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Comment by slg

1 day ago

>If someone I was friends with made racist remarks, they wouldn't be prosecuted for that. But I would stop being their friend.

So you want your friend to be able to anonymously express their racism while being able to hide it from you? I can't imagine advocating for that as a desired goal rather than a negative side effect.

>Similarly if I was the only one in my friend group against racism and advocate firefly against it, they would probably stop being my friends.

If we are talking about a society level problem, I think it is a little silly to think a society as toxic as this hypothetical one could be saved by anonymous internet posting.

For the record, I'm not as against anonymous posting as the person who started this specific comment thread, I just think this line of argument is advocating for a band-aid over bigger issues.

11 comments

slg

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NoahZuniga  1 day ago

These were just extreme examples to indicate that there can be social repercussions to dissenting.

Maybe a more convincing example is that if I advocate for making it easier to build housing because that will lower the cost of housing and many of my friends are homeowners, they might really not like me because lowering the cost of housing directly lowers their net worth.

Are these people evil for not wanting to lose their retirement savings (wrapped up in their home)?

Edit: also

> So you want your friend to be able to anonymously express their racism while being able to hide it from you?

While on the specific example of racism I'm pretty convinced of my moral correctness, I am not bold enough to declare that every bit of my worldview is the universally correct one. I am also not so bold to say that I will always be instantly convinced of my incorrectnes by a friend challenging my worldview (if they actually do have a better stance on some thing). My conclusion is that my friend should have some place to platform his better opinion without (having to fear) alienating me. And the only way to achieve this as far as I know is anonymous platforms.

giardini  1 day ago

sig says "So you want your friend to be able to anonymously express their racism while being able to hide it from you? I can't imagine advocating for that as a desired goal rather than a negative side effect."

Deceit is a characteristic of our humanity. We all deceive others and ourselves. If people are to be allowed to be fully expressive as humans they need to be able to deceive. And so they require anonymity.

See Robert Trivers' works

https://www.amazon.com/stores/author/B001ITVRUO/about

  • fercircularbuf  20 hours ago

    I don't see the logic in this argument. What's the difference from your argument if I state that murder is a characteristic of our humanity? If people are to be allowed to be fully expressive as humans they need to be able to murder.

    • Chris2048  18 hours ago

      > What's the difference from your argument if I state that murder is a characteristic of our humanity?

      It's unclear that it's true. I think the implication is deceit is a human characteristic because all humans do it, perhaps even subconsciously; Is the same true of murder?

foxglacier  1 day ago

I live in a society as toxic as that. It's New Zealand. One of the minor parties currently in government aims to undo systemic racism. However, the popular opinion is that they are the racists because of that. I don't dare tell people that I voted for them because I'll be judged as a racist by some of my family members and loose friends. If I say it on the local internet groups, others will be hostile to me for it. Anonymity helps people to speak up about these issues.

How do we solve those bigger issues when we live in an emperor's new clothes society? Wait for children who haven't learnt the rules to point them out?

  • synecdoche  1 day ago

    I understand this view is unpopular, but nevertheless. For something to be systematic there needs to be some set of rules governing it. I have yet to see any evidence of discriminatory rules as part of any western company or government policy, except for affirmative action and equivalent policies which do have such rule sets, where some group is prioritised to the detriment of other.