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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   42075 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 8, 2025

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So we just had an emergency lab meeting about the Charlie Kirk situation. Someone screenshotted an instagram story from one of my fellow lab members and sent in anonymous email to my PI (professor/supervisor). The instagram story said basically that Charlie Kirk's death was a good thing, actually. PI didn't name names, and it was also unclear what exactly the anonymous emailer wanted, but did caution us that this is a dangerous environment to be posting this kind of thing. EDIT: He also said that he STRONGLY disagrees with this position, but he's very in favor of free speech and would defend unnamed individual from the university/public if push came to shove, despite disagreeing with their politics.

I have a couple thoughts about this. Firstly, it's legitimately pretty scary that internet posting is now important enough to warrant an emergency lab meeting. It feels like we rapidly are descending into an authoritarian anti-free speech environment (not that universities were bastions of this to begin with). My own social media and blog are extremely clean, but it's trivially easy to link this account with my real name, and I've posted some not kosher things here before.

Secondly, universities/leftists have kind of done this to themselves. This is the old Cory Doctrow/ Freddie DeBoer stick. Trigger warnings, anti-racism and cancel culture have all led to this kind of environment where speech can be policed in this way by the state and doesn't look hypocritical.

Thirdly, and I hate to say this, but whichever one of my colleagues posted this is a fucking idiot, along with most of the left in my generation. I still think of myself as a socialist, perhaps less so recently, and I want to shake this person and ask what good this kind of statement actually does for our cause. Do you want more vigilante killings? The right is going to come up on top with that one, as most lefties in this country are strangely anti-gun. Do you want to win elections? Advocating for murder isn't very popular with most of the electorate. Do you want continued science funding so you can have a job and accomplish the things that you think are so important you dedicated 8-12 hours of your day to, every day? Then stop tarnishing the reputation of universities and science in general with your crazy politics: our stipends come from taxpayer money. As I've written on earlier, scientists are woefully naive about politics. This is not how you win political victories, which makes me think that the goal isn't actually political victory, but some kind of LARP/ in-group signaling game.

Do you want more vigilante killings?

Historical speaking (USSR, China, North Korea) leftists don't want vigilante killings they want state-sanctioned killings.

Edit: Also I'll voice here that if you're not acting in an official role I don't think you should get fired for speech. Several young local school employees have been fired in my area, and I think they should have just got a stern talking to.

Party-sanctioned killings.

Hard-left states regularly create deliberate distinctions between the party and the state, to the degree that when the two contradict, the party is prioritized. This allows non-state party organs to act freely and against state elements during times of internal control tensions, such as when state capacity is weak, or those in charge of the party are trying to purge party elements within the state.

Several young local school employees have been fired in my area, and I think they should have just got a stern talking to.

I disagree inasmuch as I think teachers, being placed in a special position of public trust to, as part of their official duties, partake in the moral instruction of their students, have a special duty of moral care.

EDIT: Though I think the comma phrases are grammatically correct, I don't like how that sentence scans. Let me try again: I disagree because I think that teachers have a special moral duty. They have this because they are entrusted in their official capacity with the moral education of our society's children.

State-sanctioned killing is just vigilante killing by proxy, much like how elections are wars by proxy.

I think they should be fired for glorifying the death of someone on their public social media profiles. Firings produce a chilling effect. We learned this from the censorship propagated and performed by the left (that they either denied was happening or justified for being harmful). If censorship of this kind is unavoidable, which it has demonstrated itself to be as of late, then I'd prefer it be from the camp I support rather than the one I don't.

We know there is no absolute free speech. It is inherently bounded by our government and cultural norms. We are in a culture war that was started most noticeably because the dominant left culture cancelled, censored, and doxxed nearly every dissenting opinion they could.

We are in a culture war that was started most noticeably because the dominant left culture cancelled, censored, and doxxed nearly every dissenting opinion they could.

Yea, and that was awful. But are they awful because they're doing that or because they're on the left? If your opponents just are people that censor well then you're not even doing the same thing as a conservative at all.

Right now, there are people on the right attempting to doxx, cancel, and censor left leaning people. Some of them will obviously go too far and attempt to cause harm to reasonable people who have opinions that don’t align with their own. That will happen, and I will not like that. I see people like Laura Loomer, or catturd on twitter, or Candace Owens, and it is obvious to me that these individuals are a net negative for Republicans and anyone right of center.

The distinction here though is that the mainstream left has been treating political disagreement in this country as an existential and moral struggle for years, and the liberal principles that you're trying to hold me to have been completely weaponized by them. That approach has been done to the detriment of this country and whatever unifying culture we used to have. So, when you call me out for not holding tight to the idea of "free speech" (all while the other side has essentially completely abandoned it) all I really see is you acting confused at why people like me are no longer fighting with one hand tied behind our back.

Yes, again, we're not doing the same thing. I'd reframe it as, "illiberals have been treating political disagreement as an existential and moral struggle for years..."

In one case it was a private tok that a contact released. She was in a school shirt which I would say is a big no no, but still I believe warrants a conversation and being put on notice.

She was in a school shirt which I would say is a big no no

Funny, I was just completing a mandatory training at work about the social media policy.

Reading it now (they actively make it so you can pass without ever reading these things which is really counterproductive), it explicitly says: all communication, "regardless of whether they are posting on personal devices or accounts", is subject. It goes even further "even private posts can violate the policy if they are seen by others".

Like...maybe the rules in Canada are different for legal reasons. But even a message in a totally private chat gives them license to fire you and I don't think my workplace is particularly strange here for a large entity. Which is understandable, given that nobody cares at all come outrage time if it was on a Discord with three people.

If you are wearing a work shirt I don't even know why there'd be a debate. You're (rightly) fucked. What moral principle can spare you? Would it be acceptable to wear a Coca-Cola shirt as an employee and then start dropping slurs?

Also I'll voice here that if you're not acting in an official role I don't think you should get fired for speech.

I think a lot of people here will agree with you, but that bell rang on Brendan Eich and it's never going to unring itself. This is the new, worse equilibrium. We're all stuck in it for now.

For the right, this is one of those "my rules > your rules, fairly > your rules, unfairly" situations. As much as I fear that you're correct, I still hope that once we spend enough time at the "your rules, fairly" stop, there can be a discussion about how these rules suck.

I genuinely hope I'm wrong and you're right.

If you demonstrate murderous contempt for me, or those like me, or those holding the same opinions I hold, I don't want you involved in any level of the executive or judicial branches.

I will excuse the legislature as the madness of the demos, but teachers are members of the executive branch, at either federal or state level, and they should act like it.

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