Sam Altman, president of startup investor Y Combinator, published a blog post on December 14 in which he writes that after a recent trip to China, he came to the realization that he “felt more comfortable discussing controversial ideas in Beijing than in San Francisco.”
Altman notes that from 2005 to 2017, the change in free speech culture has changed rather dramatically:
It seems easier to accidentally speak heresies in San Francisco every year. Debating a controversial idea, even if you 95% agree with the consensus side, seems ill-advised.
Altman then sums up the notion of speech restriction as it pertains to “unpopular ideas” in an interesting manner, writing:
Restricting speech leads to restricting ideas and therefore restricted innovation—the most successful societies have generally been the most open ones. Usually mainstream ideas are right and heterodox ideas are wrong, but the true and unpopular ideas are what drive the world forward. Also, smart people tend to have an allergic reaction to the restriction of ideas, and I’m now seeing many of the smartest people I know move elsewhere. – READ MORE
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