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Escaping the Echo Chamber

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Frelga
Post subject: Re: Escaping the Echo Chamber
Posted: Mon 27 Nov , 2017 8:14 pm
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I asked you several times on HoF to clarify exactly what your position was. It's your choice to not do that, but I don't hold with taking the conflict cross-boards.

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aninkling
Post subject: Re: Escaping the Echo Chamber
Posted: Mon 27 Nov , 2017 10:36 pm
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Well, someone has to be on either end of the spectrum, Al, if we're all being honest about our opinions. :)

I think I've mentioned before that I sometimes browse a nonpartisan news discussion site. Not that the political discussions are necessarily great - too often, they quickly degenerate into simplistic, knee jerk reactions of people trying to score points for "their" side instead of listening and considering an argument. (inevitably dominated at the end by a few highly partisan people). But it tends to shake up my preconceived notions about people when someone whose opinion I strongly disagree with on one topic turns out to have a reasonable, novel viewpoint (IMO, of course) on another. Especially when it's not something I would have thought of or known about.

So I wouldn't get too discouraged if people don't necessarily agree with you. I tend to think the exposure to a different viewpoint is valuable in itself.

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Society can and does execute its own mandates, and if it issues wrong mandates instead of right, or any mandates at all in things with it ought not to meddle, it practices a social tyranny more formidable than many kinds of political oppression, since, though not usually upheld by such extreme penalties, it leaves fewer means of escape, penetrating much more deeply into the details of life, and enslaving the soul itself. ― John Stuart Mill


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Post subject: Re: Escaping the Echo Chamber
Posted: Tue 28 Nov , 2017 9:44 am
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I explained several times Frelga. You and others chose not to accept it at face value. I'm not explaining it again.

The problem I see on HoF aninkling, is that if someone as center left as me is the opposite end of the spectrum on HoF its gone far beyond an Echo Chamber. I may occasionally drop in there in future to check up on LotR TV Series news, but as a place for discussion its become too homogenised for comfort. I think its telling that I'm one of the few non-US posters who tried to keep posting there. Impy, Faramond, Griffy all stopped engaging year ago and the likes of Hal and SF got banned. When I'm the new Hal, there's something to worry about.

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aninkling
Post subject: Re: Escaping the Echo Chamber
Posted: Tue 28 Nov , 2017 2:20 pm
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Al, I haven't paid attention to any recent topics on HoF, but the online atmosphere in the U.S. is not, IMO, currently conducive to sensible discussion of sexual harassment, relationships between men and women, or anything else sexual. (Though I'm hoping things might be getting a bit calmer, with editorials like the one I posted.) I saw one guy just trying to point out that, in the Roy Moore case, only one of his actions with the original accusers could actually be considered illegal. No matter how often he explained that he found Moore's dating of the other teenagers distasteful and creepy, just not illegal, he was shouted down as a defender of Moore. Being a centrist is not a comfortable position right now. I'm not sure it's an echo chamber thing, but a polarization of online debate.

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Society can and does execute its own mandates, and if it issues wrong mandates instead of right, or any mandates at all in things with it ought not to meddle, it practices a social tyranny more formidable than many kinds of political oppression, since, though not usually upheld by such extreme penalties, it leaves fewer means of escape, penetrating much more deeply into the details of life, and enslaving the soul itself. ― John Stuart Mill


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Post subject: Re: Escaping the Echo Chamber
Posted: Mon 04 Dec , 2017 3:28 pm
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Here's a perfect example of the sort of case I'm referring to.

http://www.thejournal.ie/tinder-rape-ca ... 4-Nov2017/

Even though the article is very biased in the woman's favour, it can't disguise the fact that this was a "He said/She said" case.

His version of the story: Went on tinder to meet a woman for sex. Said he wanted sex. Went on a date. Drove her to a secluded spot. Made a pass and was rebuffed. Said "Fine so, walk home", drove her to a lit up area and told her to get out of the car. Pretty unpleasant and ungentlemanly, but hardly criminal.

Her version of the story: Went on Tinder to meet someone to help her learn English. Guy said he wanted sex. She went on a date thinking they would go to a coffee shop. Instead he tried to grab her breast and kiss her. She rebuffed him. He "turned into a monster" and threw her out of the car.

Now, he's in jail and will be a registered Sex Offender for life.

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aninkling
Post subject: Re: Escaping the Echo Chamber
Posted: Fri 08 Dec , 2017 2:37 pm
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Al, this does seem to be a he said/she said case, but if it was/ will be a court case, I assume a preponderance of evidence will be needed to convict him. I have reservations about the "sex offender for life" business because it lumps sexual offenders of all sorts into one category, including those who are a real, continuing danger to others and those who are not. But that's a separate issue.

My concerns are more with he said/she said ruining a man's career, cutting off the source of his income and even trying to wipe out unrelated accomplishments, sometimes decades after the event, on the basis of accusation and twitter mobs alone. For instance, Minnesota Public Radio won't air any more old Prairie Home Companion episodes with Garrison Keillor and is renaming the show he created, as well as kicking him out - all over what looks like a he said/she said accusation by a single woman - and pretty innocent if his account is true. To me, that seems pointless, and cruel to an elderly man. How exactly does eliminating his life's work make women safer? And was any useful purpose served by reshooting the scenes of an almost-completed movie to eliminate a role by an accused actor? It looks to me as if companies are acting quickly to protect their corporate reputations rather than spending time to conduct a thorough, fair review before acting. Not to mention acting in proportion to the crime. Trying to kiss one colleague when you were drunk at a social event shouldn't mete the same punishment (inevitably seems to be firing, these days) as systematically using your power over subordinates to abuse them.

Meh. The sex panic atmosphere has gotten so bad that politicians are being pilloried for things like sending a nude photo to an adult woman they were in a relationship with, years ago. Hardly anyone else's business but theirs, I think.

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Society can and does execute its own mandates, and if it issues wrong mandates instead of right, or any mandates at all in things with it ought not to meddle, it practices a social tyranny more formidable than many kinds of political oppression, since, though not usually upheld by such extreme penalties, it leaves fewer means of escape, penetrating much more deeply into the details of life, and enslaving the soul itself. ― John Stuart Mill


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Impenitent
Post subject: Re: Escaping the Echo Chamber
Posted: Fri 08 Dec , 2017 3:27 pm
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Al, you have my sympathies. Every now and then I'm tempted back into the conversation (the political ones, I mean) but I feel like my comments are treated like unexploded grenades.

HoFfers are good people, and the friendships I have there are genuine and meaningful to me, so I think that response comes partly because I have reputation for being a bit of a snowflake and no one wants to hurt my feelings. I don't deny I wilt easily, but when posts are consistently skirted I feel invisible and extraneous (and sometimes stupid) and, perversely, I post more and more irreverently. I haven't really examined why that is.

I admire you and Nin for your brazenness in having your say and damn the stone-throwers. It takes strength to do that. Faramond does this too, of course, but I think he's tired of the lack of conversation - a one way communication that's met by a stone wall is awfully hard to maintain for long. A pity, for I miss his input, though he often puts a point of view at odds with mine; that's very valuable to me because I value intelligent divergence when it's honest and thoughtful. Adherence to an ideology, or traveling with the current of the dominant zeitgeist, is not interesting as a vehicle of communication or debate.


Sent from a tiny phone keyboard via Tapatalk - typos inevitable.

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Frelga
Post subject: Re: Escaping the Echo Chamber
Posted: Tue 23 Jan , 2018 5:30 am
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Speaking of echo chambers

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Post subject: Re: Escaping the Echo Chamber
Posted: Tue 23 Jan , 2018 8:35 am
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Eh... ok?

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LalaithUrwen
Post subject: Re: Escaping the Echo Chamber
Posted: Tue 30 Jan , 2018 2:49 pm
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I'd like more clarification on that, too.

It's kind of beside the point, but I did read something this morning that made me angry but also made me smile. Moody Bible Institute is facing some bad press, and I now know why my old pastor was such a misogynist.

http://www.janaygarrick.com/pink-blog/2 ... ign=buffer

1) This is where my pastor went to college for some of his education. His wife, too.
2) I didn't realize Moody himself favored allowing women to preach, so that's kind of cool.
3) I'm glad they're working to dismantle this bullshit.


And Aziz Ansari. WTF to think about this? I actually very much understand where this woman is coming from. I think so many of us have been in icky situations where we weren't quite sure what to do, and we ended up giving in and doing things we weren't comfortable with or regret. Is she claiming sexual assault?

(I can move this stuff out of this thread, if anyone likes. It's not supposed to be just about sexual assault/women's rights.)

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aninkling
Post subject: Re: Escaping the Echo Chamber
Posted: Tue 30 Jan , 2018 3:18 pm
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Quote:
It's not supposed to be just about sexual assault/women's rights
I agree. I wouldn't move it. Just don't have time to read your link right now.
Quote:
I think so many of us have been in icky situations where we weren't quite sure what to do, and we ended up giving in and doing things we weren't comfortable with or regret.
Take out the sexual aspects, and I think most of us would probably agree that such things are a common experience in life. :) Hopefully, it's a learning experience and you grow and learn what your own personal boundaries are, and how to approach things next time.



Edit: I had no idea who Aziz Ansari was or why he was in the news, and when I searched, I stumbled onto an article in the Atlantic that I hoped would enlighten me. https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainme ... ri/550541/
Thought this was interesting, and pretty much consistent with my experiences and those of friends in my generation.
Quote:
But in one essential aspect they reminded us that we were strong in a way ... They told us over and over again that if a man tried to push you into anything you didn’t want, even just a kiss, you told him flat out you weren’t doing it. If he kept going, you got away from him. You were always to have “mad money” with you: cab fare in case he got “fresh” and then refused to drive you home. They told you to slap him if you had to; they told you to get out of the car and start wailing if you had to. They told you to do whatever it took to stop him from using your body in any way you didn’t want, and under no circumstances to go down without a fight. In so many ways, compared with today’s young women, we were weak; we were being prepared for being wives and mothers, not occupants of the C-Suite. But as far as getting away from a man who was trying to pressure us into sex we didn’t want, we were strong.
Had I been the woman in the story, I would have been out of there ASAP. Actually, the one time a date tried to pressure me into something I was uncomfortable with, I got furious and told him that agreeing to one thing didn't mean he had permission for everything. He went from annoyed to deeply apologetic in about 10 seconds flat. We both learned something from the experience.

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Society can and does execute its own mandates, and if it issues wrong mandates instead of right, or any mandates at all in things with it ought not to meddle, it practices a social tyranny more formidable than many kinds of political oppression, since, though not usually upheld by such extreme penalties, it leaves fewer means of escape, penetrating much more deeply into the details of life, and enslaving the soul itself. ― John Stuart Mill


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LalaithUrwen
Post subject: Re: Escaping the Echo Chamber
Posted: Wed 31 Jan , 2018 4:10 am
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I'm still processing this one, so I don't have much to say yet.

That was an interesting article, for sure.

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LalaithUrwen
Post subject: Re: Escaping the Echo Chamber
Posted: Wed 31 Jan , 2018 10:41 pm
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So my thoughts on this account only:

1) We do only have this woman's account. If Aziz has responded, I've missed it.
2) I think he displayed boorish, aggressive, icky behavior, but she could have left and didn't.
3) I don't think it quite counts as assault or anything, though I have sympathy for her in not feeling strong enough to say no. I totally get that. Totally.
4) More of us do need to learn to say no and to stand up for ourselves. I got myself in a lot of trouble over the years on this point alone. (For me, though, even when I did start saying no, the behavior didn't change. Could I have left earlier? That gets more complicated.)

My two cents, fwiw.

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aninkling
Post subject: Re: Escaping the Echo Chamber
Posted: Thu 01 Feb , 2018 1:02 am
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To me, this is the crux of the matter:
Quote:
For me, though, even when I did start saying no, the behavior didn't change.
If you clearly say no, and the other person forces himself/herself on you, that's simply wrong.



btw, Ansari did respond:
https://edition.cnn.com/2018/01/15/ente ... -responds/ He says he thought it was consensual.

Out of (mild) curiosity, I went back and found her original account. I don't know if you've read it, or just the summaries.
https://babe.net/2018/01/13/aziz-ansari-28355
My impressions after reading it were:
1) Whoa, someone needs to give everyone with an internet connection this level of detail about a bad date?! Not only did she disregard her own privacy, but his as well. She could easily have made her point without telling us all about every single sexual thing he did, unless her purpose was to embarrass him.
2) After reading her account of the entire date, I think he was probably pushy about wanting sex, but I suspect the encounter is also slanted to make herself look good. She comes across as passive during the date, but later complains about minor things, even before they went back to his apartment. Her first complaint is that he offered her white wine in his apartment and she likes red wine! (huh? was she upset he didn't read her mind?). And the "signals" she was giving during this encounter sound ambiguous and possible to misinterpret.

And then she sat there and watched Seinfeld with him (with their clothes on) after their encounter. Sorry, but why on earth would you prolong a bad date that way?


Edit: After thinking about it, I guess my main take-away from her account would be that both young men and young women should try to be more obvious about communicating. Sexual signals can be tricky enough with someone you've dated for a while. I imagine it's even more of a minefield when the other person is essentially a stranger and you don't know much about their personality or reactions.

For instance, pulling away and mumbling could mean anything from "this particular act doesn't turn me on" to "I don't want to have sex" to "Not just yet (contraceptives issue)" And "When do you want to have intercourse?" A: "The next date." could be a polite brush-off in one person's mind, while the other person could be focusing on it as "Yes, I do want to have intercourse eventually." On the other hand, he could certainly have stopped and asked "Hey, does this mean you're not interested at all, right now, or is it just what I'm specifically doing?" Especially after a pattern where she kept rebuffing him after their initial consensual acts.

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Society can and does execute its own mandates, and if it issues wrong mandates instead of right, or any mandates at all in things with it ought not to meddle, it practices a social tyranny more formidable than many kinds of political oppression, since, though not usually upheld by such extreme penalties, it leaves fewer means of escape, penetrating much more deeply into the details of life, and enslaving the soul itself. ― John Stuart Mill


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aninkling
Post subject: Re: Escaping the Echo Chamber
Posted: Tue 06 Feb , 2018 3:03 am
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This new article in Harper's is very long, but it's a different perspective on the MeToo movement and the nuances we should perhaps be talking about.
https://harpers.org/archive/2018/02/the ... r-network/
A few quotes:
Quote:
To hold a lot of opposites in our minds seems to be what the moment calls for, to tolerate and be honest about the ambiguities. If we are going through a true reckoning, there should be space for more authentically diverging points of view, a full range of feelings, space to hash through what is and is not sexual misconduct, which is an important and genuinely confusing question about which reasonable people can and will disagree.
Quote:
If on some subterranean level of this conversation all men are presumed guilty, then all women are innocent, and I guess my question is, Do we really want that innocence? What is the price of it?
Quote:
Part of what bothers many of the people I talked to is the tone of moral purity. As a culture, we seem to be in the midst of dividing ourselves into the flawless and the fallen, the morally correct and the damned.
Quote:
No one would talk to me for this piece. Or rather, more than twenty women talked to me, sometimes for hours at a time, but only after I promised to leave out their names, and give them what I began to call deep anonymity. This was strange, because what they were saying did not always seem that extreme. Yet here in my living room, at coffee shops, in my inbox and on my voicemail, were otherwise outspoken female novelists, editors, writers, real estate agents, professors, and journalists of various ages so afraid of appearing politically insensitive that they wouldn’t put their names to their thoughts, and I couldn’t blame them.
I will say that many of the women I know are saying similar things to each other as in this article, but not to anyone we don't know well. I tend to think that, in these days of Twitter mobs, a lot of more reasoned voices are being drowned out. Twitter is not a form of communication that encourages subtlety.

I'm not saying that the writer of this piece is necessarily right at all times, but the "prepublication fury" she describes seems a symptom (to me, at least) of where some of the most vocal voices of MeToo are going wrong and heading down the path of extremism.

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Society can and does execute its own mandates, and if it issues wrong mandates instead of right, or any mandates at all in things with it ought not to meddle, it practices a social tyranny more formidable than many kinds of political oppression, since, though not usually upheld by such extreme penalties, it leaves fewer means of escape, penetrating much more deeply into the details of life, and enslaving the soul itself. ― John Stuart Mill


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Post subject: Re: Escaping the Echo Chamber
Posted: Tue 06 Feb , 2018 12:03 pm
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Superb article aninkling. But then I agree with every word in it. That probably makes me an accomplice or something.

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aninkling
Post subject: Re: Escaping the Echo Chamber
Posted: Tue 06 Feb , 2018 1:47 pm
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I agree with much of it, but, at some points, I think she focuses a little too much on the loudest voices on the fringe of MeToo. For instance, I doubt that the majority of women truly believe the "all men are guilty" viewpoint. Or at least I hope not. Likewise, I hope that "all women are innocent" is a fringe viewpoint. (Though I am concerned about whether we're heading toward the infantilization of women. And the price of that.)

I also think that dismissing women's fears about personal safety (things like walking alone at night) because a few women feel perfectly safe, is as bad as someone who exaggerates valid concerns into "women always need to be afraid that a taxi driver might rape them."

But I'm very glad she has dared to criticize the intolerance. I have seen so many instances lately where a prominent woman - often an older woman with some experience of the world, and even a woman with a reputation as a feminist - is essentially lynched for going against the mob. Or where women say something in support of a male colleague and the immediate reaction is to call them traitors. To me, they are also brave in saying what they think and damn the consequences. In the current atmosphere, I doubt that men even dare to speak out in support of a colleague. And that's wrong - this is a conversation that needs to involve both men and women and all viewpoints.

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Society can and does execute its own mandates, and if it issues wrong mandates instead of right, or any mandates at all in things with it ought not to meddle, it practices a social tyranny more formidable than many kinds of political oppression, since, though not usually upheld by such extreme penalties, it leaves fewer means of escape, penetrating much more deeply into the details of life, and enslaving the soul itself. ― John Stuart Mill


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aninkling
Post subject: Re: Escaping the Echo Chamber
Posted: Tue 06 Feb , 2018 5:36 pm
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Coincidentally, the Atlantic also had an article/ interview today about diversity in viewpoints, this time in academia. I thought it was interesting.
https://www.theatlantic.com/education/a ... us/552275/
Quote:
As of this year, more than 1,500 college professors and a couple hundred graduate students have joined Heterodox Academy, a nonprofit founded in 2015 on the premise that research and teaching suffer when college campuses lack diverse viewpoints.

Amid recent tumult in academia, where student protests have been common and clashes over free speech and intellectual inquiry have made national headlines, these academics agreed with the view that university life requires encountering different perspectives in an environment where people are free to constructively challenge one another.

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Society can and does execute its own mandates, and if it issues wrong mandates instead of right, or any mandates at all in things with it ought not to meddle, it practices a social tyranny more formidable than many kinds of political oppression, since, though not usually upheld by such extreme penalties, it leaves fewer means of escape, penetrating much more deeply into the details of life, and enslaving the soul itself. ― John Stuart Mill


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yovargas
Post subject: Re: Escaping the Echo Chamber
Posted: Thu 08 Feb , 2018 12:44 am
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Quote:
If on some subterranean level of this conversation all men are presumed guilty, then all women are innocent, and I guess my question is, Do we really want that innocence?
I have not read the very long article as I am fatigued about this topic but that seeing quote certainly doesn't do much to think that this person is interested in a reasonable, fair-minded discussion.


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Frelga
Post subject: Re: Escaping the Echo Chamber
Posted: Thu 08 Feb , 2018 7:38 am
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yovargas wrote:
Quote:
If on some subterranean level of this conversation all men are presumed guilty, then all women are innocent, and I guess my question is, Do we really want that innocence?
I have not read the very long article as I am fatigued about this topic but that seeing quote certainly doesn't do much to think that this person is interested in a reasonable, fair-minded discussion.
That paragraph makes no sense on any level, starting with presumption that if one party wronged another, it only counts if the other party is perfectly, angelically innocent. Which is illogical on the surface, and malicious if one digs a bit.

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