J.K. Rowling | ContraPoints

The Internet has the same incentive landscape as bathroom stall graffiti. That's why you're so mad, Robyn. This isn't a back-and-forth between two real people who mutually respect each other. If I was talking to Robyn in real life, over coffee, for 2 or 3 hours, we'd probably get something productive done. But online, it's a hit-and-run dumpster where the truth matters a little, and humor and presentation matter _much more._ Robyn writes their wounded-gazelle piece whining about the woke cancel mob, and I try to 'clap back' without 'seething'. Wittgenstein would roll in his grave to see the level of MLG language gamers we have online these days. Nuance gets buried online. I am not gonna sit here and write a boring screen-long essay expressing my nuanced thoughts on the rights of trans adults and trans children, to an audience that might literally be reading this on the shitter. It works fine for less-controversial topics like Rust vs C. It just doesn't work for gender. They who write on shit-house walls... P.S. - If you have 2 hours to spare for nuance, I highly recommend the Contrapoints video about J. K. Rowling. This is a good, calm, nuanced discussion about why LGBTQ people and our allies don't like Rowling as much as we used to. ▶ this video If you don't have 2 hours to spare, then you aren't gonna get nuance, sorry to tell you.

in “The Truth Matters and Secular Humanists Should Defend It” · View on HN

It's 90 minutes, but ContraPoints' videos are really great. Here's her perspective on J.K. Rowling: ▶ this video

in “Reasons for Speaking Out on Sex and Gender Issues (2020)” · View on HN

> Rowling's views are not 'dated' (that's your opinion) They are. Bigotry is not static. It's a dynamic reaction to progress being made in the rest of society. Her views are not a reaction to fringe whackjobs on twitter screaming for some rights that the rest of society is not willing to give them. Her views are a reaction to changes in government policy that do not happen overnight, are themselves a result of decades of progress made in conjunction with medical and scientific subject matter experts. > they are thought out, and reasonable. They are not. They are based on strawmen interpretations of trans people's lived experiences, and their desired outcomes. It would take a really long time to go through all her points and point out the various logical flaws in it, but the main issue is they are founded on her own personal beliefs, anxieties, and prior trauma, not a reasonable detached view of the status quo. Contrapoints just did a pretty thorough deep dive analysis[1]. > The issue is not 'people not buying her books' - the issue is that people are trying to suppress and silence her An author's interaction with their audience, and their "platform" goes far beyond the books they publish. They have other channels, and other ways to reach people - in Rowling's case millions of people, primarily children. While not everyone would agree with me on this, but if Rowling was quietly harboring transphobic beliefs, and made no further follow-up, I wouldn't care, and there would be no

in “Agent fired from literary agency for using Parler and Gab” · View on HN

The argument "I haven't met a single..." is equally as strong as an unqualified "You are misinformed.", which I was responding to. Note that I asked for clarification :) Since I have you here, would you mind elaborating a bit more about your stance on "cancel culture"? I'll also elaborate a bit more on my stance. I think most people would agree that mobs by definition have no united agenda. It's a bunch of disorganized people with their own goals and motivations who all briefly get fired up about the same topic. Twitter mobs are a tornado of confirmation bias, where people in echo chambers spin up hot takes of current events to confirm their own worldview. The amount of meaningful debate that can be had in 280-character chunks is negligible. When people talk about "cancel culture", my impression is not that they think there is any sort of coordinated attack on right-leaning figures by prominent left-leaning figures -- only fringe conspiracy theorists believe that George Soros is sending out weekly lists of names that should be "cancelled" this week. It's that they believe Twitter is a place which has developed a culture of criticizing and ridiculing other users, public figures especially. I think it's undeniable that any time a public figure missteps, a vocal minority of people (e.g. angsty teenagers) on Twitter calls for the person to be fired or otherwise deplatformed, even before they have a chance to respond. Some people also receive death threats. So, I don't think it's

in “GitHub, fuck your name change” · View on HN

He is not talking about cancel culture. He is taking this very overloaded term as premise, as self-evident "fact" for the degeneration of academia and "the public discourse", to pave the way for injecting his super deep ideology about salvation by Love, Elon and Ayn Rand. I am not sure, if you are familiar with Joscha Bach, but he once said something about something, and people think he's super intelligent! None of these podcasts talking critical about cancel culture. There is a far, far better (critical) take on it within "marxist" culture, e.g. from Natalie Wynn. If Lex wants to talk cancel culture, why not invite her for example? She is an academic, smart and wrote and talked extensively about it. But that would be a little too open-minded wouldn't it? [§] [link] [$] ▶ this video

in “Brendan Eich on the Lex Fridman Podcast [video]” · View on HN