[wycs]

Yes. It is all very obvious. For example, suppose a marginalized group uses the hashtag #killallwhitemen to express the disempowerment they feel from the historical weight of white privilege. This, I think we can all agree, is an expression of righteous outrage through hyperbole, not intolerance. In fact, "white men" in this context does not refer to any person or group of people, rather a self-reenforcing system of oppression and privilege. In this way, we see "#killallwhitemen" is tool of enforcing tolerance in an intolerant society.

Now suppose someone were to make an argument like this:

"We observe sexual dimorphism to some degree in most animals. Thus our prior should be that it is unlikely that women and men are 100% psychologically identical even when controlling for environment. Because of this it would be epistemically incorrect to assume differences in representation in engineering firms can be explained entirely by discrimination."

This argument is clearly reactionary and must be censored, for we know 100% that any difference in preferences, abilities and outcomes between men and women must be explained by environmental effects. To think otherwise would be exclusionary and thus an example of intolerance we must be intolerant of, even in our own thoughts.

The person making this argument should be shunned. Even raising the argument should result in immediate deplatforming and perhaps loss of employability.

Even this notion of a prior in which you allow yourself to assign a probability to reactionary thoughts must fought, for even a very low prior can be overcome with enough sensory experience.

[mlillie]

> can be explained entirely by discrimination

I understand this is hyperbole, but this is the perfect case of how legitimate grievances are derailed by bad actors. Emphasis on the word "entirely".

We don't and can't think in absolutes as a society. Everyone and everything is imperfect to some degree. Women sometimes falsely accuse men of sexual assault. Police officers sometimes kill unarmed black men for good reason. The problem is that these sorts of arguments strip context entirely away—"sometimes" in each case is well under 10%. No one was talking about "entirely" in the first place, so this just morphs a discussion about equality into a much less serious one about human fallibility.

So, sure, those are issues, but let's focus on the 90% of the actual problem at hand. No one is saying sexism and racism are absolutely 100% responsible for everything. But they are extremely significant factors and, more importantly, factors entirely within our control and of our own making.

[stcredzero]

this is the perfect case of how legitimate grievances are derailed by bad actors... The problem is that these sorts of arguments strip context entirely away

If you want to figure out the villains, look for the side that is trying to strip the context away and screeching while holding to absolutes. Beware: villains often use the language of the noblest causes, and sometimes people become villains in the pursuit of noble causes.

[dvtrn]

And sometimes the very people saying we have to get rid of one awful system are the ones sitting behind the controls of another one.

-poorly paraphrased Chomsky

[stcredzero]

Yes. It is all very obvious. For example, suppose a marginalized group uses the hashtag #killallwhitemen to express the disempowerment they feel from the historical weight of white privilege. This, I think we can all agree, is an expression of righteous outrage through hyperbole, not intolerance.

No. MLK's movement wouldn't have willingly allowed something like that. Nor would Gandhi's. Justice is a universal compass, applying to all people, not the convenient and emotionally satisfying direction of the moment. Hate has no place in a true movement of justice. Those who would tell you otherwise are bad actors using the movement for their own ends, usually power.

[tenaciousDaniel]

It will never cease to amaze me that none of that is hyperbole. I've run into so many people who argue those exact two points, without a shred of self-awareness.

[JoshTriplett]

(In case it doesn't go without saying, lest silence be interpreted as agreeing with this response: no, both of these parody arguments are completely ridiculous. Both of these have superficial similarity to useful discussions, but have intentionally turned them into absurdist parody in order to mock actual notions of tolerance.)

[mooseburger]

They both happened. It's an accurate description of the state of discourse.

[skedaddle]

No they didn't. In the two situations he is clearly alluding to

1) the person admitted it was hurtful and unacceptable and that they should not have said it, and the mainstream publisher said they would not have hired her without this understanding

2) the argument the person made before being fired was not simply that there is a non-zero amount of sexual dimorphism in humans, it was concretely that womens' neuroticism, agreeableness, and other feeling-sy tendencies may explain why they are on average worse leaders, underrepresented, underpaid, etc.

[orangecat]

it was concretely that womens' neuroticism, agreeableness, and other feeling-sy tendencies may explain why they are on average worse leaders, underrepresented, underpaid, etc.

Remove "worse leaders" (which was not in Damore's memo), and it's a plausible theory supported by quite a bit of evidence.

[skedaddle]

I'm sorry to say that it was in the memo, in the personality differences section. In any case my point isn't to get into the debate about whether sexist outcomes may actually be valid. I was pointing out that GPs examples of white/male victimization were misrepresented and dishonest.

[mooseburger]

1) Splitting hairs. Swap it for Sarah Jeong if you like. 2) Could quite easily be a true statement, if a controversial and uncomfortable one.