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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   16082 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of December 19, 2022

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Standford posts about its Elimination of Harmful Language Initiative (EHLI), HN Reacts

Links to EHLI source: https://s.wsj.net/public/resources/documents/stanfordlanguage.pdf / http://web.archive.org/web/20221219160303/https://itcommunity.stanford.edu/ehli

Link to HN thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34039816

Note: my intent in linking to another forum isn't to create a in-group/out-group dynamic. My intent is to comment on how this is a sign about a broader cultural shift. Moderators, if this skirts too close to the offending the spirit of themotte, please let me know (or just delete it).

HackerNews is an online watering hole where a large number of Anglosphere people congregate to talk about startups, programming, and entrepreneurship. There is also no lack of plain old geeking out about cool tech, especially of the DIY variety that relates to drones, 3d-printing, or, more recently, AI.

The group skews somewhat left of center politically speaking. Over the past decade that I've been lurking it, it skewed a little bit more, in the sense that moderators became more accepting of openly political content that was aligned under the "21st century American progressive" label. I witnessed an influx of posts and comments about topics like coops, the evils of capitalism, etc. although, thankfully, that never became the main object of the community.

However, the thread I link to above has accumulated over 1200 comments in under 24h, which is a rare occasion--the death of a great contributor, a major shift in the industry, etc. More importantly, from sampling the first two pages, the overall sentiment appears to be negative toward what Stanford put out.

Before going deeper on the reaction, here's a taste of what Stanford posted:

Grandfather: This term has its roots in the "grandfather clause" adopted by Southern states to deny voting rights to Blacks.

Red team: "Red" is often used disparagingly to refer to Indigenous peoples, so its use in this context could be offensive to some groups.

Blackbox: Assigns negative connotations to the color black, racializing the term.

Brave (do not use): This term perpetuates the stereotype of the "noble courageous savage," equating the Indigenous male as being less than a man.

This kind of political weaponization should all be familiar to experienced Culture Warriors on themotte. But seeing the overwhelmingly negative reaction to this sort of thing on HN makes me adjust my likelihoods around what, excuse the cliche, I see as the pendulum swinging back away from leftist authoritarianism.

I have no idea what it's swinging towards, especially since in reality the pendulum is a 4d object zigzagging through multiple political dimensions. Still, it's a welcome sign that at least this flavor demagoguery is losing its bite.

I don't think the Culture War is in any danger of dying down. But I suspect (and hope) that the reaction on HackerNews is an omen of the CW shifting directions, so at the very least we'll have something new and exciting to debate about.

Edit: Some people have remarked in the comments that this isn't that astounding since HN has always been more grey-tribe aligned and more likely to react negatively to woke overreach like this. I find myself needing to readjust map.

But seeing the overwhelmingly negative reaction to this sort of thing on HN makes me adjust my likelihoods around what, excuse the cliche, I see as the pendulum swinging back away from leftist authoritarianism.

Weird, given how they reacted to blacklist/whitelist and master (branch).

Maybe it's just a little too much nonsense? I mean, "blackbox" doesn't have negative connotations, in any way. "Red Team" - they made an argument which should be used to ban "Red" by itself.

Aside from the nonsense ("user" is offensive?), there are reasonable arguments against blacklist/whitelist (it's less self documenting than denylist/allowlist) and master (the master branch isn't privileged in any way over other branches; it being the canonical source of truth is just a convention overlaid on git's model), and for greenfield projects I'm mildly in favor of those switches. But the key point is that it is individual teams who can decide this for themselves; when orders come in from on high that existing codebases need to be retrofitted to use these new terminologies, it creates a lot more work and risks. And a list like this is very obviously a top-down policing of language that has no interest in helping real work or real people.

There are arguments, at any rate. I wouldn't call them reasonable. "Blacklist" and "whitelist" are well understood technical terms, there is going to be almost nobody who doesn't know what they mean. And "master" doesn't necessarily connote privilege. I mean I appreciate that people tried to furnish non-political arguments for switching off those terms. But the arguments are bad, imo, so they don't really justify why we should change established industry terms.

I'll add to the chorus of voices saying that HackerNews has been unwoke if not anti-woke for years — it's one of the few solidly gray tribe social media aggregators left. HackerNews has guidelines against political submissions, and culture warring in comments which should sound familiar to posters here. And while this is mostly a founder effect, the site is still run AFAICT under the auspices of Paul Graham, about as anti-woke a man as you can get. I don't think many dyed-in-the-wool antiracists ceasing to regulate harmful language would want to be caught dead on his platform.

It's shifted, though; when I first joined in 2009, it was more or less apolitical. Nowadays politicization (admittedly of both sides in the culture war) is much more common than before. If I had to characterize in a very stylized way the way HN collectively responds to both, I'd say the woke are considered kind of intrusive but acceptable; affirmative anti-woke viewpoints have to be very carefully framed to not be buried.

It also depends on the particular topic. In male/female relations, non-feminist viewpoints are relatively well received; LGBT issues and immigration are more or less decisively settled; and things like HBD are nuked from orbit; economics pretty varied. Day-to-day politics are thankfully mostly ignored, but a 2020 election of HN commenters would have resulted in Biden winning 90/10 over Trump.

The Elimination of Harmful Language Initiative (EHLI) is a multi-phase, multi-year project to address harmful language in IT at Stanford. EHLI is one of the actions prioritized in the Statement of Solidarity and Commitment to Action, which was published by the Stanford CIO Council (CIOC) and People of Color in Technology (POC-IT) affinity group in December 2020.

...

people of color (used generically) | BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color) | If speaking about a specific group, name that group.

:head-scratching-emoji

No contraction, in the first paragraph not all PoC are included, but only the specific group "in Technology". But the second paragraph is ambigous in that it could also mean "specific group" in an ethnic sense.

So one way to read it is:

"PoC" not okay

"PoCiT" okay

"Asiatics" okay

"Asiatics in technology" okay

While your reading is:

"PoC" not okay

"PoCiT" not okay

"Asiatics" okay

"Asiatics in technology" okay

I hereby nominate you for Commissar of Goodspeak. Even if it's heavy handed, at least it'll be consistent and legible.

HN has always been anti-woke. There are certainly woke-affiliated people that post and complain about the "orange hellsite" like tqbf, but they've never had a majority holding.

I think you would be hard-pressed to find any thread that has significant interaction being largely pro-woke.

As such, I don't understand your assertion that a community reacting the same way it has always reacted signals a shift in the zeitgeist.

With Europe, part of the problem is linguistic. Until relatively recently in the UK, a phrase like "people of color" would be regarded as racist or at least suspicious. It sounds too much like "coloured people", which is obviously a demonic and corrupting word. I remember a poster in my high school geography class that poked fun at the very idea that a black person was "coloured", given that white skin varies more in pigmentation with sickness, embarassment etc.

In Continental Europe, there is even more work to be done. Terms like "race" largely fell out of use and a lot of racial statistics are not even tracked. Since around the 1940s, countries like France and Germany have tended towards the colourblind model of anti-racism: "Whatever the colour of your skin, what matters is that you speak French and have French values of secularism, mutual support, smoking like a chimney, eating chocolate cake for breakfast" etc. To fit with the predominat American woke culture, the European left will have to overcome this colourblindedness and create a situation where e.g. Thierry Henry is a Caribbean-Frenchman, not just a Frenchman, so he can be adequately saved from his oppression.

Thanks, this is a useful set of insights. It's been a few years since I lived in Germany, but I already saw the direction of travel.

I can assure that, being a bit in the insides, the first institution that is building DEI is the EU. National Institutions are still very well behind, but the EU is, starting from the de facto uber-feminist approach that they always had, trying to spin things in that direction.

For example, last year there was a cry from France and other countries that the EU internal comms suggested that we shoudl use Happy Holidays instead of Merry Christmas to not be offensive. The internal communication was deleted and excuses were done, we were happy that sometimes there was a victory etc

Fast forward this year, and without any sort of communication, 70% of the departments switched to Happy Holidays. No order from above, no comm, no conspiracy, simple because the people doing the comms are female and left-wing.

As you see, no victory.

I also see it mostly like this, but I think

National Institutions are still very well behind

requires some additional qualification.

Speaking for Germany, of course, and not bothering to look up sources - ignore me at your leisure - there are many national institutions that are by all means keeping pace with the EU, if not even pulling ahead on some points. Fashionable cities like Berlin, many elements of the federal government especially since the last election, state governments under leftist control, taxpayer-funded nominal NGOs, all of education from Kindergarten up to Universities, and of course our dear public media complex. It's patchy, many are indeed very well behind as you say, but I wouldn't want to deny the great and often successful efforts of many entities below the level of the EU.

And I think you've hit the nail on the head with your observation that there are no permanent victories as long as the enemy keeps pushing.

Until relatively recently in the UK, a phrase like "people of color" would be regarded as racist or at least suspicious.

It still strikes me that way in the US. It's really funny to me how the left has reinvented "colored people". The paper-thin sophistry they use to justify it doesn't really make it any better, either.

the European left will have to overcome this colourblindedness

There are some older hold-outs, but this has long happened. Our kids are buying your blue jeans and listening to your pop music.

I have no idea what it's swinging towards, especially since in reality the pendulum is a 4d object zigzagging through multiple political dimensions. Still, it's a welcome sign that at least this flavor demagoguery is losing its bite.

I doubt this actually represents any kind of substantive shift in the public discourse. There has long been a widespread rejection of this kind of clear woke overreach, but people still support the false underlying tenets of woke ideology and are in favour of censorship of things that might threaten it even if they think it sometimes goes too far. Just because they're willing to criticise Stanford's egregious problematisation of half the English lexicon doesn't mean they don't believe in the idea of, say, disparities being a result of discrimination and doesn't mean they're not willing to censor alternative ideas that threaten their underlying belief system.

Sincerely, I hope you're right. But I've seen so many predictions along the lines of "Perhaps wokeness is truly dying" too many times in the culture war, and every time those who advance this view are wrong.

Agreed. Wokist panics about stuff like microagressions, trigger warnings, the euphemism treadmill, etc. have always pretty consistently been ridiculed by most people even on leftists websites for at least a decade, yet the wokist machine has kept ratcheting upwards in other areas all the same.

I look forward to the next version of the document where Latinx is added to the bad words list.

Is it a swinging back or just that they pushed too far? For the zealots to take up your cause they need to at least being able to lie to themselves about the underlying message in order to justify proselytizing. This is very very hard to do when just the word "red" being in something is supposed to be racist. We can't use colors anymore? I can see Master-Slave relationship language, even just Master branch even knowing that is a misguided understanding, but red? RED? seriously?

But seeing the overwhelmingly negative reaction to this sort of thing on HN makes me adjust my likelihoods around what, excuse the cliche, I see as the pendulum swinging back away from leftist authoritarianism.

I doubt that it is an indicator. That would at most indicate that pendulum is accelerating slower.

Pendulum swinging back would require people sneering and making fun of something that was previously lauded, not just lack of enthusiasm for new overreach.

And this list reads like a deliberate attempt to troll HN: full of stupid arguments, false claims, wild mix of different stuff, blatant stupidity about technical matters, bad documentation... HS would complain about this even if they would fully agree with the goal.

I've seen many "surely this means the pendulum is swinging back now" posts like this in the past year, and so far their track record has been unconvincing.

The more cynical take is that the effort to argue for the progressive position on HN died down because that tribe has been pacified and contained and nobody thinks they can threaten the status quo anymore. Essentially the modus tollens side of Moldbug's "power leakage eutrophication" theory: if having power makes an institution a target of interest to the power-seeking, then not being a target of interest to the power-seeking means it has no power.

makes me adjust my likelihoods around what, excuse the cliche, I see as the pendulum swinging back away from leftist authoritarianism.

I wouldn't get my hopes up, but I also get the feeling there's something in the air.

I have no idea what it's swinging towards, especially since in reality the pendulum is a 4d object zigzagging through multiple political dimensions.

If life taught me anything, it's that when it comes to Culture War, things only get worse. Since I'm not even sure we are moving away from wokeness, it's even harder to predict where we're going, but let's say it wouldn't surprise me if the next thing on the menu is Climate Lockdowns / Social Credit Scores / Digital Surveillance and the rest of the Klaus Schwab memeplex.

Given leftwingers and liberals new penchant for bashing the notion of freedom (“FREEDUMB”) I think you’re correct. I see “personal carbon credits” as the new horizon, with opposition being taken down quickly with accusations of racism and/or conspiracy theory

People with higher levels of education will likely be accorded more carbon credits under the notion that they are performing more valuable labour to society like giving DEI seminars or other important activism

This comment is bad, just projecting boo-motives onto your outgroup, and the thread it spawned is why we have a rule against just writing sentiments like "Liberals suck and hate freedom." Take your culture-warring flash fiction elsewhere.

@Azth @Astranagant

You’re right, I was half joking in the second paragraph but it’s not obvious at all

Although on the other hand:

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41893-021-00756-w

Predicting AIs policing people's bathing ration is only "an uncharitable smear" if you think it's bad, apparently. Funny how that works.

Furthermore, the Covid-19 crisis brings many lessons learned for the future adoption of personal carbon allowances. The Covid-19 crisis, has risen awareness on the interconnectedness and effects of individuals' actions. During the Covid-19 pandemic, schemes for individual accountability and responsibility that were unthinkable only one year before have been adopted by millions of people.

Arguably, the increased awareness of individual responsibilities on today´s global sustainable development issues, together with lessons learned on Covid-19 tracking, could pave the way for the adoption of PCA schemes for climate action.

When we point out that this is their goal it's a boo-outgroup conspiracy theory, even if we quote their own fucking words.

Want me to link dozens of leftist "climate warriors" saying exactly the same thing but without the sarcasm?

You cannot say "Liberals suck and hate freedom" even if you can find examples of liberals who suck and hate freedom.

You are not stupid, so generalize that principle. You understand the rules, why they exist, and what they mean. That you don't like the rules and wish them not to be enforced is irrelevant.

Stop this tiresome routine.

If they are on this forum then report the comments. If they aren't on this forum why bring them up? We don't moderate every place on the internet.

I'm confused - why would sincerely advocating personal social carbon credits be report-worthy?

Depends on how it's done. If someone said "I want social carbon credits to punish the right" ya I'd consider that inflammatory and worth being modded.

That's a non-sequitur, because nobody's asking for that. We're just pointing out that they are out there setting leftist policy; just look under any article about how "only radical action can solve the climate crisis."

There is a pattern where people here make completely accurate predictions about what the left will do and get banned for it. Then when it inevitably happens the mods who banned them just shrug, go along with it, put the pronouns in their bios, eat the bugs, and cut their daughter's breasts off because the school said so.

See the people going "ok I've deleted my master branch, but abolishing the colour red is a step too far and I will never stand for it!"

That's a non-sequitur, because nobody's asking for that. We're just pointing out that they are out there setting leftist policy; just look under any article about how "only radical action can solve the climate crisis."

I assume, then, that if a leftist came here and said "Conservatives are Holocaust-denying Nazis who literally want to purge Jews and reinstitute Jim Crow," you would consider that a wholly unobjectionable sentiment to express so long as they can point to conservatives who do in fact want to do that and say so?

There is a pattern where people here make completely accurate predictions about what the left will do and get banned for it.

Please point to an example of someone being banned for making a completely accurate prediction about what the left will do. I expect you to be rigorous and precise, not sloppy and disingenuous with your criteria.

Then when it inevitably happens the mods who banned them just shrug, go along with it, put the pronouns in their bios, eat the bugs, and cut their daughter's breasts off because the school said so.

What are you on? To my knowledge, no mods here have done any of those things.

If they are out there then you can link to them, backup inflammatory claims with evidence.

If a leftist comes on here and doesn't feel the way that you claim they feel, what can they say? "Nuh uh!" ...?

When you just make stuff up then there is no where for the discussion to go. If you link to the evidence there can at least be a discussion about whether the sample is representative, or just some crazies.

Flip the circumstances the other way around. If a leftist said "rightists just want to go around murdering drug users, and they don't do it yet cuz they can't fully get away with it". Its a non-starter of a discussion. But if they instead link to what is happening in the philipines, then you can go multiple directions. Maybe "that isn't what is happening", or "that would never happen in america for x reasons", or maybe you do think its a good idea and now there is actually some meat to the discussion.

There is a pattern where people here make completely accurate predictions about what the left will do and get banned for it.

There are good and bad ways to phrase predictions. The bad ways are just a boo outgroup speculative fiction post, meant to only be read by people that already agree. The good way requires some effort, internet sleuthing to find the leading edge of a political movement, and some thoughtful writing to not phrase it as just a blatant attack.

Then when it inevitably happens the mods who banned them just shrug, go along with it, put the pronouns in their bios, eat the bugs, and cut their daughter's breasts off because the school said so.

Frustratingly, I'm looking at spending tens of thousands of dollars a year to put my daughter into a private religious school for a religion I don't believe in just to avoid coming anywhere close to such a scenario. I didn't find my way here to TheMotte because I buy into mainstream consensus. But TheMotte is not a place for the bitter losers of the culture war to commiserate with one another (don't be mistaken I am one of those bitter losers). We have a higher standard of discussion here and we plan on holding people to it.

I'd like to add myself to the scolding. My addition was not good and I shall try to avoid such posts in the future.

Sure.

I see “personal carbon credits” as the new horizon, with opposition being taken down quickly with accusations of racism and/or conspiracy theory

Unlikely, given how fast transition towards photovoltaics and such is currently happening. Also fusion.

Degrowth people exist, but they're not convincing others.

As we’re seeing, photovoltaics and wind power are terrible from an energy security perspective. Nuclear isn’t, but it won’t get built.

Distributed system is terrible from energy security perspective? Really?

As for amount of energy, there's enough investment that at worst there would be some years with lower supply. Maybe shortages during one or two months of winter. That's not exactly apocalyptic.

Distributed system is terrible from energy security perspective? Really?

Theoretically, or actually existing distributed systems?

There are new geothermal projects which are pretty cool, obviously can't build them everywhere but there is more hope than people seem willing to admit to on either side of this debate.

30MW is chump change sadly. They're knocking down a dam that provides ten times that with no plan for replacement. (it'll be gas turbines or blackouts, depending on how much power the greens get)

Obviously a low-carbon energy infrastructure which actually works can be built, but, well, no one wants to do that. Progressives want a green new deal that seems to pick its projects based on their unreliability, conservatives want a gas-fired grid, and moderates want a series of tax credits that cost money to install photovoltaic panels on the residential roofs which don’t cover energy use.

Obviously a low-carbon energy infrastructure which actually works can be built

Obviously? If nuclear's off the table, I don't think this is obvious at all.

Nuclear being off the table is the reason it will never be built.

And yet here I have linked a reliable zero emission project worth somewhere in the ballpark of $60 million being built in california of all places.

Photovoltaics are the mechanism that turns "decarbonization" into "winter blackouts". Replace 50gw of coal with 50gw of solar (CF-adjusted), arguing that these are equivalent. Next winter your grid will collapse and rationing based on "social value" can begin.

See this graph of current germany power production showing solar and wind delivering nothing during the highest loads of the year. (Note this doesn't even include heating, because sky-high kwh prices mean they still use coal and gas for one of the largest winter loads!)

If you talk to any of the greens pushing "fundamental cultural changes", they are all targeting degrowth.

Fusion is irrelevant - there's nothing that work, and practically all methods that do work would result in massive amounts of irradiated parts after decomissioning - something the green lobby would pounce upon, knowing full well that to a typical HR manager, there's no difference between e.g. spent fuel and material that's neutron-activated reactor parts due to intense neutron flux.

Photovoltaics are worse than irrelevant, without corresponding battery tech (that doesn't exist) they're just a way of making your energy production much more expensive by making it bimodal. You have to invest into conventional power plants that you only run some of the time.

Degrowth people exist, but they're not convincing others.

They don't have to convince anyone. They're and have been writing EU policy for decades. At the moment, the plan is to carbon-tax everything by 2032. They're also just about to close down something like a third of Dutch farming sector due to 'nitrogen emissions'.

They might become accountable about three years after a severe economic collapse, by which time most of them will have decamped for the US or Australia or someplace.

Effortless shitpost.

The year is 2035, and the climate is changing....."Well aschually freedom to remain alive still applies as the carbon atoms in their bodies can get absorbed by living plants, but they did use 3.1 schwabbs more than alloted sooo...." says the smiling and shrugging climate activist as they immolate a preschool with napalm for not having sufficient carbon credits.

"US Republicans and UK Conservatives condemned the move, saying that as the transgression was only 3.1, merely killing a few children would have sufficed, and immolation is a climate-unfriendly way of disposing of criminals."

"Tories encourage genocide of the third world by failing to support climate measures, says Oxford professor "- reports the BBC

"Racist Tories want white babies to pollute the earth, here's how you can stop them" - Guardian in comment is free section

People with higher levels of education will likely be accorded more carbon credits under the notion that they are performing more valuable labour to society like giving DEI seminars or other important activism

Maybe not education as such, but doing the right sorts of jobs: academia, politics, journalism, multi-national business etc. Even better: they could apply for specific exemptions for specific flights etc., which could be checked by a non-partisan and diverse agency.

These conspiracy theories are weird, if we're going down the conspiracy route it's almost certainly the mundane, megabanks want to get paid by the government to build and own renewable energy assets in order to offset their tax burden. I mean this is literally true, the conspiracy theory is that there is collusion with the government and advocacy orgs. And personally having talked to the head of one of these megabank departments involved in renewable energy tax credits this is not the case but I'd understand if you don't believe me.

There can be coordination without collusion. Walking down a street, people coordinate on moving out of each other's way (at least some of the time...) but almost always without talking to each other about it.

Also on Stanford's list: "abusive relationship" should be replaced by "relationship with an abusive person", because:

The relationship doesn't commit abuse. A person does, so it is important to make that fact clear.

Firstly, they are breaking their own guide of "Person-First", which is the section just prior to that entry. According to the heading,

"The use of person-first language helps everyone to resist defining others by a single characteristic or experience if that person doesn't wish to be defined that way.

So, shouldn't that be something like "relationship with a person who occasionally makes an action that is perceived as abusive"?

And secondly, in my experience, it really is the relationship that's abusive, where the spiral of negative reinforcements for obsessively pushing each other's buttons cannot be laid at the feet of a single partner.

And secondly, in my experience, it really is the relationship that's abusive, where the spiral of negative reinforcements for obsessively pushing each other's buttons cannot be laid at the feet of a single partner.

This is what gets me. I've seen 0 abusive relationships in real life where it was just a single person doing the abusing. Plenty in movies of course!

The function of these shibboleths is to act as weapons in the culture war. In early stages via identifying friend and foe, in later stages by keeping the plebes in check by forcing them to use one's own convoluted language - as per Havel, a humiliated person is less likely to rebel. As is the person who has been made an accomplice.

So of course person-first language only applies to friends, not foes. It's rapists and racists, not People Who Rape or Person of a Racist Persuasion.

And give it a couple years and the terms du jour will have fallen out of favor.

I'm reminded of the fad for "black bodies" a couple years ago, which remains one of the most dehumanizing things to come off of the euphemism treadmill, which usually just produces ungainly mouthfuls that no one is really asking for.

Yes, that's another aspect of it. It gives those in the know an advantage over the plebs. It is similar to fashion. If we once and for all decided which colours are hip and trendy and which aren't, even the most common rube could be fashionable and that would take away the fashionista's edge.

And just like we can't have fashionable rubes, we can't have moral commoners either. How would our priest caste lord over them?

It goes like this:

-> Invent new euphemism -> zealots use it to gain status among other zealots -> zealots use it to identify allies -> commoners are pressured into using it -> dissidents who won't use it are ostracised -> invent new euphemism.

Highly useful, that.

deleted

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