But you realize this isn’t just random unmotivated nitpicking, because it’s also fairly straightforward and reasonable to clump “Nazi” with “HBD”, and from there to ban someone like Gwern for his GWAS and embryo selection research, right?
(I regret having posted the original comment since my opinion depends on a lot of related points and I don’t feel good about how people are likely to interpret the comment without all those related points. Will offer this one clarification)
I think there are lots of bad and dumb ways to conflate Nazi’s with other things, and a lot of bad policies I have seen people endorse re: Nazis. I *do* have a moderately strong opposition to the phrase “Nazis or the like”, as a concept, because that is opening all kinds of room for unprincipled slippery slopes like the one you mention.
But I don’t think it’s particularly weird, if you are running a private space, to say “in this space it is not acceptable to openly self-identify as a Nazi.” (This is in part because I think it’s generally essential for private spaces to have pretty strong leeway to define their culture pretty arbitrarily)
But I don’t think it’s particularly weird, if you are running a private space, to say “in this space it is not acceptable to openly self-identify as a Nazi.” (This is in part because I think it’s generally essential for private spaces to have pretty strong leeway to define their culture pretty arbitrarily)
[Emphasis mine]
Note that the OP is explicitly and specifically about public (a.k.a. “civic”) spaces.
Questions of what is, and what is not, appropriate for private spaces, are thus not applicable.
Ah, thank you, I missed that. (I’m not sure whether this changes my opinion about how fair it is to cluster all self-identified-Nazis together but it makes it complicated enough that I’m not prepared to make a strong claim on the subject)
But you realize this isn’t just random unmotivated nitpicking, because it’s also fairly straightforward and reasonable to clump “Nazi” with “HBD”, and from there to ban someone like Gwern for his GWAS and embryo selection research, right?
(I regret having posted the original comment since my opinion depends on a lot of related points and I don’t feel good about how people are likely to interpret the comment without all those related points. Will offer this one clarification)
I think there are lots of bad and dumb ways to conflate Nazi’s with other things, and a lot of bad policies I have seen people endorse re: Nazis. I *do* have a moderately strong opposition to the phrase “Nazis or the like”, as a concept, because that is opening all kinds of room for unprincipled slippery slopes like the one you mention.
But I don’t think it’s particularly weird, if you are running a private space, to say “in this space it is not acceptable to openly self-identify as a Nazi.” (This is in part because I think it’s generally essential for private spaces to have pretty strong leeway to define their culture pretty arbitrarily)
[Emphasis mine]
Note that the OP is explicitly and specifically about public (a.k.a. “civic”) spaces.
Questions of what is, and what is not, appropriate for private spaces, are thus not applicable.
Ah, thank you, I missed that. (I’m not sure whether this changes my opinion about how fair it is to cluster all self-identified-Nazis together but it makes it complicated enough that I’m not prepared to make a strong claim on the subject)