inally people have evolved and proclaimed that even your opinions are dead. They have given you the right to remain silent until you are reeducated. Don't try and hide; just shut up. There are no safe spaces for you if you insist on arguing. God is dead, philosophy is dead, and now your opinions are as good as dead. It is just a matter of time and education. You have the right to remain silent. Be happy for that. With your attitude you could be eliminated or canceled out. If you don't believe me, watch the trailor to the movie. Only the opinions of your big brother matter. All additional thoughts will be canceled — Nikolas

Are you describing inquisition times? witch hunting?
Nikolas, I don't know where you live but I suppose you live in a western country. You live in the most liberal and free society of all times in history. Don't you agree? Or you think in an idyllic past that was better?

Stephen Hawking said that Philosophy is dead. — Nikolas

Let me explain you what Prof. Hawking's was saying with an example: if you take Galileo or Kelpler or the famous Copernico, etc. they were what we call today scientists/astronomists that had to fight again philosophers and religion mainly to defend their scientific ideas. Some of them died in poverty or deep suffering because of not acceptance.
After a few decades their scientific demonstrations prevailed and the old questions or theories that were defended by the old powers that put them in disgrace and that were assuming the Earth was the center of the universe or thinking the Earth was flat... those theories and thinkers disappeared, so philosophy and religion had to adapt their theories to this new reality that paradoxically was not discovered thanks to great theologists (blind because of power of religion) or philosophers (some of them -onlysome of them- blind because of egocentrism) but they were discovered by what we call today scientists.
It is this science the main trigger of technologies that guarantee goods and well being to masses of population like ever in the past, but over all, a social substrate for education and free-speech and democracies.
There is a dark side as it has always been in history, unfortunately we have to deal with our human condition, that has not changed at all, our brains are always as dangerous as in the past. But today is better in any sense to the past.

Remember many scientists, too many, have died because of their discoveries going against mainstream thinking and their theories were right ... so we owe them a lot.

Hope it makes sense.

The first was descriptive, the second predictive, the third proscriptive.

That said, "cancel culture" is overstated. No one is obliged to give you a platform for your opinions, and every employer is free to fire someone who represents them ill. This has always been the case. You would have struggled to keep a media job in the west throughout most of the 20th century if you were openly a Nazi. It's just now society has moved on to not being pro-racist, pro-sexist, pro-homophobic.

regarding the film clip: I'm not sure how representatives are the brats in the film clip claiming that if they are offended, they have the right to silence the offender. I've read numerous accounts of this sort of behavior on Quillette and elsewhere. The worst of it seems to be located on certain college campuses, but even adults far removed from college children and their discontents can run into unwelcome informal policing of speech. I'm 75 -- I've seen other episodes of speech policing, but it does seem worse now than in the past.

As for science and philosophy, I don't read enough philosophy or theology to have a strong opinion on their death. It's probably exaggerated. I do more reading in the sciences than philosophy.

Finally people have evolved and proclaimed that even your opinions are dead. — Nikolas

Have people just recently "evolved" or "devolved"? As for opinions being dead... not so much.

It's just now society has moved on to not being pro-racist, pro-sexist, pro-homophobic. — Kenosha Kid

Maybe. But you are quite correct: when it comes to speech, there is no such thing as the right to free speech at work. One can speak as freely as one wishes, but then might be ushered out the front door.

there is no such thing as the right to free speech at work. — Bitter Crank

That's different. You're getting paid. You represent the company - and they have a right to project an image, and protect that image from the expression of opinions that might damage business.

Nietszche was wrong. If you think that the existence of God is a question that can be solved scientifically, then you don't understand what kind of question it is.

It looks an interesting documentary, but I suspect it is already dated, considering the political climate and the topic.

The major point is, democratic freedom entails responsibility, and the main responsibility is to acknowledge facts. 'Everyone has a right to their own opinions, but nobody has a right to their own facts', a statesman said. If that was understood, 90% of the problems would be solved.

It's just now society has moved on to not being pro-racist, pro-sexist, pro-homophobic.
— Kenosha Kid

Maybe. — Bitter Crank

Well, mostly.

Finally people have evolved and proclaimed that even your opinions are dead. They have given you the right to remain silent until you are reeducated. Don't try and hide; just shut up. There are no safe spaces for you if you insist on arguing. God is dead, philosophy is dead, and now your opinions are as good as dead. It is just a matter of time and education. You have the right to remain silent. Be happy for that. With your attitude you could be eliminated or canceled out. If you don't believe me, watch the trailor to the movie. Only the opinions of your big brother matter. All additional thoughts will be canceled — Nikolas

The same belief that brought prosperity, peace, and individuality to the Western world had destroyed its very foundation by its own perverted decay...

We live after the "Pax Romana", but I'm still not sure when:

Beginning of Commodus's reign - 180 AD -;
Beginning of Septimius Severus's reign - 193 AD - ;
Ending of Severus Alexander's reign - 222 AD -;
Start of the Crisis of the Third Century - 235 AD -;
Start of Diocletian's reign - 284 AD -.

But one thing is certain: - The "Dominatus" is already inside us and consuming us. There is no more difference between "Princeps Civitatis" and "Dominus" as much as "Respublicus" is frowned upon as "Rex".

One must accept the darkness as quickly as possible, so that a new day will emerge...

Maybe.
— Bitter Crank

Well, mostly. — Kenosha Kid

— Kenosha Kid

I'm cautiously pessimistic about this. True, most people no longer openly express crudely racist, sexist and anti-gay statements, which is progress. What is not very different now, than in the past, is that people still spend their money in ways which help keep past unjust and unfair discriminations in place.

For instance, most people buying houses tend to look for homogeneous neighborhoods that reflect themselves and their aspirations. For whites, the means pretty much white neighborhoods. Whites who buy houses in black neighborhoods are, more likely than not, looking for a good deal, with the expectation that eventually the blacks will be priced out of the neighborhood (gentrification).

Wage discrimination by sex is less severe, and less common than it was in the past. It hasn't disappeared, but it is better. (This applies to the US: what conditions apply in Britain, Europe, and other places, I don't know.)

In most of the G20 countries, anti-gay policies have apparently been mostly repealed, but that doesn't mean that nobody has strong negative feelings about homosexuality -- their own or others'.

Advertising Media in particular project images of the non-existent post racial America. Advertising images reveal a lot about where we are, and where we are not. TV shows like Grey's Anatomy have a high rate of POC in authority positions, and feature a lot of lesbian relationships. Gay men appear too in GA, but not in the hot sexual scenes that lesbians and straights appear in (which are tediously frequent). I can't think of a gay man who has been as central as lesbian characters or POC, or a gay couple that has done more than hold hands and kissed quickly. (I'm picking on Grey's Anatomy because it's the only TV show that I have watched much of, recently.)

there is no such thing as the right to free speech at work.
— Bitter Crank

That's different. You're getting paid. You represent the company - and they have a right to project an image, and protect that image from the expression of opinions that might damage business. — counterpunch

You are more accommodating to the interests of employers than I am.

Workers are paid to perform a service or produce a product. When it's convenient, under 'employment at will' law, an employer can fire a worker without explanation. In holy symmetry, a worker can quit without an explanation too. That makes it fair and square (sarcasm). My view is that IF employers want me to align my loyalty and interests with theirs, THEN they will have to align their loyalty and interests with mine. And hop to it!

Some organizations are engaged in genuine good works. It's advisable to speak well of organizations that are doing good work, provided they aren't also engaged in unfair labor practices. (Mother Teresa was a wretched boss.) For the huge remainder of organizations who are in business for no purpose ,ore august than making a profit for shareholders, unconditional positive regard is altogether misguided.

Raul

There is a dark side as it has always been in history, unfortunately we have to deal with our human condition, that has not changed at all, our brains are always as dangerous as in the past. But today is better in any sense to the past.

Remember many scientists, too many, have died because of their discoveries going against mainstream thinking and their theories were right ... so we owe them a lot.

Plato described the human condition as like living in Plato’s cave attached to the shadows on the wall. If true, it must include the continual struggle between an objective universal perspective and fragmentation. (wholeness vs parts) Religion has the ideal of freedom from the delusions of cave mentality and fragmentation or the domain of science is concerned with establishing partial truths. The human condition prevents the natural unification of universalism and fragmentation since cave life keeps humanity living in imagination. As a result society as a whole cannot see the forest for the trees. The movie suggests that for those caught up in this Marxist agenda there is only one tree worth looking at and rest should be eliminated.

I see this obsession with fragmentation as opposed to a universal perspective as a loss.

http://esoteric.msu.edu/Reviews/NicolescuReview.htm

After reading Nicolescu's Manifesto of Transdisciplinarity, it is hard to imagine how any thinking person could retreat to the old, safe, comfortable conceptual framework. Taking a series of ideas that would be extremely thought-provoking even when considered one by one, the Romanian quantum physicist Basarab Nicolescu weaves them together in a stunning vision, this manifesto of the twenty-first century, so that they emerge as a shimmering, profoundly radical whole.

Nicolescu’s raison d’être is to help develop people’s consciousness by means of showing them how to approach things in terms of what he calls “transdisciplinarity.” He seeks to address head on the problem of fragmentation that plagues contemporary life. Nicolescu maintains that binary logic, the logic underlying most all of our social, economic, and political institutions, is not sufficient to encompass or address all human situations. His thinking aids in the unification of the scientific culture and the sacred, something which increasing numbers of persons, will find to be an enormous help, among them wholistic health practitioners seeking to promote the understanding of illness as something arising from the interwoven fabric—body, plus mind, plus spirit—that constitutes the whole human being, and academics frustrated by the increasing pressure to produce only so-called “value-free” material.

I agree with you that the way to objective meaning or the attraction of philosophy is made impossible in Plato’s Cave but I suggest it doesn’t have to be. A human being can leave the cave. Do you agree?

You are more accommodating to the interests of employers than I am. — Bitter Crank

I think it fair minded. Your average employee turns up, and contributes his labour - takes his wages and goes home. The employer rents buildings, buys resources, tools, and finds customers for the products produced. If there's an unequal power dynamic it's because there's an unequal burden of responsibilities. The behaviour of the employee may bear directly on the ability of the employer to discharge his responsibilities. Thus, it's fair to require employees refrain from untoward behaviour on company time.
The problem for me is when employers interfere in their employees personal lives. I'm thinking mostly about opinions expressed online, or photos on instagram, coming back to haunt people. The employer is overstepping the mark. Outside of company time, it's no business of the company what a person says or does.

Advertising Media in particular project images of the non-existent post racial America. Advertising images reveal a lot about where we are, and where we are not. TV shows like Grey's Anatomy have a high rate of POC in authority positions, and feature a lot of lesbian relationships. Gay men appear too in GA, but not in the hot sexual scenes that lesbians and straights appear in (which are tediously frequent). I can't think of a gay man who has been as central as lesbian characters or POC, or a gay couple that has done more than hold hands and kissed quickly. (I'm picking on Grey's Anatomy because it's the only TV show that I have watched much of, recently.) — Bitter Crank

I forfeit the right to consult with attorney before posting...

In my opinion it’s a good thing that marginalized groups are depicted in high status positions, such as surgeons, because it may alter general perception to some degree, and to be fair, hot male gay sex only appeals to a small percentage of consumers whereas hot lesbian sex has wider appeal (and I confess to that myself). Years ago I remember being on a nude beach where a couple of hot half dressed girls were making out. Incredibly sexy!

You have the right to remain silent. — Nikolas

Not any more. If you're not actively "anti-racist" then you're racist. Silence will not protect you from the mob.

Kenosha Kid

That said, "cancel culture" is overstated. No one is obliged to give you a platform for your opinions, and every employer is free to fire someone who represents them ill. This has always been the case. You would have struggled to keep a media job in the west throughout most of the 20th century if you were openly a Nazi. It's just now society has moved on to not being pro-racist, pro-sexist, pro-homophobic.

Does maintaining a free society require indoctrination or is rule by blind justice sufficient? Is their another way? If I want to open a men's only tavern do I have to allow women? It is a platform for my opinions — "

You have the right to remain silent.
— Nikolas

Not any more. If you're not actively "anti-racist" then you're racist. Silence will not protect you from the mob. — fishfry

Mob rule has replaced Lady Liberty's ideal of blind justice under the law. My how we have sunk.

In my opinion it’s a good thing that marginalized groups are depicted in high status positions, such as surgeons, because it may alter general perception to some degree — praxis

Sure. It's a good thing.

hot lesbian sex has wider appeal (and I confess to that myself). Years ago I remember being on a nude beach where a couple of hot... — praxis

I'll take your word for it's great appeal. I just hope they don't show up at my favorite all male nude beach.

I just hope they don't show up at my favorite all male nude beach. — Bitter Crank

I’ve visited beaches like that and further confess that they have their own unique appeal.

There used to be a few blocks on Boston's downtown Washington St. called "the Combat Zone'. There were bars, strip joints, porn stores, pizza by the slice shops, whores, sailors, soldiers, gays, straights, all sorts. Sleazy in flagrante delicto. One of my coworkers at Boston State Hospital observed that "people need places like the combat zone to be human -- to get in touch with their basic humanity". That struck me as profoundly true. (This was back in the 1960s)

Nude beaches with their attendant sex-on-offer feature serve a similar function. They are places to get in touch with some basic human animal urges. Because gays have been outsiders, or outliers, in the past these venues have been primary. So do other places for other people -- like Mardi Gras, or Carnival, just for example.

It's unfortunate that many straight folks have nothing similar--no place to serve as a place to get in touch with one's most basic urges, without strings attached.

Maybe such a thing not only does not, but can not exist for most people. Civilization depends on sublimating those basic human urges into productive activities.

For instance, most people buying houses tend to look for homogeneous neighborhoods that reflect themselves and their aspirations. For whites, the means pretty much white neighborhoods. Whites who buy houses in black neighborhoods are, more likely than not, looking for a good deal, with the expectation that eventually the blacks will be priced out of the neighborhood (gentrification). — Bitter Crank

Yes, that's true. At least this is at a somewhat more fuzzy level than, say, the landlords of the 60s refusing to rent to black people who could afford it, or lenders refusing mortgages: a black person can buy a house or rent anywhere they can afford. But yes the economic gradient between white and non-white people rather robs the latter of the ability to capitalise on that. In the UK, I'm not sure that it's, say, black areas whose properties are valued down so much as poor areas, with black communities overwhelmingly stuck in those poor areas. Then again, I am always surprised by how overt racism often is, so my optimism might be misplaced.

Wage discrimination by sex is less severe, and less common than it was in the past. It hasn't disappeared, but it is better. (This applies to the US: what conditions apply in Britain, Europe, and other places, I don't know.) — Bitter Crank

Yes, better here in Britain too. Last time I checked, women in their twenties earned more than men in their twenties. Women still lose out after childbirth, but that will probably change some once feminists realise that paternity leave is a feminist issue.

In most of the G20 countries, anti-gay policies have apparently been mostly repealed, but that doesn't mean that nobody has strong negative feelings about homosexuality -- their own or others'.

Advertising Media in particular project images of the non-existent post racial America. — Bitter Crank

I find that the biggest issue here is not representation so much as people thinking it's reasonable to complain about black or gay people being on their favourite shows. I get that sometimes it can be done in a box-ticking way which isn't good (Doctor Who has a female Doctor \o/, a female Indian companion \o/, a black companion \o/ who is also a bit disabled :|, and an elderly companion :yawn: ), but I find that a lot of people pretend that the presence of any non-white, non-heteronormative person or -- God forbid -- a mixed race couple is the same as shoving PC agendas down their children's throats. So yeah I agree there's a strong underbelly of hate still. A lot of that is pushed by the right-wing press here, without which I suspect the hate would largely die off with my parents' generation.

Gay men appear too in GA, but not in the hot sexual scenes that lesbians and straights appear in (which are tediously frequent). — Bitter Crank

God, I hate this. Same here. TV producers have been much happier to jump on the gay bandwagon when it means having two women lez off for the dads. We do have quite a lot of queer representation but it is rather segregated still.

Censorship is a huge problem, and will continue to proliferate as the means of expression become more widespread. But I think there is hope. As soon as the cowardly fear of words and voices is proven to be illusory (which, given the ease with which we can communicate, is only a matter of time), the fashionable idea that articulated sounds, marks on paper, or pixelated letters can be the same as violence will become increasingly untenable, and its believers increasingly silly.

Well, thank goodness Nazi propaganda was never censored. Imagine how horrible the 1930s and 40s would have been if Hitler and Goebbels weren't allowed to freely spread their ideas and instead were made victims of cancel culture! No, give me freedom or death! And preferably both!

The recent Capital insurrection suggests that words, specifically words that compose a big lie in that particular case, can have serious consequences. Ignorance can be exploited by unscrupulous influencers.

:up:

The recent Capital insurrection suggests that words, specifically words that compose a big lie in that particular case, can have serious consequences. Ignorance can be exploited by unscrupulous influencers.

Could you use your words to guide me like a marionette to this or that action? Let’s give it a try.

Could you use your words to guide me like a marionette to this or that action? — NOS4A2

He already has.

The Nazis were routinely censored in Weimar. Worse, Hitler himself used their own censorship to justify the Enabling act. After that Nazi Germany became a huge safe-space for Nazi ideas, with all critics censored in some manner or other.

How?

Ignorance is easily manipulated, it’s as simple as that. Would you deny it?

I doubt the physics and biology of such an assertion, but I am aware that such folk psychology exists and do not completely disagree.

Much as I delight in a post in which Stephen Hawking is compared, unfavorably, with one of the creators of The Man Show, I think that it must be acknowledged that questions regarding why the universe exists and why we exist are more likely to be answered by science than philosophy, if what's sought is an explanation. But it doesn't follow that philosophy is dead, although if philosophy is defined as being confined to answering those questions I doubt it has anything to contribute beyond what philosophers have already toyed with in the past. I'm inclined to think philosophy involves more that Hawking gives it credit for.

Also, Hawking by stating philosophy is dead isn't claiming that philosophy or philosophers must be silenced. All in all, using his example to introduce or as representative of what's referred to in the trailer is confusing at best.

As to the trailer. For a lawyer, the right to free speech applies only where government or its representatives seek to restrict it. The right itself is subject to restriction in the law; it isn't absolute. The right to free speech being referred to in the trailer, and by others, therefore, isn't a legal right. It merely happens there are people who think people should be free to say anything they want, and generally they claim that this should be the case because, e.g., we otherwise would never learn and people shouldn't stop other people from thinking or speaking, and that we should have diversity in thought and speech. J.S. Mill used to speak of the good results of having a "marketplace of ideas" or words to that effect, where views compete and bad ones fall to the side through the workings of a kind of invisible hand of communication.

It's difficult, however, to claim that people should be allowed to communicate hateful, bigoted, violence-inducing claims and ideas, for example promoting genocide or slavery or inferiority of races and such things. Mill notwithstanding, I wonder if anyone really does claim this. Instead, they claim "free speech" is being restricted whenever it's maintained that people shouldn't be allowed to do so.

The fact is that some speech is inappropriate. But the determination whether it is or not isn't a simple thing, and such devices as the creation of "safe spaces" treats it as a simple thing.