranged from their families because they're queer, and those families usually aren't particularly progressive, as far as I know.
Yes they're never going to stop trying to restrict and rollback the rights of minorities, they have a lot of money and power they're willing to deploy to this end. Maintaining these rights will always be a constant struggle.
> or gay rights more broadly, especially given how recent progress has been in those areas, and how much opposition remains to things like trans rights.
Why are people still conflating homosexuality with transgender? They're completely different issues.
Look at social networks like Reddit, Tumblr or pre-Musk Twitter and notice what kind of speech they ban. For example, are you more likely to gét banned for saying “white people should die”, or “black people should die”?
"because I am sufficiently weird that I do not really fit anywhere"
Do you want to fit somewhere but haven't yet found a place to fit, or do you not care about fitting anywhere? If it's the latter you may have a social-variant blindspot (halfway down this reddit post: https://www.reddit.com/r/Enneagram/comments/kx0wfa/russ_huds... ). If it's the former you're probably just looking in the wrong places, or aren't engaging enough with the right people to find their similarities to you (or find out if they know of someone else similar to you).
"where I send an email in corporate settings with various tags to allow other people to ignore it in time and corporate code of conduct"
My employer uses a system called "Bucketlist" for kudos or something of the sort. I don't really know because the moment I saw it I created a filter that autodeletes every single email with that word in it. I can handle being reminded of death, but I don't want it popping into my work inbox.
"Please correct if I am wrong ( I have done my best to limit my news intake lately ), but conservatives being angry over gays does not ring true to my ears."
But, as you indicate, conflation of lesbians, gays, bisexuals, transgender, transsexual, and a variety of other groups make it difficult at times to figure out what people are actually in favor of or opposed to.
"Lately, it seems, it is not conservatives are not the ones calling for boycots, bans, deplatforming and demonetization. It is actually their opponents, which, in itself, is already interesting."
It's all sides. If you're noticing one side and not the other it's because of the bias of the media you're consuming. Examples:
<<"because I am sufficiently weird that I do not really fit anywhere"
>
Do you want to fit somewhere but haven't yet found a place to fit, or do you not care about fitting anywhere?
Seems somewhat personal, but I will respond. Neither. I see myself as an outsider, which allows for a very different set of perspectives. For better or worse, I like the fact that I do not belong everywhere equally.
<< But, as you indicate, conflation of lesbians, gays, bisexuals, transgender, transsexual, and a variety of other groups make it difficult at times to figure out what people are actually in favor of or opposed to.
I did not directly say that, but that is a good catch.
<<The Log Cabin Republicans
I will admit that this portion of history was news to me so I appreciate you sharing it ( this is why I like HN; you get to learn things ). It is a genuinely sad story to me ( and were I in their place, I would be livid ).
That said, Republicans have learned some lessons it seems ( creations of GAG - https://www.gaysagainstgroomers.com/about; expanding into black and latino communities ).
<< It's all sides. If you're noticing one side and not the other it's because of the bias of the media you're consuming.
I agree in general. This is also why I qualified my statement with lately. Between BLM/WFH phenomena/movements ( last 2 years ) the majority of the recent effort does not seem to be on the republican side ( statement, which your links actually support ). Anecdotally, even I am aware of crazy religious group trying to ban Quake ( but that is ancient history by internet standards ):D
"Seems somewhat personal, but I will respond. Neither. I see myself as an outsider, which allows for a very different set of perspectives. For better or worse, I like the fact that I do not belong everywhere equally."
For what it's worth this is a particularly common worldview for a particular couple of personality/motivational types (of which I, and many other people in places such as HN, happen to be a member of one).
<< What I did see however lately was generic threat for LGBTQ community supporters that went something along the lines of 'cut it out or your pronouns will be was/were'. That is new ( and funny )[1].
edit: change 'for' to 'from'. I also think was able to track the potential origin of the source meme ( see comments section ).
Man, you are very optimistic about human nature to apply this specifically “to them” when honestly it feels like a general human impulse regardless of political ideology. I see Schadenfreude and death threats by all stripes… (although I suppose only ideological groups that highly arm themselves are likely to successfully act on such threats?)
Most people only extend empathy to their in-group. The left just has a different in-group.
Your comment weirdly supports this reading. To me it reads as an attack on conservatives. Ending your comment with “…worth empathy to them.” implies conservatives are the out-group to you. Sounds to me like you don’t think this out-group (conservatives) deserve your empathy either!
I might be misreading your intent, but as it stands it’s pretty ironic!
> Most people only extend empathy to their in-group. The left just has a different in-group.
Depends on how you define in-group I guess? Most of my leftist friends are straight and white, yet all of them support LGBT rights as human rights, went to Black Lives Matter protests, etc. Yet similar straight, white conservative former friends of mine do not extend empathy to the black american experience, or will outright say homophobic things.
Considering a tenant of leftism is tolerance regardless of identity I basically have to hard disagree with a blanket "the left just has a different in-group." A core tenant of leftist ideology is universal empathy, as a basis for support for universal human rights, equity, etc.
I don't count authoritarians masquerading as leftists, such as tankies ("Marxist Leninists" my foot) or the hilarious new "MAGA Communists" in this.
It’s up to your leftist friends to define their in-group. Not me! Sounds like the in group is queer people, BLM people and so on.
> A core tenant of leftist ideology is universal empathy, as a basis for support for universal human rights, equity, etc.
There’s lots of people the modern “woke” left in the USA doesn’t seem to care about: poor people, people with low IQ, white people in conservative areas, people who live in non-western aligned countries, homeless people, men who have male specific problems, and so on.
For example, a white male friend of mine is utterly crippled by trauma from his absentee dad. He doesn’t feel like anyone in his broader community cares about him and his problems at all.
For a group that talks a lot about compassion, I’m frequently disappointed by how little love I actually see coming from the modern left.
This comment is extremely vague and overly feels-based and anecdotal.
> [the left] doesn’t seem to care about: [long list of random things]
Based on what? This sounds like you didn't even check, didn't ask, probably weren't even going to look.
> For example, a white male friend of mine is utterly crippled by trauma from his absentee dad. He doesn’t feel like anyone in his broader community cares about him and his problems at all.
Could be worse, could be that your parents kick you out and your broader community actively wants to make you illegal.
The left, on the other hand, wants affordable healthcare, which includes coverage for mental illness and access to therapy.
Your friend's feelings of alienation is a small part of a much larger social problem the left cares deeply about.
For everything else, it sounds like maybe you expected """the woke left""" to show up randomly and magically solve all your friend's problems? They don't run society, they're not in charge, they're barely holding off their own problems. Mutual aid networks are a lot of work, especially when you're not bankrolled by billionaires.
When I said "most of my leftist friends are straight and white," what made you think our "in group" (i don't know what definition of this word you're using) is queer people?
> BLM people
What is a "BLM person" and why do when I say "most of my leftist friends are straight and white" made you think we're whatever a BLM person is?
> There’s lots of people the modern “woke” left in the USA doesn’t seem to care about
Who? And what does "woke" mean?
> poor people,
I don't know what "woke" means but I know what leftism mean. Are you arguing that the anticapitalists don't care about poor people, lol? That the accessibility activists don't care about disabled people? That we don't care about poor people because... they're white?
Hold on, that we don't care about homeless people??? what??? Where are you getting this lmao. And by men with specific male problems are you perhaps referring to transgender men facing state-sponsored prejudice and having their rights legislated against? Or gay men getting shot in nightclubs? Did you mean something else?
> white male friend of mine is utterly crippled by trauma from his absentee dad. He doesn’t feel like anyone in his broader community cares about him and his problems at all.
I'm sorry about your friend, that sucks. I just don't really understand what that has to do with anything.
> For a group that talks a lot about compassion, I’m frequently disappointed by how little love I actually see coming from the modern left.
I'm disappointed too. Who are you talking to? Do you come in accusing people of being SJWs and "woke" and then get treated like a reactionary, or are you coming in good faith or in need?
I have empathy for most people, I am still able to criticize people though. Having empathy for someone does not mean their actions are immune from all comment.
What about stuff like movie and game ratings? What about things like restricting sexually explicit material to minors? Seems like a weird point to make. What I like about content warnings is that I can choose whether I want to engage with something that might upset me in a more granular fashion than “entire profile.” It’s not like I’d stop avoiding content if there were no CWs anywhere.
I remember as a 14 year old boy with HBO I specifically looking for the “Nudity” warning on late night TV Shows. Teenage me was very disappointed by the TV Show “Oz” (which is about life in men’s prison).
This is a fascinating concept to me. How granular should we get? Say.. in original Star Wars, should we add "Contains scenes of hand mutilation" or "Character may discover he is not, in fact, a child of a loving parental unit"?
I get what you are getting at, but I am curious how much of that profile should be fleshed out in your view?
- one important dimension of the "should" in this question is how much choice the viewer of the media has in viewing the media. this is part of why schools are such a big part of the conversation about content warnings, because the students can't just choose to opt out of readings without consequences
- another important dimension is the delivery platform and audience size. sometimes you can just ask the person who made or is showing you the thing about some very specific content you'd like to avoid or be prepared for, so specifying everything isn't as important there. otoh, if you're a giant media property with millions of viewers, maybe the cost/benefit of listing exactly when/where particular things happen looks a little better
- depending on platform, lots of detail could be more or less practical. e.g. if you're making a web page it's easy to say "content warnings: click for details > detailsdetailsdetails click for more details > detaileddetailsdetaileddetails", which easily allows the viewer to choose how much detail they want rather than picking for them, but that can be harder to pull off in other formats
- if you find this topic interesting, consider looking for literature on topics like accessibility and disability justice (not sure i could recommend a particular one since i've formed my views on this sort of thing piecemeal and through community). there is a lot of interesting moral thought on the subject of "ok so this thing is helpful to some people sometimes, sooo how much should we actually do it?"
Yeah, it's something I heard about someone checking before taking their kids to a movies. I think it's great, since the age rating doesn't tell you enough to be able to choose what your young children should be exposed to.
Good question, I'm not sure there's necessarily one answer to that. That same sort of question arises in many places, though. Some people avoid watching trailers for movies or shows because they don't want to get spoiled by them, but obviously most people like trailers because they can get a sense for whether they'll like that movie or show before they watch the whole thing.
Each piece of content's full semantic structure (think https://xkcd.com/657/ but 10x-1000x more elaborate) should be published in a machine-readable format; then in your personal content blocker you can define as elaborate a filter as needed.
I actually admit I kinda like the idea ( and having just discovered IMDb' tags, it may not be as a herculean a task as I initially thought ) and I almost wonder if Youtube does not have everything of note categorized already.
It suddenly does not seem as impossible as it did a moment ago and it would actually benefit people, who are concerned about triggers ( and alleviate concerns of people like me, who don't want flags on everything ).
Yeah this is where I was always confused, I think "trigger warning" has become one of those ill-defined concepts, especially in american political discourse, that mean so many things that they don't really mean anything anymore. Other examples: "liberal," which I've heard mean everything from anarchism through communism and all the way to its actual definition, "communism" which seems to mean fascism, "fascism" which seems to mean literally anything, "grooming" which seems to mean not being heteronormative or heterosexual, etc.
I always thought a true trigger warning, the kind that I really like, are for example movies warning when there'd be things like gore and etc that I don't like to watch. I like it because I get a physically ill reaction that will ruin my night if i see fictionalized gore. I wish I didn't, but I do, so it goes. But as you've said I've seen "trigger warning" mean literally putting the words "trigger warning" on the top of a text post which seems pointless, or, saying it before telling a story, which also seems pointless.
> "fascism" which seems to mean literally anything
No, no, that one's simple: "fascism" means anything that isn't anarchism. And "anarchism" means anything that isn't fascism. This is definitely a coherent and useful set of terminology.
All the poorer people I know are very skilled at saving small amounts of money on things, e.g. pirating shows, using a cheap old phone, knowing where to find the cheapest groceries, and so on. I know that I've gotten a lot lazier about stuff like pirating a show vs just paying three dollars or whatever to watch it as my income has gone up.
The things that prevent poor people from becoming not poor, in my experience, are things like chronic health conditions and abusive upbringings. The things that have gotten people I know out of poverty have usually been education. I don't know a single person who got out of poverty by cancelling netflix. Where are you getting this idea from?
If I understand Yglesias' point, tech executives got annoyed that twitter would grant verification to journalists that gave them negative press attention? Why is everyone so obsessed with blue checks? Don't tech executives have their own PR departments?
The twitter thread doesn't mention any specifics, but I've seen self-driving cars mentioned in other comments as something "unfairly maligned" by major newspapers. So far as I can tell, the self-driving efforts of Tesla, Uber, and other startups have failed to deliver again and again on the promise of having a car that can drive itself without human supervision. Is that not deserving of criticism?
Not to mention how Google in particular has gone to war to not pay newspapers a single dime for reproducing their content. Business is business, and a lot depends on interpersonal relationships. Strong-arming somebody usually doesn't endear them to you.
Skepticism of new technologies has been around forever. The way to earn public trust is to actually deliver on things that make people's lives better.
This article doesn't mention the one article of faith every crypto utopian I've run into really believes: the US dollar and every other currency will collapse soon and be replaced by crypto.
And on the other side of the ring, we have the anti-crypto absolutists who will do anything to: 'ban all crypto, 100%', 'destroy all of it', 'let it all die in a fire', which I'm afraid is as equally delusional as the crypto utopians who believing that Bitcoin will be the world reserve currency.
The truth of the matter is, both of these extreme camps are going to be very disappointed in the future.
If the USD collapses the US will just issue a new currency and it's domestic economy will remain even if the might of the dollar in the global economy is gone.
If other nations with collapsing currencies are any indication, that's not how it works. People always move to a better, harder currency. What authority would the government be left with if the money fails? How would the government distribute money?
Holding a desire to do violence is even more protected than saying it out loud or writing it down, which are also generally protected if they aren’t imminent incitement.
Also, by now I've seen so many breathless statements by leftists who are literally shaking rn that so-and-so "denies my right to exist" and "wants me dead" that it doesn't even look like anything to me anymore. It's just a slogan. Letters of the alphabet strung together.
If you're so completely devoid of empathy that you have no reaction to hearing that someone is afraid for their for their life, that says a lot more about you than it does about them.
I have tons of empathy, but I won’t coddle strangers on the internet over their dramatic rhetoric. It’s not sincere, it’s polemical, and I’m not buying it. If it is sincere, they need therapy not empathy. Get some perspective on your situation and don’t cry wolf.
Nice try with the “you must be a monster!” tactic.
I don't think you have enough info to really judge OP. There's a reason everybody learns the boy who cried wolf story as a kid - it's human nature to become desensitized to something after frequent false alarms.
It's worth considering how recent advances in things like gay rights are, and how much more is left for things like trans rights. Why should I care more about debate club than about being able to make medical decisions for my significant other? It's one thing to consider a situation from afar, but having it bear down on you directly gives you a very different perspective.
I mean sure, but you're making the discussion about a different (albeit related) issue than I was trying to address.
For one thing, your comment states concrete concerns that could directly affect you, as opposed to the vague "fear for my life" sort of comments OP was referring to.
But more importantly, my question is not whether OP was correct, it is whether stating this opinion on an internet forum with little other context is somehow enough info to make a judgement about his empathy/morals.
> Why should I care more about debate club than about being able to make medical decisions for my significant other?
Because for every loud/news visible minority like some LGBT folks there are others like Southeast Asians who nobody is caring about. By focusing on laws we can uplift _all_ minorities, not just the ones we identify as. The victories of a Neo Nazi's ability to publicly demonstrate can help Southeast Asians or African Americans demonstrate against police brutality or fight for equity in hiring, pay, and crime.
Not all minorities have hugely visible movements advocating for their rights. The modern LGBT movement is very visible and very online. My dark-skinned PoC parents are poor, speak bad English, and need a lot of help to navigate the US. Nobody is focusing on them.
If you’ve been paying any attention to US politics over the last few years, it is pretty clear they’re talking about police killings of black people and/or hate crimes directed at Asians and LGBT folks
Yes these are certainly problems that should be addressed. School shootings are also a problem that should be addressed, but it would be hyperbolic to say you feared for your life going into school every day. Some of the language that is used surrounding those other issues creates unnecessary anxiety IMO.
But that's not really my main point, I'm certainly open to debate on the topic. I just don't agree with the character judgement of OP - we have no idea how his circle talks.
I've personally encountered two people that were clearly attention seeking or perhaps had an anxiety disorder with the way they talked about such issues. One example was a black female born into the upper middle class, working from home as a SWE in a gated community during the pandemic, saying quite literally that she actively feared for her life due to police violence.
To be clear, I do not think the existence of that extreme invalidates the legitimate underlying concerns at all. They've also been a minority of the voices in my experience. I'm just saying that language starts to lose its meaning if you encounter too many of these types, and I have seen with my own eyes that they exist.
The right response is probably not to outright dismiss a statement about fearing for one's life, but some amount of skepticism is normal if it's been a false alarm in the past. Especially on an internet forum with random strangers.
As a counterpoint, accusations of "violence" get thrown around with little restraint. "Silence is Violence" but I've also found that disagreements can equate to "denying my right to exist".
That was the point of Ira Glasser's stance. Him and other ACLU members defended the right of Neo-Nazis to march in Skokie, Illinois. Glasser himself and many of the other attorneys on the case were Jewish. They were protecting the rights of people demonstrating to advocate for doing violence against people like them.
Viewpoints like this are mostly gone these days in the US. Liberalism has become unpopular on the Left (and it's always been just a suggestion on the Right in my experience).
Most liberal countries have restrictions on outright hate speech. It's definitely possible to be a liberal and also oppose the right of Nazis to advocate for mass genocide.
Free Speech isn't a "liberal" or a "conservative" value, it's an American value.
The reason "hate speech" exists in European countries is because they have unresolved baggage from WWII, and rather than confront the problem, they decided to put a boot down and curtail civil liberties instead. None of that is relevant to the USA or has any bearing on our politics.
Who defines hate speech? Do you need agreement from 100% of citizens or can a few politicians decide what a country can and cannot say legally before running afoul of hate speech laws?
Who defines what constitutes murder, what food safety regulations are, or any of a million other laws? It really doesn't seem like an unsolvable problem
The word "liberal" has been mangled to the point where it is essentially meaningless. As far as I'm concerned, anyone who believes the government should have the power to regulate the content of your speech, at the point of a gun, is in no way "liberal".
There we have a case of prominent Jewish lawyers defending the right of Neo-Nazis, a group of people who advocate for violence against Jews, to protest. Here we have people suggesting we need legal restrictions around hate speech. Do you see the difference of values?
Liberalism is about guaranteeing individuals' rights in the face of the State. My point is that the Left in the US has lost interest in it and are more interested in pursuing their policies regardless of how it affects freedoms. The Right has never really cared for Liberalism and so it's falling out of favor.
That tweet is almost as bad as people who bring up the paradox of tolerance.
Morals have always and will always be relative to who’s alive at the time. Dril is just speaking power to truth, since their morals are winning for now.
