Culture is Cancelled

There’s a thought experiment from Paul Graham’s blog post What You Can’t Say where you ponder if there are any opinions you hold that you would be reluctant to express in front of your peers. Why would one be reluctant? Surely, it must be for fear that your peers would find fault with your idea and indicate that in an awkward way — maybe one that would cause a hostile environment or make you feel like an idiot.

Whether anyone in the conversation realizes it or not, this is a mechanism that results in certain ideas being pushed out of society. When people are reluctant to express certain…