I have friends who I have watched first hand having to read through a racist Facebook thread who were subsequently unable to focus for hours afterward.
Wow, that’s a shocking thread. This will definitely put off newcomers! I can understand why you might want to ban discussion of woke topics from introductory spaces if that sort of thing will be the result!
To be honest I’m surprised the moderators didn’t block Blasian Diezo for being such a bully. It seems like he is clearly violating the group rules:
1) Be civil (e.g. don’t insult other advocates, especially other group members)
for responding to perfectly reasonable advocacy for a colorblind society from Joachim with this sort of nasty vitriol:
you’re a part of the problem if this is your mentality
you love white supremacy like that?
that’s a white supremacist goal
if the only black person you know about who worked for anti-racism movements is mlk, you’re worthless. … if what you gathered from a snippet of his quotes is that he was trying to achieve a “color blind” society, you’re worthless.
if you don’t like being called a white supremacist, stop saying/doing white supremacist shit.
so fuck you and stop trying to police how oppressed ppl address the shit we have to deal with from you
However, while I understand your view, I don’t think I agree with it. I think it is best to tolerate Blasian-style opinions and let them be discussed rationally; we should just make sure that people are civil and reasonable, without unnecessarily insulting other people. Just because he is behaving badly doesn’t mean the same conversation couldn’t be beneficial otherwise.
I downvoted this because it seems pretty clear that the author was referencing other aspects of the Facebook thread, and this felt belittling instead of engaging with the author’s overall post.
While I agree there is a thing going on here that’s kind of messy, I think Dale is making a fine point. I would however pretty strongly prefer it if he wouldn’t feign ignorance and instead just say straightforwardly that he thinks possibly the biggest problem with the thread is not actually the people arguing against racism as a cause area, but the people violating various rules of civility in attacking the people who argue against it, and the application of (as I think he perceives it) a highly skewed double-standard in the moderation of those perspectives, which is an assessment I find overall reasonably compelling.
Like, I found Dale’s comment useful, while also feeling kind of annoyed by it. Overall, that means I upvoted it, but I agree with you on the general algorithm that I prefer straightforward explicit communication over feigned ignorance, even if the feigned ignorance is obviously satirical, as it is in this case.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts! I guess part of the reason I feel more strongly that this kind of comment ought not to be upvoted is that EricHerboso seemed to bring up the Facebook thread not to open a debate on its content, but to point out that the behavior of some of the Facebook commentors harmed EAs or EA adjacent organizations through putting an emotional toll on people, and that this kind of behavior is explicitly costing EA. That seems like a really important thing to discuss—regardless of what you think of the content of the thread, the content EricHerboso refers to in it negatively impacted the movement.
Dale’s comment feels unnecessarily trollish, but also tries to turn the thread into a conversation about what I see as an unrelated topic (the rules of conduct in a random animal rights Facebook group). It vaguely tries to tie back to the post, but mostly this seems like a weak disguise for trolling EricHerboso.
Wow, that’s a shocking thread. This will definitely put off newcomers! I can understand why you might want to ban discussion of woke topics from introductory spaces if that sort of thing will be the result!
To be honest I’m surprised the moderators didn’t block Blasian Diezo for being such a bully. It seems like he is clearly violating the group rules:
for responding to perfectly reasonable advocacy for a colorblind society from Joachim with this sort of nasty vitriol:
However, while I understand your view, I don’t think I agree with it. I think it is best to tolerate Blasian-style opinions and let them be discussed rationally; we should just make sure that people are civil and reasonable, without unnecessarily insulting other people. Just because he is behaving badly doesn’t mean the same conversation couldn’t be beneficial otherwise.
I downvoted this because it seems pretty clear that the author was referencing other aspects of the Facebook thread, and this felt belittling instead of engaging with the author’s overall post.
While I agree there is a thing going on here that’s kind of messy, I think Dale is making a fine point. I would however pretty strongly prefer it if he wouldn’t feign ignorance and instead just say straightforwardly that he thinks possibly the biggest problem with the thread is not actually the people arguing against racism as a cause area, but the people violating various rules of civility in attacking the people who argue against it, and the application of (as I think he perceives it) a highly skewed double-standard in the moderation of those perspectives, which is an assessment I find overall reasonably compelling.
Like, I found Dale’s comment useful, while also feeling kind of annoyed by it. Overall, that means I upvoted it, but I agree with you on the general algorithm that I prefer straightforward explicit communication over feigned ignorance, even if the feigned ignorance is obviously satirical, as it is in this case.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts! I guess part of the reason I feel more strongly that this kind of comment ought not to be upvoted is that EricHerboso seemed to bring up the Facebook thread not to open a debate on its content, but to point out that the behavior of some of the Facebook commentors harmed EAs or EA adjacent organizations through putting an emotional toll on people, and that this kind of behavior is explicitly costing EA. That seems like a really important thing to discuss—regardless of what you think of the content of the thread, the content EricHerboso refers to in it negatively impacted the movement.
Dale’s comment feels unnecessarily trollish, but also tries to turn the thread into a conversation about what I see as an unrelated topic (the rules of conduct in a random animal rights Facebook group). It vaguely tries to tie back to the post, but mostly this seems like a weak disguise for trolling EricHerboso.
Quick meta comment: Thanks for explaining your downvote; I think that’s helpful practice in general