I'd say the problem is really the expanding definition of 'nazi'.
Popper's paradox of tolerance is a thing, we can't tolerate actual nazis who would silence everybody in the name of 'openness'.
And the far-right types are still responsible for vastly more actual violence than the far left types. A couple nazis have been punched and antifa got out of hand in Berkeley once.. meanwhile, synagogues have been burned down, mosques shot up, a Sikh guy in Texas got shot because someone those he was one of "the arabs"...
The problem on the left side honestly isn't violence, it's suppression of speech. The far left in the tech industry has control of speech in a way that's pretty novel, and they need to be more careful and less righteous. It feels good to call someone a nazi and cast them out, but let's exercise some restraint and save that for actual nazis.
Popper's paradox of tolerance is a thing, we can't tolerate actual ____ who would silence everybody in the name of 'openness'.
"Authoritarian" is what fits best here. It's what you call people who give up on convincing you and start coercing you.
Society shouldn't tolerate those who would damage our society's foundation and ultimate safety valve of Free Speech, particularly if they do it in the name of 'openness'.
The far left in the tech industry has control of speech in a way that's pretty novel, and they need to be more careful and less righteous.
The novelty is important. It's intellectually dishonest to use the time lag of laws catching up, particularly when the potential damage to discourse and society is so huge.
That's a uselessly broad definition of authoritarian.
It transforms any situation in which someone does have authority -- even domain limited authority -- to make a call without unanimity into an authoritarian one.
If that's what authoritarianism was, every parent, teacher, property owner (and therefore business), employer, and manager would be one.
It would make law itself authoritarian.
> particularly when the potential damage to discourse and society is so huge.
Can you be more specific about an instance of damage to discourse? If it's huge, presumably it's easy to argue some high visibility cases where key valuable concepts that would be carried in discourse have become scarcely available.
And presumably, there'd be a case that these key valuable concepts aren't subject to any of the traditional philosophical limits on free speech (which as broadly respected as it is, has, like most of the law, not been absolute).
One might even expect the damaged areas of discourse to be manifestly more valuable to the point where compelled participation on the part of tech companies in sustaining them seems reasonable.
> A couple nazis have been punched and antifa got out of hand in Berkeley once
According to [1], while there are 4x as many US domestic far-right terror attacks as Islamic ones, the death tolls (excluding 9/11) are about the same. But only 1.1% of the US is Muslim.
Of course it's not really accurate to call Islamic terrorists far-left - I don't think their ideals fit with the rest of the left. But the total death toll of terrorism in the US is negligible [2], so to allow one's opinions to be directed by who does the most terrorism is the ultimate tail-wagging-the-dog.
I'd say islamic terrorism should be counted as far right -- theocracy is definitely not a left thing. It is just a different branch of far-right than christian one.
> The far left in the tech industry has control of speech in a way that's pretty novel
When we talk about the far left which controls the tech industry to the point where it can control speech, are we talking about very effective capitalists who are somehow nevertheless economic leftists (and apparently have shareholders of the same bent), or are we talking about a socially oriented far left, perhaps even largely managed by historically disadvantaged classes (and also have shareholders who support them)?
Because I can't think of any good definition of "the far left" that matches the incentives, philosophy, and power behind the tech companies out there.
The closest argument I think could be made is that there's enough vocal users who are concerned about certain kinds of content that some companies feel compelled to respond to that concern. One can argue that has its own issues, but it's pretty distinct from control.
> It feels good to call someone a nazi and cast them out, but let's exercise some restraint and save that for actual nazis.
I agree that nazi (like fascist) can be a term that's expanded to the point of dilution. But... what's an actual nazi? If we don't know the answer, will we be able to act effectively with our saved effort? If we're looking to history as a guide, do we draw the line at something comparable to 1943 nazis, or 1933 nazis, or 1923 nazis?
Because I can't think of any good definition of "the far left" that matches the incentives, philosophy, and power behind the tech companies out there.
There's a group of far left activists, who are also included within a lower tier of non-programmer workers for companies like YouTube and Google, as well as programmers and technologists who are sympathetic to their views. The impetus comes from the 1st group, who has sway with the 2nd group.
can be a term that's expanded to the point of dilution
To the point of a Bernie voting Korean American journalist (Tim Pool) being accused of being one of them, to the point of people yelling to have him mobbed and beaten in the street.
But... what's an actual nazi?
What's key, in 2019, an era when "brands" are easy to create anew, to the point where even kids and the poor have the resources to do so and organize around them, it is not the brand, but the behavior, the semantics, which is important. Who uses violence, intimidation, and vandalism to silence opposition and for political gain? Who dresses up in the same clothes, like "gang colors," and uses anonymity to get away with doing the above?
We need to be skeptical of this authoritarianism masquerading as "justice" and "openness."
> What's key, in 2019, an era when "brands" are easy to create anew, to the point where even kids and the poor have the resources to do so and organize around them, it is not the brand, but the behavior, the semantics, which is important. Who uses violence, intimidation, and vandalism to silence opposition and for political gain? Who dresses up in the same clothes, like "gang colors," and uses anonymity to get away with doing the above?
Sure. A few of them are going to jail for criminal political violence. Then, also facing legal consequences are the members of Antifa who were looking for the Proud Boys, and ended up assaulting a couple of innocent Marines going to a dance. One of them was non-white, and the Antifa members apparently were spewing the most vile racist, toxic words the whole time.
Again: We need to be skeptical of this authoritarianism masquerading as "justice" and "openness."
So... some apparently tiny minority of activists --- in low-tier positions, no less -- is forcing policies of tech companies that they'd otherwise never choose for market reasons, or for reasons of values intentionally arrived at by high-level management.
That's either quite a coup... or an unlikely explanation. Possibly even a motivated one designed to work the refs, so to speak.
You know what's much more likely? That any political compasses involved in low-level decisions made at most tech companies are distributed in about the way that staff is. And that you could expect that to be normally distributed unless managing staff skewed it with an emphasis on some value. Which is another way of saying the composition of the company reflects management values. And since market incentives probably still matter, and shape management values, whatever we're talking about in general terms here that's is going on at these businesses, it's probably not just a function of a minority of activists.
> to the point of people yelling to have him mobbed and beaten in the street.
Welp, free speech, you know. Guess there's nothing we can do about that. If we did, we'd simply be using force to silence those people, and it really sounds like you're categorically against that, right?
> it is not the brand, but the behavior, the semantics, which is important.
Brand is semantics. If one is important, the other is.
So... what's a nazi? For that matter, what's "far left"?
> Who uses violence, intimidation, and vandalism to silence opposition and for political gain?
In spite of some of my challenges to the GP, they had some answers to this question you don't seem to have fully processed.
> Who dresses up in the same clothes, like "gang colors," and uses anonymity to get away with doing the above?
I can think of several answers that check at least 2 boxes out of 3 there, maybe even all three to the extent that bureaucracy confers anonymity. What's yours?
> We need to be skeptical of this authoritarianism masquerading as "justice" and "openness."
We also need to be skeptical of those who offer an pretense of concern of vigilance towards authoritarianism, but oddly seem only interested in looking one way -- "this" authoritarianism. Which, since it apparently consists of the tyranny of justice and the threat of forced openness, is likely about as consistent in its conception as the threat of far left capitalists.
I'm talking about cultural lefties, their economic leftness is doubtful at best.
If you want a stereotype/archetype, I guess 'woke capitalism' is the ideology I'm talking about.
Interestingly, while we're having a raging culture war between right and left, there's almost no argument about economics anymore. We seem to have settled into a system where the proletariat of both political parties want to move economically left, and the elite of both parties distract them with culture war instead.
Popper's paradox of tolerance is a thing, we can't tolerate actual nazis who would silence everybody in the name of 'openness'.
And the far-right types are still responsible for vastly more actual violence than the far left types. A couple nazis have been punched and antifa got out of hand in Berkeley once.. meanwhile, synagogues have been burned down, mosques shot up, a Sikh guy in Texas got shot because someone those he was one of "the arabs"...
The problem on the left side honestly isn't violence, it's suppression of speech. The far left in the tech industry has control of speech in a way that's pretty novel, and they need to be more careful and less righteous. It feels good to call someone a nazi and cast them out, but let's exercise some restraint and save that for actual nazis.