An important takeaway is to consider what's considered forbidden to discuss in supposedly enlightened 2023. The sad fact is that there are many more such topics now than in 1945 - but for the same reasons. These are topics which threaten a certain politically driven contingent, and this is enforced by the loyal minions of that contingent, including many so lacking in introspection that they accept as axioms, false and destructive ideas which should be honestly challenged.
> including many so lacking in introspection that they accept as axioms, false and destructive ideas which should be honestly challenged
Despite the existence of people like this, it's generally not a good stance to consider those who disagree with you as lacking introspection. It's just a crutch to further validate your beliefs without any effort.
How much more developed would your thoughts be if you pretend that every opinion you encounter was thought through, and included as much life experiences and research as your own opinions do?
It is also naive to assume that everyone has good reasons to believe what they believe, when we live in the world where astrology is popular, and people believe things because they "feel deep inside that it's true!".
I agree with you, here's an expanded version of the buckets I think exist:
1. I'm genuine but I haven't thought this through
2. I'm genuine and I have thought this through (regardless if I'm right or wrong)
3. I'm adversarial and weaponise my opinion in order to advance some other agenda or push the overton window
My proposition is that if you assume everyone is in bucket 1, you never rethink your opinions and just think "poorly" of others which doesn't allow you to advance your thinking as fast as if you classify them as bucket 2. For people in bucket 3, you just have to trust that you'll spot a bad actor from their actions and inconsistent rhetoric over time so that you're not fooled over the long run. But similarly to people that choose to never find love for fear of having their heart broken, I wouldn't want to assume everyone is in bucket 3 because that's a shitty life to live.
I suppose parent is mainly thinking of issues grouped under the term "culture wars". Another, more urgent issue, is indicated by this quote in TFA:
And throughout five years of war, during two or three of which we were fighting for national survival, countless books, pamphlets and articles advocating a compromise peace have been published without interference. More, they have been published without exciting much disapproval. So long as the prestige of the USSR is not involved, the principle of free speech has been reasonably well upheld.
What current topics and ideas do you fear will be harmful to society in the long run then? What will the consequences be to individuals, communities, etc?
This is HN, we can discuss all sorts of deep insights. For that discussion to be able to take place please give examples and explain what you see based on your unique experiences.
That way you can win people over and slowly transform views of people, communities etc.
I don’t believe any ideas are harmful to “society” [1], but there are many that are “harmful” to the current paradigm of power.
Some that come to mind:
1) The illusion of authority. The idea that some people have the moral right to do violence to enforce arbitrary rules written on paper.
2) The root cause of suffering, which is a lack of true knowledge of self and the nature of reality.
3) The fiat money system, or the idea of money at all.
4) The inherent ability (and maybe desire) to do harm and commit violence to existing in every being.
5) The idea of self ownership, when it comes to choices such as what we consume, whether it be food, “drugs”, or media.
6) Anything deemed a “conspiracy theory”.
7) Objective morality and natural law.
I could go on. All of these stem from a lack of knowledge of the self, morality, and the nature of consciousness and morality.
Of course these can be discussed in small groups, but widespread discussion of these, by “public figures” or “the media” is all but completely lacking.
Edit: I forgot to add a "citation" to my post.
[1]: I always wonder what people mean when they say society. Do they mean the current structure and way of doing things? Do they mean all people?
How do you define a conspiracy theory? If you break about the words, it simply means a theory about a group of people working together towards a common goal.
People who do engage with some wilder ideas do in fact take some actions that are harmful. It’s not the ideas that are harmful, but the actions taken without more complete knowledge that is.
A conspiracy theory involves a secret group, and in the usual context it's trying to affect a lot of people.
> People who do engage with some wilder ideas do in fact take some actions that are harmful. It’s not the ideas that are harmful, but the actions taken without more complete knowledge that is.
If indirect consequences like that don't count then it's not "“harmful” to the current paradigm of power" either, so I thought we were including those.
The “harm” is caused when people realize it is not moral for people to use violence against each other in the name of authority, and as a consequence cease to follow the commands of authority figures. No real harm is caused when this illusion disappears, hence the quotes. The power structure will disappear, and be “harmed”, but no human being will be.
Of course people are not mature enough to self govern yet. There would be chaos if all people playing the roles of police, military, etc stopped. That’s the primal terror and darkness we need to face individually, to confront the part of self that can do violence, and learn to govern it internally, and be the ruler of the kingdom of self.
When people are ready, these institutions will simply cease to exist, and be as absurd and illusionary any other superstition.
> The “harm” is caused when people realize it is not moral for people to use violence against each other in the name of authority, and as a consequence cease to follow the commands of authority figures.
I don't see how half of your bullet points lead to that, but in particular here I don't see how conspiracy theories lead to that. Especially with the wording of "Anything deemed a “conspiracy theory”", which would mean all conspiracy theories do this plus or minus rounding error.
I consider all three (self, morality, consciousness) inherently subjective topics with no objective foundation on which we can build any kind of "knowledge" of them. So when someone comes around and casually says "oh, these people just don't know [self, morality, consciousness]", I feel that they don't really aknowledge the inherent subjectivity of it, but instead hold their opinion on it as absolute and objective truth to which others are supposed to strive.
Which makes me angry, for some reason. That kind of attitude just rubs me the wrong way.
So if I'm wrong (and I would like to be wrong in this case), and the described attitude is not the one you have, please explain what you mean by "knowledge of self, morality, and the nature of consciousness and morality" - I will gladly read your answer and have it change my mind.
Sorry I didn't reply earlier. I an pretty disheartened with the "state of the world", or perhaps people's attitude towards it, and didn't even look at HN for a while.
I totally agree that my attitude may be off putting. I have a lot of trouble listening to people that speak with such certainty. How could anyone possibly know? What gives them the right to say such things? But what if some people really do know something? Should they couch every phrase with "I believe" or "it seems" or other words weakening their message? I'm sick and tired of that as well.
I am not really sure what is genuinely objective anyway. We as humans seek certainty and build models of reality, like the law of gravity, or model of the atom, so we can take actions with some certainty that that our actions will have the desired effects. In some fields, like physics, when confined to certain well defined "envelopes", the predictive power of our models appear to be about as objective as we can get. So far, gravity seems pretty darn solid. Of course, the boundary conditions are wild, once you start moving relativistically, or look at a sub-atomic scale. Let's not even start with quantum physics.
The only thing I know "objectively" is that I am conscious. I can observe, and I am experiencing something that we call reality. I appear to have senses, a body, thoughts, emotions, etc. However, this is also the most subjective possible claim, as it comes from me, the subject.
Now if I take this a bit further, can anything ever really be objective, when viewed from the position of a subject? I don't know. I observe and take in information and I believe this information changes my neurology, or perhaps something beyond (quantum interactions to a "beyond"), and I can use this information and the mental models to live my life and make decisions. If a lot of people use the same mental model, and show that with high probability it holds true (within an envelope of parameters of course), then we can considered it objective, but again viewed through our individual subjective points of view.
I can also say, I don't know if you, or anyone else I've interacted with is "real" or conscious. How could I? I only experience life through my own lens.
Spiritual teachers and books and knowledge passed on through the ages claim things like "We are all one consciousness", and all beings are in fact one. Maybe. I can't prove it, and I have not experienced it, even through lots of spiritual work such as meditation, plant medicines, other "energetic" practices.
Where does that leave me (or us), and the desire for "objective truth"? The way I approach it is that we must be extremely rigorous with our thinking and aware of the limits of rational thought. We must know what assumptions we are making and then use logic to slowly eat away at the foundations until perhaps truth will become self evident, as self evident as the undeniable (to me) knowledge that I am conscious.
I claim that morality is objectively true, because I do not wish to be harmed. You can't argue with me and claim that this isn't true. It is just true, within the bounds of my own experience. If I take that truth, and project it outwards, and make the assumption that you, and any other human is conscious, and make the assumption that they do not wish to be harmed, then I claim that that is the basis for morality. Anything is "right" as long as it does not go against the will of any other conscious being that has the ability to set boundaries. This can only be known but looking inward, and asking what morality means to you. I certainly hope this is true for everyone. It would be a good place to start.
The three words I used "morality", "consciousness" and "self" really describe the same phenomenon or experience I have, and have observed unambiguously within myself. I know I am conscious. It may be an "illusion", but even so it is 100% real to me, more real than any peer reviewed study or external knowledge. Even if a million or billion people say that morality is "doing the greatest good for the greatest number of people", I know that if that harms me, the harm is real. I experience it is real, and the only thing that would convince me otherwise would be direct experience of "the interconnectedness of all being", and through this experience realizing that I am not in fact harmed, and some "greater good" is in fact a greater good. Hoping, praying, doing scientific studies, measuring "happiness" or coming up with "objective metrics" of "the greater good" will never replace that inner knowing.
I'd feel remiss if I didn't mention taxes. As Thomas Sowell said, “What exactly is your ‘fair share’ of what ‘someone else’ has worked for?” For me this again is an undeniable truth. It is immoral to take from someone else what they paid for with their attention and effort. Imagine two men (or women) living on an island. Both are peacefully living isolated lives, eating coconuts. One of them gets hurt, and is no longer able to climb the coconut tree to get food. If the injured one does not get more coconuts, he will die. Is it okay for him to steal from the other? If you say yes, then I'm not sure we'll get much further :)
What if there are three? Or a hundred? What if by stealing one coconut, he can save 100% children from dying? Is it okay for him to steal?
I'd say it's perfectly moral to go to the other guy and say "Hey, I need a coconut. If you give it to me, we'll save a hundred children." At this point, it's up to the man with the coconuts to make his own moral decision. I'd hope he'd save the children, but it's wrong for anyone else to make that decision.
Even if I am wrong with all of this, I feel "in my heart" that if all people connected with this knowing within themselves, we'd collectively experiencing a very different eternal and internal world.
The chains of external government would become unnecessary and fall away if everyone governed themselves. I don't know what this world looks like exactly. I don't know specifically how people would organize and cooperate to do things that cannot be done as an individual, but I do know that taking the first step to not initiate force against any other being would go a long way.
What about the roads?
What about the gangs of not enlightened people that wish to do violence?
What about the weak/sick/poor people that cannot or will not take care of themselves?
A bunch of morally healthy happy people with all their needs met now have the opportunity and perspective to chose to help build roads, or protect the weak from the violent, and take care of the sick. They will not be forced to do so, but do so out of a place of compassion, strength and love.
We can try to coerce, force, and beat the world into submission externally, but how can we hope to achieve peace externally if we don't find it within first?
I hope that if nothing else, this is interesting to read. I don't expect, or even wish to "change you", just share my experience and my dream. I very much do wish to see a peaceful world, where humans collaborate on great works of art, travel to the stars, into the quantum realm, experience the fullness of reality, and cease to suffer. If any of this resonates, it's because a part of you has these same visions, same thoughts and same "conscious" experience as I do. Or put another way, you speak enough of the same language that a part of you recognizes a part of, and we realize we're not all alone, separate and different, but do share something fundamental and good.
Words are limiting, and I've done my best to share. If you want to read more of my writing, check out https://iamthatiam.org, or reach out on Matrix (see my website).
Taking this as a serious question, it wouldn't be hard to make a list of topics that get instant flagging on HN. I suppose the reason why people don't bother is they expect any attempt to explain would also be downvoted to oblivion.
Question the legitimacy of gender fluidity. Wonder aloud whether some traditional social norms have societal value, even if the religious rationales are absurd. Wonder aloud if violence (perhaps only against property) will be required to bring about radical political and economic change.
Speaking for myself, I will say HN is more tolerant of good faith debate on the subjects than places like reddit. But I mean the real world. Despite being liberal and tolerant, I feel I have to be extremely cautious who I speak to about any doubt around certain social movements. To express reservation in some circles would not being debate, but only accusations of bigotry followed by public shaming.
A lot of discourse about China on HN seems to get pulled into perpetual "but bad things have happened in the US too" whataboutism and a sort of mild muffling. Not to mention the weird stuff that happens with topics like https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36946171.
I mean the piece isn't really about traditional censorship as such, but social forces working against the expression of particular topics and acting to reduce their visibility.
> The whole Covid fiasco can't really be discussed on HN.
"Covid fiasco" is not a monolith.
On one side, there are people with a position "Covid is much less severe than we though, we should have just let it spread through population, and go on with out lives as normal, like we do with flu. The fiasco is that we tried to control it at all."
On another side there is a position "Covid is a more severe disease than we realize. It affects multiple organs, and after repeated infections some people will get long covid for years, or permanently. We should still aim to restrict the spread of the virus, not anymore with lockdowns, but with clean indoors air, and keeping using masks is crowded situations and in healthcare. The fiasco is that we gave up on trying to control the infections."
The real question is not so much "can I do it on HN or other niche forum X" but "can I do it anywhere where people with polar opinions can have a reasonable debate", and even more interesting "can I say this in public, where my face is in punching distance" and then the ultimate "can I say this in an election campaign" (at which point even basic facts are off limits).
I would wager most folks on the keyboard warpath (or podium/camera) would be much more civil with their alleged target if they were sitting across the table from them.
Are you implying that internet giving voice to people without power to do violence is a bad thing? Should only strong and powerful be given freedom to speak?
This whole thread is beyond the point, since the original commenter asked which are the topics that you can't discuss on HN. Your replies only confirm that Covid is indeed a topic that you can't discuss on HN.
---
I'll reply for completeness anyway:
> I can see why a forum would want to control what topics are on and off topic.
There's a difference between banning flamewars and banning any kind of discussion. I am talking about the latter, not the former, which did indeed happen during Covid.
> Obviously you can say anything you like on unmoderated places like 4chan, but what does that prove?
Indeed, 4chan was the place where you could see discussion about the Covid policies and the media claims, from masks to lockdowns and mandatory vaccines - in fact, it was the one of the only places you could talk about it. Many of the things discussed there turned out to be true.
Transexuals are not women, abortion is murder, the US and/or Ukraine provoked the war, average IQ of different races and how it explains their behaviour. There you have four things that will earn you an instant flag (perhaps not in this thread for obvious reasons)
And yet I still see them debated regularly. They're not forbidden, they're unpopular. A consequence of having a system of voting and flagging is that you won't always agree with the way people vote and flag.
> Transexuals are not women
As an aside, I've noticed a pattern that people fret endlessly over trans women and don't really take notice of trans men. I don't know why that is, but there must be a reason why it's so remarkably consistent.
Is it just statistical? Maybe there are more trans women? Or they are more obvious/apparent online. But it any case it is almost a simple true scotsman fallacy. They are a woman iff that is your definition.
Accessibility tip: Hit the “X minutes days ago” link if this has gone too grey to read.
A consequence of having a system of flagging is that dang can avoid having to do any work by having users remove other users' comments, keeping the site in one side of the political spectrum. (Just to be clear, I don't think he particularly cares which side wins, as long as it allows him to avoid any responsibility)
I propose as an experiment, you go make an offensive left-wing comment on a relevant thread (maybe "ACAB" or "eat the rich"), and see if it gets flagged and downvoted.
I read a bunch of right-wing comments on HN (including ones making good arguments), the reports of left bias on HN are greatly overstated.
I can't say I agree, if someone made a high effort post arguing for eating the rich, I personally would still flag it because I flag all calls to violence, whether they are low effort or not. (Some people say "eat the rich" to mean "redistribute wealth through taxation," if I could tell that's what they meant I probably wouldn't flag it, other people uh, don't. Maybe the recipe you referenced is a policy proposal, let me know if I've misread you.)
How is advocating for eating the rich a call for violence though?
Are you assuming it's a call to kill them rather than a plea to not waste the protein?
The thing many people fail to realise about the Fore people in PNG was that their cannibalism was a mortuary rite of reverance for highly valued in group members that weren't killed for sustenance.
Now .. given you might have gained a snippet of new infomation, how do you feel about upvoting this comment about eating high value members of society?
Hmm - a self evident non sequitur that fails to address a real point about the actual world and the assumptions made by people about both violence and cannabalism.
That's a poor comment from yourself- I'd hoped for better.
If you'd like a higher quality response, sophistry and performative disappointment isn't the way to get it. I'm not going to give a serious detailed response to an unserious comment, I'm going to find a better use for my time.
If you need further clarification about why I don't take it seriously when I talk about a meme about a violent uprising and you pivot the conversation to ritual cannibalism, I encourage you to consult your preferred dictionary regarding "sophistry".
If you want to convince me that you're earnestly trying to have a real conversation, being insulting isn't going to help.
I didn't pivot at all, if you scroll back you'll see for a fact that it was yourself that introduced the topic of eating the rich.
You advocated for raising that as a thread topic.
I'm familar with several dictionares, nothing I have said has been false.
Be explicit - what exactly do you consider to be sophistry here?
We can talk about prion disease and its relation to eating brain matter (the Fore and mad cow disease), the history of funerary practices, the European fad for eating ground up mummies, the UK practice of eating parts of executed criminals, etc.
All of these relate to the topic that you suggested .. and the topic you apparently wish to tap out on when faced with someone happy to take it on.
Sorry to disappoint you, but I'm not interested in taking the bait today. Good luck finding the kind of discussion you're looking for. Have a pleasant day.
On the off chance this is a genuine misunderstanding (which, given you indicated that you understood I was referencing slogans, that cannibalism is a nonsequiter to a discussion of HN's political bias, that my initial response to you contained further clarification I was referencing a political slogan, and that you then peppered me with insults and attempted to bait me into an argument, I don't believe to be the case, but I've been wrong before), here is the misunderstanding:
> "Eat the rich" is a political slogan associated with anti-capitalism and left-wing politics. It may variously be used as a metaphor for class conflict, a demand for wealth redistribution, or a literal call to violence. The phrase is commonly attributed to political philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau, from a quote first popularized during the French Revolution: "When the people shall have nothing more to eat, they will eat the rich".
Remember, you're the one who introduced the brilliant idea of eating the rich into this conversation, and you're the one who replied even after you said you wouldn't, so you not only took the bait, you baited the hook with deliciously irresistible rich human flesh! Now that's some fine anthropophagic trolling!
> You do realize that sometimes rich right wingers advocate cannibalism too -- just not eating the rich
This book looks like satire. I have never met or heard of anyone who discusses "political cannibalism" literally. I think it's vanishingly rare.
> You're the one who introduced the brilliant idea of eating the rich into this conversation
I will not relitigate this. See above.
> You're the one who replied even after you said you wouldn't
Tend to your own knitting.
I'm a little confused why you took the time to respond to an old thread during the course of what looks like digging up receipts on a troll (which I have no complaint with, I agree with what you said about them). This is ancient history in my book.
Is there something specific you'd like me to take away from this? Did you just not like the cut off my jib? I honestly can't tell, I'm getting a chaotic neutral vibe.
ETA: I see, you feel that I am a troll, and you want to call me out for trolling. Well, noted. I disagree but it's not my proudest set of comments, I can't fault you for thinking ill of me because of them.
You are assuming that the topics I mentioned would be posted in the shape of short slogans, but they could be posted as long comments of several paragraphs and be flagged all the same.
Also there is no left bias. There is a progressive bias. Not exactly the same
That's not really what I meant re slogans, they were more examples of convenience. But I could have expressed myself better there.
When I see political comments get flagged, it's usually because they said something explicitly offensive or insulting. They'll sign of with an edit attacking downvoters, say something insulting about their political opponents, or reference a conspiracy theory. That will reliably get you flagged regardless of the position you are advocating.
