"Unpopular ideas can be silenced, and inconvenient facts kept dark, without the need for any official ban. Anyone who has lived long in a foreign country will know of instances of sensational items of news—things which on their own merits would get the big headlines—being kept right out of the British press, not because the Government intervened but because of a general tacit agreement that ‘it wouldn’t do’ to mention that particular fact. So far as the daily newspapers go, this is easy to understand. The British press is extremely centralised, and most of it is owned by wealthy men who have every motive to be dishonest on certain important topics. But the same kind of veiled censorship also operates in books and periodicals, as well as in plays, films and radio. At any given moment there is an orthodoxy, a body of ideas which it is assumed that all right-thinking people will accept without question. It is not exactly forbidden to say this, that or the other, but it is ‘not done’ to say it, just as in mid-Victorian times it was ‘not done’ to mention trousers in the presence of a lady. Anyone who challenges the prevailing orthodoxy finds himself silenced with surprising effectiveness. A genuinely unfashionable opinion is almost never given a fair hearing, either in the popular press or in the highbrow periodicals."
This was written in 1944, intended as the preface of the "Animal Farm". It was not published until 1972.
For another pillar of this scary new age, look at the absolute willingness of big tech to censor anything that goes against the message of those in power.
this is probably a good point to quote the article
"The proposed law would likely run afoul of the First Amendment in the U.S., but despite popular misconceptions Canada is actually its own country."
Contrary to popular (American) opinion laws regulating speech are in fact not a new and authoritarian invention but have existed in the so called 'West' for literally centuries.
To have a rational discussion about this when it comes to countries that don't happen to be the US, like in this case, it would probably be good to not act as if these laws were somehow conjured up out of nothing. The United Kingdom, probably having a claim to be one of the world's longest lasting liberal democracies, has laws concerning speech that in many cases go well beyond laws on continental Europe, so any discussion about speech in the Western (and even specifically Anglo) tradition probably should be had on that ground, rather than just vague pointing about slippery slopes.
It's almost as if America was a radical attempt at a new kind of government, where its founders tried to avoid many of the pitfalls they had observed in Europe. The "United Kingdom" ("England" when we broke up with it) had (and still has) a method of governance that was flawed. That's why we didn't copy it. Any country that still has an intact monarchy, however ornamental, has no business lecturing others on the ideal forms of government.
>Contrary to popular (American) opinion laws regulating speech are in fact not a new and authoritarian invention but have existed in the so called 'West' for literally centuries
It's common sense that without a history in the West of regulating free speech, there wouldn't have been a first amendment in the US. You don't have to know what the regulations were.
So you are not just generalizing Americans as ignorant of history, but also as unable to use basic logic.
It's common sense that many American institutions are a reactions to old European institutions, and you don't need to know that history if you don't care, but if you want to have a discussion about speech in Canada (which is still part of the Commonwealth and the topic of this thread), you better have an actual idea of the way those countries function rather than applying your standards to them.
If you want to claim you have an idea whether the American reaction and discarding of old norms was actually a good idea nor not, you need to have an actual understanding about what the ideas you were discarding were actually for. Otherwise you're actually ignorant, and arrogant and that is a bad long term combination.
That is the most American response I could have read. It’s basically “well I don’t have to know the history. I can just trust that our brilliant founding fathers got it right.”
Yes, and the UK arrested a man for teaching a dog the Nazi salute. A dog. In fact they arrest over 2400 people a year for saying mean things on the internet. I find that deeply chilling.
So everyone who holds any restrictive position on speech, incompatible with your own is uncivilized and philosophically unsophisticated, as in the rest of the world? Civilizations thousands of years old are... uncivilized?
See this is the supreme irony. You've turned freedom of speech into dogmatic faith. Ironically enough, no discourse is so dogmatic and blind and unable to question its own values as the American one. You can question everything, just not your own values on speech. It's all just platitudes about authoritarianism and slippery slopes and ironically enough unoriginal, replicated talking points.
> Ironically enough, no discourse is so dogmatic and blind and unable to question its own values than the American one.
This speech seems rather ... hateful. Shall we fine you? Officers! This man is screaming hateful speech in the public arena!
Or maybe you disagree with that being hate speech? In an uncivilized society, if I have the power then it doesn't really matter. You still get fined or worse.
> You can question everything, just not your own values on speech
No, you can still question that in a free society if you so choose. But you may not necessarily be able to in an unfree one.
> You've turned freedom of speech into dogmatic faith.
This is entirely disingenuous. Supporting a philosophical position is not without reason, as you well know, and is not automatically dogmatic.
> It's all just platitudes about authoritarianism and slippery slopes and ironically enough unoriginal, replicated talking points.
Perhaps, you can better explain your dogmatic devotion to your belief that freedom of speech is not an important tenant of modern civility and sophistication?
It doesn’t seem hateful whatsoever, and everyone knows it, including you. So I don’t think you’ve made your point very effectively here.
I think the well-known distinction between “freedom to” and “freedom from” is relevant here. In the wake of Nazism, Germany also banned hate speech. You could argue that Germany made it less free to be a Nazi. You could also argue that Germany made it easier to be free from Nazism. You may disagree with the choice they made but I don’t think many would reasonably argue that Germany is not a free society.
Thank you for this. I'm so tired of the rhetoric lately decrying "intolerance of intolerance." Sorry folks, but me nor the state should respect someone who hates others for who they are. "I hate Jews" is not the same as "I hate those who hate Jews", and it should not be tolerated as such.
The statement "the impact of X on Y is debated" is a different one than "X did not have an impact on Y". I agree that there's not enough to say definitively that Enigma definitely had a major impact, but that doesn't mean it absolutely didn't.
You did not actually prove how exactly launching criticisms of the writing style over the content is not cheap. You can hate and critique the writing style all you want, but focusing on that in your HN comments is in fact the very notion of cheap commentary.
So, would you like to try again? Are you intellectually capable of providing a proper retort?
If the "writing style" consists of calling a random woman, one who has no connection to the topic at hand, cheap and nasty names - then it's better that such drivel is not even submitted on HN. We are better than this.
> inability to concentrate, confusion, alertness, consciousness, memory, anxiety, social, and sleep problems
Has anyone every genuinely done any research to check if an increase in theses resulting symptoms from decreasing T levels across men over the past few decades is highly-correlated to our seeming decline in productivity and generally stagnating GDP growth?
Can it be affecting the contributions of 50% of the population? Can it be affecting scientific, industrial, cultural, community, and familial contributions from men across society more than we realize?
And what would we actually do if we did realize this?
How would that be controlled-for when there are shifts in unskilled and semi-skilled work around the globe, automation, local demographics changes, aging population, increasing densities of people (tending towards depression which also reduces aggression (T)), and massive income inequality increasing the economic stresses on the average person (that alone would kill T in all genders)?
> Can it be affecting the contributions of 50% of the population?
How would this be measured without a duplicate control Earth? Hypothetically: if everyone in sadder areas had as much food and money as they needed to be comfortable, I guarantee T levels would be much higher in men and women, there would be a lot more sex, a lot more happier people, and a lot more babies in 9 months.
> And what would we actually do if we did realize this?
The average person would probably do what they always do: shrug and do nothing. The plutocrats would only care if their top employees weren't performing optimally and would throw more money and/or better conditions at them.
So I have a bit of a unique perspective here; I’m a trans woman who has had “the surgery” so my body no longer produces its own testosterone (cisgender women get a little bit from their ovaries). So I take T in gel form, and I definitely notice if I don’t take it.
Symptoms of low T for me are difficulty sleeping, migraines, low sex drive and overall low energy. But it doesn’t take a whole lot to get me out of that range; just a tiny dab of gel rubbed in to my shoulder (for comparison, a man with low T would use an entire 1g tube every day). Low T that’s not super low doesn’t necessarily make any of that worse, and very high levels of T will actually convert into estrogen (which is why bodybuilders who abuse steroids can grow breasts and have shrunken genitals, and also increases emotional volatility).
And I think you’re right; there is a population benefit to lower levels of testosterone overall at a societal level that reduces conflict. Furthermore high T levels have a positive feedback loop with physical labor (building muscle is way easier the more T you have), so it makes sense your body would produce less if it isn’t trying to constantly repair muscle damage from strenuous physical activity. I would say that high T levels would be a liability in an office job; they make people quicker to anger and outright aggression is not taken positively in knowledge work. There may be benefits for physical labor, but definitely diminishing returns if you work a desk job.
Not really. It's just too complicated of a "debate" (it's actually a non-debate) or discussion to dive into the differentiating factors that will assume different priorities for different people. Tradeoffs are everywhere and in everything and so is nuance.
Personally, I am growing tired of chasing Windows releases every few years so I will re-prioritize almost entirely around Linux's strengths.
But, you cannot have Wall Street consolidated market winners if you do that! How dare you!
I saw this first hand growing up. The school system had a couple of programming courses a few years before I got into the high school, and then it got all new computers and magically reduced computer education to only a set of Microsoft Office courses offered.
Who needs programming? The school knew we would all only need Word and Excel at any "office job" we could possibly ever get ...
So much this. I was in that beautiful space where schools experimented with CNA and A+ cert programs that set me in the generalized basics of how to escape from proprietary stacks.
But, we as a community should get better at calling these companies out publicly. Especially if they show up in a comment on the monthly hiring post. Don't let your fellow engineers get burnt. More community cooperation in this regard would go a long way.
You don’t need to go public, companies that relying on burning people out simply deserve zero respect from their employees.
Remember as critical as everything seems it’s no longer your problem once you move on. Sure, moving on to your next job might seem to be leaving them in a lurch, but lack of redundancy isn’t your problem.
PS: The best thing you can do for your teammates in that situation is convince them to find a better job.
Cancel culture doesn't have to be used for everything (and IMO should not be used for _anything_). Mob justice won't fix the company, and if the company is big enough (perhaps some SV companies who shall not be named), it won't have any real effect. Burnout is often an acceptable "work hazard" for the CV reputation gained. A good parallel to this is finance where burnout is practically built into the program. Medicine also crosses my mind when thinking of fields where burning yourself out could, counter-intuitively, be considered highly beneficial as a long term play.
Outlets for this already exist in the form of Glassdoor but much like every other review service once it reaches scales the usefulness of the reviews falls precipitously.
You also open yourself up to libel claims. Assuming your canceling actually works I would not be surprised if the company spent significant effort to take you to court and financially ruin you. Even more so if the accusations aren't entirely true (perhaps it's just one division and not the entire company).
Instead, it's probably more useful to _train_ people to notice these things and ascertain the risks. Burnout can often be worth it if the net-gain-after-burnout improves your prospects to advance in your field, confers a pedigree, or any other number of small things. Returning to the finance example this is certainly why people risk it. At the end of the day, in the US at least, a little over half of the states in the union are right-to-work. This is the safety valve for companies who deliberately churn employees - just leave. Ideally after you've already lined up a new gig in your field.
> The economic plays a big role, but there’s a tendency nowadays to call the root problem for everything economic
As with everything on the internet (it sadly seems), there is a necessity for nuanced position. Perhaps, economic and cultural factors are playing a self-reinforcing and thus compounding effect on our society?
There are also the non-cultural and non-economic factors such as declining testosterone levels. This could have profound emergent economic and cultural implications that we have not even begun to calculate.
> And what would be the point of this simulation that has been running for billions of years?
There is zero evidence for or against the simulation hypothesis, so why would some random person on HN be able to have the answer to this question even if we are in a simulation or even if we simply assume that we are?
Which is a nice way of saying that this is the beginnings of a new authoritarian and totalitarian age.
It should be very worrying to everyone to see speech be legally punished in the West.
Slippery slopes do exist and this is one.