There’s a very fine line between publicly choosing to shun someone and campaigning to actively demonize /target them. Mind you don’t become that against which you’re so loudly pontificating.
Amen to everything you said. I am a true believer in shunning and ostracizing ppl w dangerous and harmful viewpoints. I personally do not engage with MAGAts, neo-Nazis or RW extremists. The freedom of speech does not extend to the right to distribute vile and hateful rhetoric that endangers others. We wouldn’t be here if every person shunned and ostracized their RW/neo-Nazi partner/relative/colleagues bc they’re “otherwise a nice person.” Going along to get along hurts others. That face eating leopard is going to eat your face too…eventually. Just wait and see.
Skepticism used to imply a good thing - the idea extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Now it is used to discard things proved by scientific methods for generations.
shunning is the only thing that truly works against white supremacist christian nationalists, not to mention incarceration for their hate crimes. incarceration is also helpful. But in Amerikkka, white makes right, still, unfortunately.
elon likes it here because it reminds him of apartheid, I heard.
The freedom of association — unlike the rights of religion, speech, press, assembly, and petition — is a right not listed in the First Amendment but recognized by the courts as a fundamental right.
First Amendment protects two types of associative freedom
There are two types of freedom of association: the right to expressive association and the right to intimate association.
Additionally, the First Amendment protects a right to associate and a right not to associate together.
"The thing that seems to make Adams skeptical is credible evidence. Wherever credible evidence exists, he’s skeptical of it; where it is absent, he is a believer."
Well observed and applicable to many others than Adams.
Another interesting quote from the article: "His complaint is that he’s not being heard, but we know he is being heard, because we heard him. His real objection is something he can’t say without giving away the game. His real objection is that he’s being understood ... “free speech” should not only allow them to say whatever they want (which it does), but should also prevent other people from understanding them to be the sort of person who says those things"
A notion one could bring in here explicitly is responsibility. Dont we teach our children that with new freedoms they acquire while growing up also come new responsibilities?
Somehow I expected the comments to be smarter or more self-aware or in some way more uplifting than Twitter. But sadly, no. So many arbiters of reality here too who can't bring themselves to comment about the words actually written or their unambiguous meanings. Thanks AR for the laughs and for the very important focus on the complicity of the media in creating this upside-down worldview. I'm sick of being told that I need to understand the right. I do understand the right - they are supremacist a-holes doing terrible things and advocating for even more terrible things while claiming to be just ordinary Americans trying to reign in the out-of-control left. F.F.S.!
Pretty much everyone across the spectrum criticized NYT for their stupid “you have the right speak without fear of being shamed or shunned” line. No one believes that and basing an argument on it is just a straw man. And of course bad actors like the Dilbert clown are going to claim censorship when they are absolutely fairly ostracized.
But that doesn’t mean there’s not a pattern of “The Lottery”-style mob mentality branding Scarlet As on everyone before the full story even has a chance to come out. Jon Ronson wrote a whole book on it and Monica Lewinsky has a great documentary on the subject. For every Marjorine Greene or Dilbert guy, there are piles of people whose lives have truly been ruined by social media mobs and credulous journalism. The issue isn’t black and white. There’s a lot of grey area that needs nuanced debate. Like, where do we draw the line between the Harvey Weinsteins and the Emmanuel Caffertys (who got fired from his working class job at a utility company because someone took a pic of him holding his hand out the window in a vaguely 👌 way and was smeared online as throwing white supremacy signs - he’s Hispanic)?
I’m not worried about the Dave Chapelles (the Streisand Effect usually backfires on the criticism anyways by making him MORE popular) getting criticized, but the tons of everyday people who are branded, fired, or pressured to keeping their views quiet for fear of an overzealous Twitter mob. Even professors at a rate never seen in academia are being flushed at the first sign of criticism for very minor mistakes, which stifles discourse in the place most relied on for fostering open inquiry. From FIRE: “Since 2015, we documented 563 attempts (345 from the left, 202 from the right, 16 from neither) to get scholars canceled. Two thirds (362 incidents; 64 percent) of these cancellation attempts were successful, resulting in some form of professional sanction leveled at the scholar, including over one-fifth (117 incidents; 21 percent) resulting in termination … In 2001, the idea of one tenured professor being fired for protected speech seemed impossible, yet since 2015 there have been 30.” 65% of students on the left and right (black and white) surveyed said they felt they couldn’t express their views without fear of ostracism. (https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/09/academics-are-really-really-worried-about-their-freedom/615724/)
And Moxon illustrates this slippery slope when he goes from focusing on actual racists to legitimate journalism from the NYT on transgender care (Reuters did similar reporting that supported the evidence in Emily Bazelon’s piece for NYT). Whether or not the evidence turns in favor of the activists condemning the NYT or the NYT’s reporting is a legitimate topic up for discussion, and the experts and public should be able to freely debate that evidence through open discourse without being pressured into self-censorship.
This comment entirely ignores what Republicans are actually doing to marginalized people everywhere they can, as much as they can, as fast as they can, and all the ways that keeping their bigoted, ahistorical, and anti-scientific conspiracy-minded talking points in circulation abets them in their crusade of targeted menace, abuse, and harm.
I absolutely agree Republicans are hypocrites and practice the exact same censorship tactics as the left - in many cases far more insidiously. Many of the institutions the right focuses on are inherently left-leaning (like academia), but completely ignore right wing-dominated institutions such as law enforcement where their “code of silence” makes the left’s enforcement of norms look like your typical “No shirt, no service” sign. And the right claims sunlight is the best disinfectant (which I do believe) while actually criminalizing opposing views such as CRT. I didn’t mean to leave out my loathing for the right wing lol. I’m just usually quicker to criticize “my own side” because I feel like there’s actually a chance at a productive conversation with those on the left.
This attempt to “both sides” this issue distorts the truth rather than illuminating it.
The difference is that the right is building a fascist movement to use the power of the state to enforce 1984 style censorship throughout our society. At most, the left is guilty of being overly quick to shame people socially in some cases. These are not even close to the same thing.
Are you familiar with what Gov DeSantis is doing in FL? No one on the left is doing anything remotely similar.
A.R., you have bought into and are pushing the very narrative, and are reacting robotically --without grasping any of the context-- as a virtue signaler in the very way that Scott Adams predicted. How convenient. His methods are a little too clever for his own good as most of the public simply don't "get it," but his goal is to get society beyond the status quo toward better race relations. There really does seem to be a gene that senses sarcasm, satire, hyperbole, a gene that can create and understands memes. It's just an interesting thought and I recommend that you gather more information and reexamine your critique. Maybe in your echo chamber Scott Adams is just written off as a bigot as you move onto the next thing to be outraged about, but there are other circles that are right now discussing the points Scott brought up. He has already spurred race discussion in a positive direction beyond what the race grifters and virtue signalers will ever do. BTW, other than virtue signaling what have you done to improve race relations in America?
That was a great read! I've been following Scott Adams' Twitter for a few months now and I think Ken White nailed the mindset, what I was euphemistically referring to as "clever." A lot of Scott's followers have been calling him out for seemingly backtracking on his covid and vaccine opinions. Back to the topic, I believe that Adams really wants to make waves to help things. He's just not very refined and his approach alienates too many people, making him less effective.
I'm not sure why anyone would believe Scott wanted to "help things" at all - as far as I know he has not donated any of his massive fortune to charity, and is downright hostile to liberal/equitable causes. He has also cultivated a fanbase of people who, lets face it, tend to flirt a lot with open white supremacy. Seems like the only thing he cares about is that people view him as a genius.
sorry man but I've got a hard time believing that a man who lost his job for publicly advocating segregation because he took a Rasmussen poll seriously AND literally is clever at all. have you considered that perhaps this man is incredibly stupid?
We're probably more in agreement than disagreement. "Clever" has a wide interpretation. Please read my substack where I describe a few ways that he could have pulled this off without destroying himself in the process. It has the nuance that I think many miss in their rapid reactionary dismissal of him. Adams actually made a tweet last summer about retiring from cartooning, but doing it by being canceled. His words were not an unhinged "rant."
believe it or not, I watched some (not all) of his discussion with Hotep Jesus. I also heard him debate Sam Harris. both times I came away with the impression that Scott Adams is either a very dumb person who does not understand context and is very easily fooled by cherrypicked data, or he pretends to be as a way to appeal to conservatives. when people use the term "virtue signal" it kind of gives away the game - if they themselves don't really care about issues that don't directly apply to them, they assume that naturally, others don't either. There's a reason this man can't respond to any bit of criticism rather than to say "oh you misunderstood me". Isn't this man supposed to be a linguistic master or something?
Great article. I think you nailed it. It really does bother me when these brain geniuses (Chappelle is another one) constantly insist they're being misunderstood and can't be criticized, at least not until one has watched every single thing they've said. And yet when they go on these bigoted rants it's always over one thing taken way out of context. Good riddance Scott, history ain't gonna remember shit about Dilbert but it might remember you being a racist and supremely weird piece of garbage.
It seems to me this essay – if we dignify it with that term – says more about the blogger's intolerance than it does about Scott Adams.
They appear to be offended that any prominent person might question the anthropogenic global warming theory, as do many climate scientists and other educated people, or question how many of the deaths attributed to Covid-19 were actually caused by the virus and how many were a result of government lockdowns and the economic harm caused by their policies that cost many people their livelihoods, their regular medical checkups and treatments, etc., as do many doctors and medical professionals.
They want you to believe that just saying it's okay to be white amounts to advocacy of white supremacy, because saying it's okay to have light-colored skin goes against the fashionable form of hate speech that says people of European ancestry are guilty (along with capitalism, the perennial whipping boy of the left) for everything wrong with the world. They want people like themselves to dictate what the rest of us are allowed to believe or think, and cannot stand the reality of there being widespread dissent on what they regard as holy writ.
Name the “climate scientists” who question whether people are changing the climate. I’ll wait. And remember, you said that “many” such scientists exist, so you should be easily able to provide quote a large list.
You should also Google “the Dunning-Kruger effect.” You don’t know enough about climate science or epidemiology to understand that your beliefs about these subjects are inaccurate, as this concept explains.
That's right. I'm not for stupidity, ignorance, or racism. But I recognize that trying to forcibly suppress or silence those deemed to be stupid, ignorant, or racist does more harm than good.
It is more important for society that there be public dissent from dogma and questioning of orthodoxy, than to silence everyone who's stupid, ignorant, or racist. Because if they can easily be silenced, you could be next.
What the hell are you talking about? "I'm not for stupidity, ignorance, or racism, I just think those that are should be allowed massive platforms which can never be taken away from them?" Why should a newspaper or publishing syndicate be forced to carry the work of an overt racist, when doing so would absolutely hurt their bottom line?
Scott Adams is not being "silenced" for god's sake, he's still whining to his hundreds of thousands of followers on Twitter. Come on, man. Books are being burned and entre fields of scientific study are being criminalized by the right. And you're concerned about Dilbert??
I see a distinction between saying that everyone has a "right" to a massive platform provided by a newspaper, publisher, or other voluntary sector organization, which I don't believe, and saying that people should try to completely shut down and exclude from public discourse any views that offend them, which I don't believe either.
I'll add that anyone who thinks only the right, or only the left, are the problem and guilty of the worst behavior, is clearly wearing a partisan hat and not looking at the situation fairly or objectively.
Your conservative ideology-based defensiveness caused you to miss the whole point.
The author doesn't say you must believe in X or Y or you'll be shunned. In fact it's stated that you can believe and say whatever the hell you want.
"Donald Trump is a bloviating yam and a lying con man!"... I just said that. And I believe it.
The point is now that I said it, I have to be prepared to live with the consequences of what I said. And when / if there are consequences, I'm not being "cancelled" or "subject to liberal media bias" (add sounds of crying conservative snowflakes here.) although in this case it would be a conservative bias, but whatever. Instead, I'm facing the consequences of my actions.
I wasn't being "defensive" (nothing to defend, as I haven't posted here before), simply responding to a cheap hit piece on Scott Adams. You're way off the mark in assuming I'm a conservative and that I don't believe in free speech. The blogger exercised theirs, I exercised mine, and now you're exercising yours. I have noticed however that when people raise the issue of ideology, it's almost always to point to it in others, never in themselves.
Not at all. Centrists lacking a moral compass have always carried water for the right.
It's only strange that you don't understand attacks on person A commonly trigger defensive feelings in person B, when person B strongly identifies with the situation of person A.
Because otherwise, why are you misrepresenting Moxon's post? And you need to explain why a "cheap hit piece" isn't just any criticism you don't like.
I didn't ask for your forgiveness. If you're feeling generous, I suggest apologizing to the public for saying that people should be shunned for daring to question establishment dogma surrounding the issues of Covid and global warming.
There’s a very fine line between publicly choosing to shun someone and campaigning to actively demonize /target them. Mind you don’t become that against which you’re so loudly pontificating.
I miss the old Scott.
Shunning comes pretty easily to me. You are infinitely more eloquent about it. Such a really good piece of writing.
Amen to everything you said. I am a true believer in shunning and ostracizing ppl w dangerous and harmful viewpoints. I personally do not engage with MAGAts, neo-Nazis or RW extremists. The freedom of speech does not extend to the right to distribute vile and hateful rhetoric that endangers others. We wouldn’t be here if every person shunned and ostracized their RW/neo-Nazi partner/relative/colleagues bc they’re “otherwise a nice person.” Going along to get along hurts others. That face eating leopard is going to eat your face too…eventually. Just wait and see.
Skepticism used to imply a good thing - the idea extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Now it is used to discard things proved by scientific methods for generations.
Loved the article.
shunning is the only thing that truly works against white supremacist christian nationalists, not to mention incarceration for their hate crimes. incarceration is also helpful. But in Amerikkka, white makes right, still, unfortunately.
elon likes it here because it reminds him of apartheid, I heard.
The freedom of association — unlike the rights of religion, speech, press, assembly, and petition — is a right not listed in the First Amendment but recognized by the courts as a fundamental right.
First Amendment protects two types of associative freedom
There are two types of freedom of association: the right to expressive association and the right to intimate association.
Additionally, the First Amendment protects a right to associate and a right not to associate together.
"The thing that seems to make Adams skeptical is credible evidence. Wherever credible evidence exists, he’s skeptical of it; where it is absent, he is a believer."
Well observed and applicable to many others than Adams.
Another interesting quote from the article: "His complaint is that he’s not being heard, but we know he is being heard, because we heard him. His real objection is something he can’t say without giving away the game. His real objection is that he’s being understood ... “free speech” should not only allow them to say whatever they want (which it does), but should also prevent other people from understanding them to be the sort of person who says those things"
A notion one could bring in here explicitly is responsibility. Dont we teach our children that with new freedoms they acquire while growing up also come new responsibilities?
I remember @Charlotte Clymer explained many years ago to me on Twitter what a sexist fuckwad Scott Adams is.
Absolute clowns at the NYT.
Incoherent nonsense:
A [ Everyone has a right to speak their mind free from all consequences ]
B [ We will not tolerate anyone who works for us criticizing our coverage ]
Two entirely incompatible positions voiced on the same topic.
It's a consistent pattern from their editorial board.
Somehow I expected the comments to be smarter or more self-aware or in some way more uplifting than Twitter. But sadly, no. So many arbiters of reality here too who can't bring themselves to comment about the words actually written or their unambiguous meanings. Thanks AR for the laughs and for the very important focus on the complicity of the media in creating this upside-down worldview. I'm sick of being told that I need to understand the right. I do understand the right - they are supremacist a-holes doing terrible things and advocating for even more terrible things while claiming to be just ordinary Americans trying to reign in the out-of-control left. F.F.S.!
Pretty much everyone across the spectrum criticized NYT for their stupid “you have the right speak without fear of being shamed or shunned” line. No one believes that and basing an argument on it is just a straw man. And of course bad actors like the Dilbert clown are going to claim censorship when they are absolutely fairly ostracized.
But that doesn’t mean there’s not a pattern of “The Lottery”-style mob mentality branding Scarlet As on everyone before the full story even has a chance to come out. Jon Ronson wrote a whole book on it and Monica Lewinsky has a great documentary on the subject. For every Marjorine Greene or Dilbert guy, there are piles of people whose lives have truly been ruined by social media mobs and credulous journalism. The issue isn’t black and white. There’s a lot of grey area that needs nuanced debate. Like, where do we draw the line between the Harvey Weinsteins and the Emmanuel Caffertys (who got fired from his working class job at a utility company because someone took a pic of him holding his hand out the window in a vaguely 👌 way and was smeared online as throwing white supremacy signs - he’s Hispanic)?
I’m not worried about the Dave Chapelles (the Streisand Effect usually backfires on the criticism anyways by making him MORE popular) getting criticized, but the tons of everyday people who are branded, fired, or pressured to keeping their views quiet for fear of an overzealous Twitter mob. Even professors at a rate never seen in academia are being flushed at the first sign of criticism for very minor mistakes, which stifles discourse in the place most relied on for fostering open inquiry. From FIRE: “Since 2015, we documented 563 attempts (345 from the left, 202 from the right, 16 from neither) to get scholars canceled. Two thirds (362 incidents; 64 percent) of these cancellation attempts were successful, resulting in some form of professional sanction leveled at the scholar, including over one-fifth (117 incidents; 21 percent) resulting in termination … In 2001, the idea of one tenured professor being fired for protected speech seemed impossible, yet since 2015 there have been 30.” 65% of students on the left and right (black and white) surveyed said they felt they couldn’t express their views without fear of ostracism. (https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/09/academics-are-really-really-worried-about-their-freedom/615724/)
This clearly has slipped past social enforcement of new norms to a culture that survivors of the USSR and Mao’s China say is becoming reminiscent of the stifling atmosphere they escaped. (Anne Applebaum wrote a good piece for the Atlantic on that https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2021/10/new-puritans-mob-justice-canceled/619818/)
And Moxon illustrates this slippery slope when he goes from focusing on actual racists to legitimate journalism from the NYT on transgender care (Reuters did similar reporting that supported the evidence in Emily Bazelon’s piece for NYT). Whether or not the evidence turns in favor of the activists condemning the NYT or the NYT’s reporting is a legitimate topic up for discussion, and the experts and public should be able to freely debate that evidence through open discourse without being pressured into self-censorship.
This comment entirely ignores what Republicans are actually doing to marginalized people everywhere they can, as much as they can, as fast as they can, and all the ways that keeping their bigoted, ahistorical, and anti-scientific conspiracy-minded talking points in circulation abets them in their crusade of targeted menace, abuse, and harm.
Otherwise awesome comment.
I absolutely agree Republicans are hypocrites and practice the exact same censorship tactics as the left - in many cases far more insidiously. Many of the institutions the right focuses on are inherently left-leaning (like academia), but completely ignore right wing-dominated institutions such as law enforcement where their “code of silence” makes the left’s enforcement of norms look like your typical “No shirt, no service” sign. And the right claims sunlight is the best disinfectant (which I do believe) while actually criminalizing opposing views such as CRT. I didn’t mean to leave out my loathing for the right wing lol. I’m just usually quicker to criticize “my own side” because I feel like there’s actually a chance at a productive conversation with those on the left.
This attempt to “both sides” this issue distorts the truth rather than illuminating it.
The difference is that the right is building a fascist movement to use the power of the state to enforce 1984 style censorship throughout our society. At most, the left is guilty of being overly quick to shame people socially in some cases. These are not even close to the same thing.
Are you familiar with what Gov DeSantis is doing in FL? No one on the left is doing anything remotely similar.
I'd say accurate. And I'm not Scott Adams.
A.R., you have bought into and are pushing the very narrative, and are reacting robotically --without grasping any of the context-- as a virtue signaler in the very way that Scott Adams predicted. How convenient. His methods are a little too clever for his own good as most of the public simply don't "get it," but his goal is to get society beyond the status quo toward better race relations. There really does seem to be a gene that senses sarcasm, satire, hyperbole, a gene that can create and understands memes. It's just an interesting thought and I recommend that you gather more information and reexamine your critique. Maybe in your echo chamber Scott Adams is just written off as a bigot as you move onto the next thing to be outraged about, but there are other circles that are right now discussing the points Scott brought up. He has already spurred race discussion in a positive direction beyond what the race grifters and virtue signalers will ever do. BTW, other than virtue signaling what have you done to improve race relations in America?
Ken White said it better. And by that I mean he said what YOU said better.
https://post.news/@/popehat/2MQJ4k9HJnheREhy6iguOZmsbhT
That was a great read! I've been following Scott Adams' Twitter for a few months now and I think Ken White nailed the mindset, what I was euphemistically referring to as "clever." A lot of Scott's followers have been calling him out for seemingly backtracking on his covid and vaccine opinions. Back to the topic, I believe that Adams really wants to make waves to help things. He's just not very refined and his approach alienates too many people, making him less effective.
I'm not sure why anyone would believe Scott wanted to "help things" at all - as far as I know he has not donated any of his massive fortune to charity, and is downright hostile to liberal/equitable causes. He has also cultivated a fanbase of people who, lets face it, tend to flirt a lot with open white supremacy. Seems like the only thing he cares about is that people view him as a genius.
Here's another great read on the topic.
https://theintercept.com/2023/02/27/scott-adams-dilbert-racism/
sorry man but I've got a hard time believing that a man who lost his job for publicly advocating segregation because he took a Rasmussen poll seriously AND literally is clever at all. have you considered that perhaps this man is incredibly stupid?
We're probably more in agreement than disagreement. "Clever" has a wide interpretation. Please read my substack where I describe a few ways that he could have pulled this off without destroying himself in the process. It has the nuance that I think many miss in their rapid reactionary dismissal of him. Adams actually made a tweet last summer about retiring from cartooning, but doing it by being canceled. His words were not an unhinged "rant."
believe it or not, I watched some (not all) of his discussion with Hotep Jesus. I also heard him debate Sam Harris. both times I came away with the impression that Scott Adams is either a very dumb person who does not understand context and is very easily fooled by cherrypicked data, or he pretends to be as a way to appeal to conservatives. when people use the term "virtue signal" it kind of gives away the game - if they themselves don't really care about issues that don't directly apply to them, they assume that naturally, others don't either. There's a reason this man can't respond to any bit of criticism rather than to say "oh you misunderstood me". Isn't this man supposed to be a linguistic master or something?
This is sort of all over the place, but one thing that comes through loud and clear is your strong passion for improving race relations in America.
Thank you for the worded comment, and I'd like to invite you to support the newsletter with a paid subscription.
https://armoxon.substack.com/about
Great article. I think you nailed it. It really does bother me when these brain geniuses (Chappelle is another one) constantly insist they're being misunderstood and can't be criticized, at least not until one has watched every single thing they've said. And yet when they go on these bigoted rants it's always over one thing taken way out of context. Good riddance Scott, history ain't gonna remember shit about Dilbert but it might remember you being a racist and supremely weird piece of garbage.
This
It seems to me this essay – if we dignify it with that term – says more about the blogger's intolerance than it does about Scott Adams.
They appear to be offended that any prominent person might question the anthropogenic global warming theory, as do many climate scientists and other educated people, or question how many of the deaths attributed to Covid-19 were actually caused by the virus and how many were a result of government lockdowns and the economic harm caused by their policies that cost many people their livelihoods, their regular medical checkups and treatments, etc., as do many doctors and medical professionals.
They want you to believe that just saying it's okay to be white amounts to advocacy of white supremacy, because saying it's okay to have light-colored skin goes against the fashionable form of hate speech that says people of European ancestry are guilty (along with capitalism, the perennial whipping boy of the left) for everything wrong with the world. They want people like themselves to dictate what the rest of us are allowed to believe or think, and cannot stand the reality of there being widespread dissent on what they regard as holy writ.
Name the “climate scientists” who question whether people are changing the climate. I’ll wait. And remember, you said that “many” such scientists exist, so you should be easily able to provide quote a large list.
You should also Google “the Dunning-Kruger effect.” You don’t know enough about climate science or epidemiology to understand that your beliefs about these subjects are inaccurate, as this concept explains.
Free your mind, and the rest will follow.
This is America. You are free to be as stupid, ignorant, and racist as you want!
That's right. I'm not for stupidity, ignorance, or racism. But I recognize that trying to forcibly suppress or silence those deemed to be stupid, ignorant, or racist does more harm than good.
It is more important for society that there be public dissent from dogma and questioning of orthodoxy, than to silence everyone who's stupid, ignorant, or racist. Because if they can easily be silenced, you could be next.
What the hell are you talking about? "I'm not for stupidity, ignorance, or racism, I just think those that are should be allowed massive platforms which can never be taken away from them?" Why should a newspaper or publishing syndicate be forced to carry the work of an overt racist, when doing so would absolutely hurt their bottom line?
Scott Adams is not being "silenced" for god's sake, he's still whining to his hundreds of thousands of followers on Twitter. Come on, man. Books are being burned and entre fields of scientific study are being criminalized by the right. And you're concerned about Dilbert??
I see a distinction between saying that everyone has a "right" to a massive platform provided by a newspaper, publisher, or other voluntary sector organization, which I don't believe, and saying that people should try to completely shut down and exclude from public discourse any views that offend them, which I don't believe either.
"people should try to completely shut down and exclude from public discourse any views that offend them"
Who advocated this?
If that's not the goal, what is, in your view?
I'll add that anyone who thinks only the right, or only the left, are the problem and guilty of the worst behavior, is clearly wearing a partisan hat and not looking at the situation fairly or objectively.
Your conservative ideology-based defensiveness caused you to miss the whole point.
The author doesn't say you must believe in X or Y or you'll be shunned. In fact it's stated that you can believe and say whatever the hell you want.
"Donald Trump is a bloviating yam and a lying con man!"... I just said that. And I believe it.
The point is now that I said it, I have to be prepared to live with the consequences of what I said. And when / if there are consequences, I'm not being "cancelled" or "subject to liberal media bias" (add sounds of crying conservative snowflakes here.) although in this case it would be a conservative bias, but whatever. Instead, I'm facing the consequences of my actions.
I wasn't being "defensive" (nothing to defend, as I haven't posted here before), simply responding to a cheap hit piece on Scott Adams. You're way off the mark in assuming I'm a conservative and that I don't believe in free speech. The blogger exercised theirs, I exercised mine, and now you're exercising yours. I have noticed however that when people raise the issue of ideology, it's almost always to point to it in others, never in themselves.
"a cheap hit piece on Scott Adams"
Defensive.
I'd say accurate. And given that I'm not Scott Adams, "defensive" is a strange accusation in this context.
Not at all. Centrists lacking a moral compass have always carried water for the right.
It's only strange that you don't understand attacks on person A commonly trigger defensive feelings in person B, when person B strongly identifies with the situation of person A.
Because otherwise, why are you misrepresenting Moxon's post? And you need to explain why a "cheap hit piece" isn't just any criticism you don't like.
Apology accepted.
What are you talking about?
You are forgiven.
I didn't ask for your forgiveness. If you're feeling generous, I suggest apologizing to the public for saying that people should be shunned for daring to question establishment dogma surrounding the issues of Covid and global warming.
I am indeed feeling generous, and so you are forgiven.
We'll say no more of it.