Contexts matter, and this is I guess what we're all concerned with.
In my own experience, since the mid-2010s or so there's a steady undercurrent of elitism and fascism in techland that I had not been expecting at all. There are some nerds who want us to be "rational" about it, that we should be willing to debate everything, up to and including the basic humanity or worth of people who are... just not white techies. I've been shocked to discover some of my colleagues and friends have fallen into these tendencies of thought. Fascism is less of a viewpoint and more of a viral strategy for smothering tolerance under the guise of allowing debate.
Like, from my perspective, there's a hint of that elitism even in what pg was saying, as he dismisses his critics as simply less-nimble thinkers who don't have original ideas.
So yes, I'm skeptical when I see people saying, "I have all these wonderful ideas, that you're unworthy of because you just won't be tolerant of them." I've been down that road a few times with a few colleagues and it always ended in something like a grand theory of why the West is at war with Islam.
But I also acknowledge there are other contexts, where one might feel under attack by the impersonal forces of social media outrage, for totally different reasons. And (as I've revised this comment many times) I've also expressed, in public, that cancel culture is a real thing, and it does stifle some viewpoints and can be exploited by nefarious people. I wish I had a tidy bow to wrap this up with, but I don't.
In my own experience, since the mid-2010s or so there's a steady undercurrent of elitism and fascism in techland that I had not been expecting at all. There are some nerds who want us to be "rational" about it, that we should be willing to debate everything, up to and including the basic humanity or worth of people who are... just not white techies. I've been shocked to discover some of my colleagues and friends have fallen into these tendencies of thought. Fascism is less of a viewpoint and more of a viral strategy for smothering tolerance under the guise of allowing debate.
Like, from my perspective, there's a hint of that elitism even in what pg was saying, as he dismisses his critics as simply less-nimble thinkers who don't have original ideas.
So yes, I'm skeptical when I see people saying, "I have all these wonderful ideas, that you're unworthy of because you just won't be tolerant of them." I've been down that road a few times with a few colleagues and it always ended in something like a grand theory of why the West is at war with Islam.
But I also acknowledge there are other contexts, where one might feel under attack by the impersonal forces of social media outrage, for totally different reasons. And (as I've revised this comment many times) I've also expressed, in public, that cancel culture is a real thing, and it does stifle some viewpoints and can be exploited by nefarious people. I wish I had a tidy bow to wrap this up with, but I don't.