On Thu, Jan 23, 2014 at 10:55:58AM -0500, Ted Smith wrote:
On Thu, 2014-01-23 at 11:29 +1000, James A. Donald wrote:
For example, Pax Dickinson was fired for crimethink
Pax Dickinson was fired for being a rampant misogynist. I can see how that would upset you, being also a rampant misogynist/racist asshole,
So, I'm not James, nor do I have much of anything in common with him at all, but I'm far more creeped out by Anil Dash's self-righteous chortling over his own perception of holding Dickinson's career future hostage than I am at Dickinson's firing. "What is new in our time," Bertrand Russell once said, "is the increased power of the authorities to enforce their prejudices." Let me ask you this: put me in Pax's shoes. (You can substitute something offensive I'd be likely to say for Pax's actual words, if that helps with the cognitive dissonance. Perhaps something about guns. Or titties, I say some pretty crass things about titties too.) Suppose I then ended up across that lunch table from Dash, and that Dash had made the same "you'll never see VC if I can help it" threat. That's where the cognitive dissonance kicks in too strongly for me to continue the Gedankenexperiment: Dash would never make that threat to a woman, for fear of the ANIL DASH THREATENS FEMALE ENTREPRENEUR headlines that would flow like wine afterward. Dickinson was Fair Game, in Dash's view, and Dash accordingly displayed all the civility and restraint of a Hubbardite zealot, cloaked as it was under the veneer of a genteel Manhattan business lunch. Anil Dash fancies himself an authority, and fancies his position to be one from which enforcing his prejudices constitutes acceptable behaviour. The only authority he actually holds is money and relationships with other people who have money, but his demonstrated eagerness to use that authority to punish nonbelievers marks him as a danger to free thought and free discourse. Don't let that sycophantic scumbag anywhere near public office, is all I'm sayin'. --mlp