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[John Roberts {JR}]

Well, at least we can agree on something.

A good policy. Personally, though, if someone heard me say "X", when I was trying to express "Y", I'll search out a different way to say "Y" (ideally one that precludes communicating "X"). Like I said above, I believe that the responsibility for clear communication lies with the one doing the communicating.

A brilliant example of the free market serving society as a whole!

We live in a society that has always been arbitrarily dominated by specific groups of people, typically to the detriment of others. The scale of that dominance has been slowly lessening for the past several centuries, a process that has been accelerating basically since the beginning of the industrial revolution. Of course, that acceleration is rarely smooth or easy, and in the US in particular it has often resulted in periodic, horrific bloodshed, dating right back to the country's founding. So far, the current round of cultural changes have been relatively bloodless, a fact we should all be thankful for.

Most of the people who have made significant contributions to human advancement also have done things that, viewed through the lens of the present, are clearly unacceptable. Of course, being "viewed through the lens of the present" is a risk borne by anyone who wishes to stand in the history books, and, as anyone who has chronic lead poisoning (or asbestosis, etc.) can tell you, "accepted practice at the time" and "a good idea" (let alone "morally correct") is a dangerous false-equivalency.

The idea of problematic people doing amazing things (or vice-versa) is a largely-intractable cause of cognitive dissonance, and it's something that we as a society have spent a good deal of time and effort trying to ignore as best as we can. To the extent that we are starting to try and actually work through this now is inevitably a good thing, particularly for those who were on the receiving end of history's problematic parts, but it's going to be messy and full of nuance, neither of which are things humans are particularly good at dealing with.

While I can't quite agree that modern culture is changing too fast, per se (many of the people who are on the receiving end of being dominated would likely argue it isn't changing fast enough), you're absolutely right that it can be hard to keep up. Heck, I know I've pushed back against it myself from time to time.

That said, "keeping up" is something I've been working hard on, because what I've found is that the alternative is to unintentionally be a real jerk to a lot of the people that I love. Easily the thing that has helped me the most is learning to be as empathetic as I possibly can. I don't know why the human default is for me to assume that I have both amazing forethought and the best of intentions while everyone else is a selfish, unthinking idiot, but the harder I've pushed back against those assumptions the more sense the current cultural changes start to make (and, frankly, the happier I've been, both with myself and with those around me).

As for social media, I'm not a particularly avid participant myself. Truth be told, the PSW Forums basical are my "social media".

Rules are incredibly, vitally important. Just as important, though, is that everybody agree on them (at least in a democracy, anyway). Rules will always fail without the support of consensus, which means that changing the rules to maintain consensus is also incredibly, vitally important.

While there will always been outliers, my sense is that a large part of the reason why it seems like so many people are just making up their own rules these days is because the existing rules in many places no longer have the support of consensus, and therefore the existing rules are starting to fail. History suggests that when rules fail for lack of consensus bad things happen, which doesn't make consensus-building any easier (I wish!), but it certainly increases my personal imperative to try and build consensus anyway (despite its difficulty).

-Russ

For the record web forums are not democracies (neither is our government.. a republic).

Consensus can expose minorities to the tyranny of the masses so not always a good thing.

Again my apologies for a political reference.

JR

[Spenser Hamilton]

A business re branding it's product - leaving aside all the conjecture about the intention in doing so - is hardly an example of Cancel Culture.

The forum is still there.
The knowledge (or whatever) is still there.

Nothing has been lost, but if it helps an segment of our industry that feels under-represented get some semblance of peace, I don't see the issue.

[Russell Ault]

For the record web forums are not democracies (neither is our government.. a republic).

Consensus can expose minorities to the tyranny of the masses so not always a good thing.

Again my apologies for a political reference.

I think at this point we're more into PoliSci than actual politics.

I'm not convinced that democracy has anything to do with rules needing consensus support. Regardless of the form of government, when rules aren't generally supported by the people they apply to those rules inevitably start to fail. Sometimes that failure looks like people "voting" with their feet (or wallets, as you mentioned); sometimes it looks like armed insurrection. The American people in particular have a long history of both (typically in sequence: first one, then the other). Updating the rules in an effort to generate consensus can often achieve similar outcomes with less heartache (which is part of the reason Canada and the US can be so similar in so many ways despite have almost-opposing historical and structural underpinnings).

And you're 100% correct about the need to guard against the tyranny of the majority. The great paradox of governing is that stable societies require systems whereby the long-term, overarching will of the people (where everyone benefits from equality and freedom) is made paramount to the current, immediate will of the people (where one half thinks the other half are a waste of oxygen and vice-versa). Achieving this paramountcy of the long-term inevitably requires that certain individuals (ideally those with a great deal of foresight) be given the power to overrule the present will of the people (at least temporarily), but this too has its problems, since creating a system like that has almost unlimited risks: get it right, and you'll be governed by George Washington (etc.); get it wrong, and you'll be governed by Pol Pot (etc.). Needless to say, while many societies have gotten it "wrong" to varying degrees, I'm not sure that any have really gotten it perpetually "right".

A business re branding it's product - leaving aside all the conjecture about the intention in doing so - is hardly an example of Cancel Culture.

The forum is still there.
The knowledge (or whatever) is still there.

Nothing has been lost, but if it helps an segment of our industry that feels under-represented get some semblance of peace, I don't see the issue.

This. All of this. And, frankly, "nothing has been lost" is true about most (almost all?) of the examples people use when defining "cancel culture". There's a difference between devaluation (economic or otherwise) and actual destruction (or censorship, for that matter) which doesn't receive nearly enough general recognition.

-Russ

[Woody Nuss]

...and sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.

You guys sure took the ball and ran in some odd directions. The previous name for that site was immature and unprofessional and they changed it to a more suitable name.
 Never even made sense as it was... were they suggesting promiscuity with the use of the word "slutz"? Were the operators the "slutz" or were the contributing posters the "slutz"? The whole thing was confused messaging and ineffective marketing which was corrected.
 All the rest of the conjecture above is just that, pontification based on poly-sci or virtue signaling. Feh!

[Russell Ault]

...and sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.

You guys sure took the ball and ran in some odd directions. The previous name for that site was immature and unprofessional and they changed it to a more suitable name.
 Never even made sense as it was... were they suggesting promiscuity with the use of the word "slutz"? Were the operators the "slutz" or were the contributing posters the "slutz"? The whole thing was confused messaging and ineffective marketing which was corrected.
 All the rest of the conjecture above is just that, pontification based on poly-sci or virtue signaling. Feh!

Except that it's not conjecture. GS's founder made a statement a few months back "that the new name will be more inclusive", so this change isn't just about the old name being immature and unprofessional. (I mean, that probably factored into it, too, given that they already offered members the option of an alternate logo, but that is just conjecture.) If you're interested, in the post above that one the founder explains the intended meaning behind the old name, too.

As for "virtue signalling", I can only speak for myself, but I genuinely believe these are important issues that deserve to be discussed, especially if we'd like to attract more diversity into our industry (which I know at least some of us do).

-Russ

[John Roberts {JR}]

Interesting perhaps that this thread began slighting that other forum and it's members.

Personal attack is the new lingua franca...

JR

[Russell Ault]

Interesting perhaps that this thread began slighting that other forum and it's members.

Personal attack is the new lingua franca...

Right on both accounts, and it exacerbates so many problems. It's something else I'm trying to teach myself to not do (although I'm far from perfect at it).

-Russ

[Stephen Swaffer]

Years ago, sitting in a classroom of potential future pastors, an instructor gave us all a piece of sage advice I think applies to nearly any field.  He told us, that before we criticized a pastor (especially one of a larger successful church), we should earn the right to do so by building a bigger, better church.

I have thoughts on the forum in the OP-but have never built anything as successful as the proprieter of that forum-so perhaps I should listen and learn from him rather than Monday morning quarterbacking?

One reason I keep coming back to this forum is that people here are uniquely connected by a passion for doing live sound and production excellently.  In that pursuit, it matters not a person's creed, politics, culture or nationality.  I have been amazed at the willingess (and yes patience) of many on here that are very skilled and knowledgable-yet they are content to suffer newbies to ask seemingly silly questions.  I have learned a lot from threads I haven't ever posted on.  I like what happens here-so I hang around.

[Steve-White]

"We were all born ignorant, some die that way."

I like it

Truth hurts, don't it...... 
Chris.

Truth hurts what?

[Chris Hindle]

Truth hurts what?

"We were all born ignorant, some die that way."
That is the truth, and it is not pretty.
Chris.

[ProSoundWeb Community]