Kind of a lot of conflicting information here as some people are saying they had no clue who else signed it while others like Gladwell say they signed it specifically because "there were lots of people who also signed ... whose views I disagreed with." https://twitter.com/Gladwell/status/1280853862916648960

In any case, I don't understand the purpose of writing a really vague open letter *with zero call to action* other than the fact that it was pretty clearly coded.

Generally speaking, I don't sign petitions or open letters, but if someone was like, "Hey, sign this open letter saying that there's nothing wrong with breathing oxygen," I'd pause and question why such a piece needed to be written as it's pretty clear that we all agree.

Like if someone said, "Hey, will you sign this petition that says that it's okay to be white?" my first thought if I wasn't as (unfortunately) online as I am would be, "Who would argue that it's not? Sure, I guess."

But when when you understand the context of that phrase, it...

... becomes clear that it's a coded white supremacist dogwhistle (see: https://www.adl.org/education/references/hate-symbols/its-okay-to-be-white). And if you notice that a lot of the other people who signed onto it were white supremacists, you'd probably pass on signing it even though in a vacuum the statement is anodyne.

That's what I don't get about the very SCOTUS-like "Textually, the words as they are written, divorced from context, say X" approach.

These sorts of letters create false dichotomies. In the IOTBW hypothetical, for instance, it creates a false choice between "people who say it's ok" and "people who say it's not ok" (which isn't actually something anyone is saying).

This letter set up a similar false choice.

"I'm just in favor of free speech!"

I mean, yeah guys, I am, too. I don't know anybody who is explicitly *anti*-free speech. The question is ***what do you mean*** when you say "free speech?"

By "free speech" do you mean that you should have the right to say whatever you want and I have the right to respond on an equally large platform? If so, sure.

Or by "free speech," do you mean you should have the right to a six-figure/year job as a columnist where you say whatever you want in a gigantic publication and anyone who criticizes your piece for being insulting/factually inaccurate/etc. gets accused of trying to "cancel" you?

Because "open debate" means the former. "Open debate" means that you should encourage and publicize criticisms of a controversial column. That doesn't seem to be what that letter calls for. That letter seems to call for us plebs to just hush up while you monologue.

You can't "fight bad ideas with good ideas" if it's only the first group that's being provided a platform.

Kind of ties into this thread from yesterday: https://twitter.com/ParkerMolloy/status/1280578808106684416

/end