zlacker

>>tosh+(OP)
Some bright spots I've noticed in the past month or so in this area, for those who care both about justice and open debate:

- John Carmack signal boosting[1] Sarah Downey's article "This PC witch-hunt is killing free speech, and we have to fight it"[2]

- The critical comments on the obligatory "BLM" post in r/askscience[3]

- Glenn Loury's response[4] to Brown University's letter to faculty/alumni about racial justice.

- The failure[5] of a group of folks to cancel Steven Pinker over accusations of racial insensitivity.

[1] https://twitter.com/ID_AA_Carmack/status/1279105937404579841

[2] https://medium.com/@sarahadowney/this-politically-correct-wi...

[3] https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/gvc7k9/black_li...

[4] https://www.city-journal.org/brown-university-letter-racism

[5] https://mobile.twitter.com/sapinker/status/12799365902367907...

>>dnissl+Tr
Carmack's comment on the Cultural Revolution was strange. The greatest problem with the Cultural Revolution, its defining characteristic in most people's minds, was all the mass murder. McCarthyism or something might have been a better historical analog to what is happening, but it would have been pretty tricky to jujitsu that example into a slam against the left, or the kids today, or whatever was being attempted there.

The article he linked to was a little peculiar. As someone who's inclined to agree with the author about the First Amendment, the poorly thought out paragraph about racism - using a link to hate crime statistics to demonstrate the low numbers of "actual racists," but then making a remark like The statement “black lives matter” is easy to agree with if you’re a decent human being, which raises some questions about why we all have so many not-decent people (just indecent, not actual racists?) in our social media feeds - distracted from the overall message.

>>justin+VH
In the case of "black lives matter", part of the point some people are missing is why it's necessary to force people to say something that's as obvious as the nose on our faces. We're being forced to chant a slogan. An empty slogan because of course, black lives matter. No one has ever said differently.

>>HeroOf+DQ
As far as I know, the protests did not start after the officers were charged with murder. This seems like a crucial distinction if you're going to split hairs. People need to stop saying of course we always agreed on everything, because saying it nicely doesn't soften the message that one person can define reality for another.