Wonderful response, Mike. Looking forward to the continued dialogue. Thanks to both of you for modeling good-faith (and rather well-written) discourse on a difficult topic. It is nice to feel, for once, that both interlocutors are sailing together towards the truth rather than coming alongside to fire cannons.
I was excited to subscribe and absolutely loved the letter. I think you are absolutely correct, though Adam also has a point that, at times, the response to cancel culture can take on the patina of moral panic. You have also helped me rethink my prejudice against puns ("I pith on your myth" is good). Good luck and I will share your page with others.
The thing that angers me about all this cancel Culture myth stuff is that it is actually hurting the people the "progressives" think they are helping. Directly by removing police from their communities (offering no alternative way to justice), pandering to this and that ethnic community like they're all one hive mind, and turning victimhood into a business where grifters thrive and scam their own communities.
I will actually be surprised if Adam responds to any of the points made in your letter Mike. Something is going on, we all know something is going on and people like Adam are desperately twisting themselves in knots to avoid admitting it. I don't know. Maybe you two will end up getting into a nuisanced discussion over the utilitarian perspective on this. He'll have to argue, "so what if there's collateral damage in the beginning, we're changing the culture by force! And you gotta break a few eggs to get to make a Utopian, land acknowledged, LGBTQIA+, body positive, anti-racist, Omelette." Because that is literally the only argument he can make that isn't laughable.
The chilling effect is definitely part of the point. The streamer Destiny was banned from Twitch for saying that trans woman shouldn't compete with cis women in sports, a view that wasn't just recently common, but probably still is a majority opinion. He wasn't financially ruined since he moved to Youtube, but it was definitely disruptive to his career. Now is any streamer on Twitch going to touch this subject with a 10 foot pole?
I hope you will reconsider joining Mastodon (on another instance, eg mastodon.social). I believe it’s too early to predict whether Mastodon will be a viable alternative to Twitter for many use cases. But I wouldn’t write it off yet, despite the troubles you encountered. If anything, establishing yourself on Mastodon now— after being suspended from journa.host— would serve as the perfect test of whether Mastodon can promote resilience against over-sensitive cancellations.
Unfortunately, in keeping with his response to Adam, Mike was cancelled from Mastodon. Check Monday's episode of The Gist for more details. It's even sillier than the affair with Slate.
Wonderful response, Mike. Looking forward to the continued dialogue. Thanks to both of you for modeling good-faith (and rather well-written) discourse on a difficult topic. It is nice to feel, for once, that both interlocutors are sailing together towards the truth rather than coming alongside to fire cannons.
Mike,
I was excited to subscribe and absolutely loved the letter. I think you are absolutely correct, though Adam also has a point that, at times, the response to cancel culture can take on the patina of moral panic. You have also helped me rethink my prejudice against puns ("I pith on your myth" is good). Good luck and I will share your page with others.
Very Respectfully,
Chris
The thing that angers me about all this cancel Culture myth stuff is that it is actually hurting the people the "progressives" think they are helping. Directly by removing police from their communities (offering no alternative way to justice), pandering to this and that ethnic community like they're all one hive mind, and turning victimhood into a business where grifters thrive and scam their own communities.
I will actually be surprised if Adam responds to any of the points made in your letter Mike. Something is going on, we all know something is going on and people like Adam are desperately twisting themselves in knots to avoid admitting it. I don't know. Maybe you two will end up getting into a nuisanced discussion over the utilitarian perspective on this. He'll have to argue, "so what if there's collateral damage in the beginning, we're changing the culture by force! And you gotta break a few eggs to get to make a Utopian, land acknowledged, LGBTQIA+, body positive, anti-racist, Omelette." Because that is literally the only argument he can make that isn't laughable.
The chilling effect is definitely part of the point. The streamer Destiny was banned from Twitch for saying that trans woman shouldn't compete with cis women in sports, a view that wasn't just recently common, but probably still is a majority opinion. He wasn't financially ruined since he moved to Youtube, but it was definitely disruptive to his career. Now is any streamer on Twitch going to touch this subject with a 10 foot pole?
Is this a dead letter? If so, I'm disappointed. I was looking forward to Round 2.
"is enough to get you suspended"
Link goes to the Russia political prisoners story.
Hi Mike,
I hope you will reconsider joining Mastodon (on another instance, eg mastodon.social). I believe it’s too early to predict whether Mastodon will be a viable alternative to Twitter for many use cases. But I wouldn’t write it off yet, despite the troubles you encountered. If anything, establishing yourself on Mastodon now— after being suspended from journa.host— would serve as the perfect test of whether Mastodon can promote resilience against over-sensitive cancellations.
Unfortunately, in keeping with his response to Adam, Mike was cancelled from Mastodon. Check Monday's episode of The Gist for more details. It's even sillier than the affair with Slate.
But massively lower stakes.
Wait cancelled from all of Mastodon? I thought it was decentralized. So he could in fact go to another server, run by a different admin no?