[hbn]

Saying things that were obvious scientific facts 5 years ago are now controversial and can now get you fired from your job -- and people are more gung-ho than ever to seek out anyone who says something "wrong" and try to ruin their life over it.

That's why I don't speak my opinions to anyone other than people I'm close with.

[janetmissed]

What are these obvious scientific facts? Being honest I've only ever heard people complain about not being able to say "obvious scientific facts" in reference to specific beliefs about transgender or gay people.

[tim333]

Popular things for getting into trouble over seem to be there being two sexes of which you are probably born one, heritability of IQ and until recently the origin of covid though I think maybe folk have chilled out a bit there. Also I got some grief for saying natural immunity was likely as good or better as vaccine acquired.

[abustamam]

Can you provide some examples? There have always been companies where certain opinions were deemed "controversial" and could get someone fired. I think it's more common now though, and with more opinions being considered controversial, but I can't think of any that would be considered scientific facts. I wouldn't want to work for a company that considers science controversial anyway.

[pessimizer]

> There have always been companies where certain opinions were deemed "controversial" and could get someone fired.

Can you provide some examples?

[abustamam]

Sure

1. Being colored 2. Doing recreational marijuana 3. Being a specific faith (like wearing Hijab for women) 4. Heck, just being a woman

Society seems to always have reasons to fire people or deny people a job that seem silly in retrospect, but enough people seem to think it's reasonable enough to do en masse.

Edit: I'm not saying any of those reasons, or being fired for holding "controversial" opinions are good, I'm just pointing out it's nothing new.

[randomdata]

> 1. Being colored 2. Doing recreational marijuana 3. Being a specific faith (like wearing Hijab for women) 4. Heck, just being a woman

In what way are these opinions, controversial or otherwise?

Are you suggesting that people of colour, for example, were fired only if they were of the opinion that they were a person of colour? If they were visibly a person of colour, but adamant that they were caucasian, a promotion was in order instead? They just had to believe?

[abustamam]

That's why I was asking OP for examples of facts that were controversial. The one "controversial fact" that came to my mind is the issue of LGBTQ+. Both sides of that coin believe that scientific facts support their side. And it's not unimaginable to me that someone would be fired for making pro/anti-trans comments. Another one is Israel vs Palestine, which of course is a sensitive topic and both sides will cite history to prove that their stance is the "right" one. It's not unimaginable to me that a pro Israel boss would fire an employee with Palestinian flag at their desk, or vice versa.

My point isn't that opinions get people fired (though religious beliefs certainly are opinions), it's that people have always been denied work for a myriad of reasons. People have always had to hide certain aspects of their identity for fear of being fired. Opinions, controversial or not, just seem to be the newest way people get fired. Once cancel culture goes away, bad management will find a new way to fire people they don't like.

It used to be that people would never dare talk about smoking Marijuana at work for fear of retaliation. Now in some US states employers can't retaliate against recreational drug usage, and employees will talk about it casually with no fear.

All in all, I think it's up to us (as a society) to just be accepting of differing opinions. Everything is polarizing now and anyone outside the collective groupthink is ostracized and called names like bigot or monster or supporting genocide or supporting terrorism, etc, etc. I think the current problem stems from members of that groupthink being put into a position of power (IE becoming employers or managers, or even politicians).

There is no simple solution because society is hard to change, but individually we can't judge people because of one "shitty opinion" they may have. That's personally why I like going to large events like concerts; everyone is there for one reason: to have fun listening to music they like. Instead of hating each other because of a shitty opinion, we're united because of a common hobby. That's what we should be looking for in each other imo.

[shiroiushi]

>All in all, I think it's up to us (as a society) to just be accepting of differing opinions. Everything is polarizing now and anyone outside the collective groupthink is ostracized

When has a society ever been accepting of different opinions, past a certain threshold? I can't think of any examples to be honest.

In the pre-internet past, it wasn't that much of a problem, because there wasn't much diversity, and highly differing opinions were isolated from each other because of geography. People only talked with other local people, who usually didn't travel much, and wider dissemination of ideas came from the press, which was controlled by a relatively small group of people and didn't just publish every person's opinion willy-nilly.

Now we're exposed to opinions from people all around the globe. We've never had to deal with this before.

[Xeyz0r]

Actually it's better to do that way nowadays