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So you've made a mistake and it's public

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Re: So you've made a mistake and it's public

#231

Post by bavell »

freedomben wrote: post #221
core-questions wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a Canadian, you're missing out on the other critical half of the 'sorry'. You step on my foot. I look at you, and say "sorry", and pull my foot away. You abashedly also "sorry" and we move on. Am I apologizing? Hardly! The full sentence is, "Sorry, did you just actually step on my foot, what the hell?" and your reply is "Sorry, yes, I did do that, didn't mean to, apologies". Then the problem is solved and we move…

Are you from the pacific northwest by chance? My wife is and she will constantly apologize for things that are 100% the other person's fault. It really bugs me, especially because the other person will some times say, "oh it's ok" (as they are accepting her admission of guilt) and I usually say something like, "Honey, that wasn't your fault, you shouldn't be apologizing." On the flip side, when someone runs in to me…

I feel the same way as you... also curious what others think on this topic.

Re: So you've made a mistake and it's public

#232

Post by laughinghan »

justatdotin wrote: post #218
laughinghan wrote: post #188

The number of people in this thread arguing that apologies can only make things worse is shocking. Are these the same people who reject addressing war crimes with truth and reconciliation, and instead advocate "deny everything, make counteraccusations"? A proper apology—one that (1) acknowledges the specific harm caused, (2) acknowledges responsibility and remorse for specific choices, (3) explains how they hope to m…

IMO 'truth and reconciliation' should just focus on 'truth'. We don't owe war criminals reconciliation, but they owe us the truth.

To clarify, the important thing about "reconciliation" is not about reconciling with war criminals, but about reconciling with supporters of war criminals, which are usually a pretty significant portion (sometimes the overwhelming majority) of the civilian population of the region or community that the war criminal is from.

Often, those supporters have been on the receiving end of pretty serious hardships themselves. That doesn't justify supporting war crimes, of course, but if you don't acknowledge those hardships, you create resentment and the seeds of future strife, rather than healing.

Re: So you've made a mistake and it's public

#233

Post by krmmalik »

DoreenMichele wrote: post #172

I don't know. Years ago, I was on an email list and I did a lot of sincere public apologizing, in part because the internet was younger, so we didn't have a lot of stuff worked out. We were just stumbling our way forward as best we could. And the end result was that I became everyone's bitch. People would intentionally pick on me and be ugly to me and when it went sideways, the group as a whole would go "There she go…

I'm with you on this one. I've noticed this 'singling out' behaviour on WhatsApp groups for example. I was recently on a WhatsApp group where (I wouldn't even call it a mistake) a slight error of judgement led to the issue being way over-inflated and me being made an example of for the 'benefit' of others. There's just way too much of that on the internet these days. I've seen many genuine & sincere apologies from people with large followings (since some people are suggesting these rules don't apply to average Joe) and even then people don't let it go. The world just wants someone to blame, that is the underlying problem.

Re: So you've made a mistake and it's public

#234

Post by laughinghan »

fairity wrote: post #229
laughinghan wrote: post #188

The number of people in this thread arguing that apologies can only make things worse is shocking. Are these the same people who reject addressing war crimes with truth and reconciliation, and instead advocate "deny everything, make counteraccusations"? A proper apology—one that (1) acknowledges the specific harm caused, (2) acknowledges responsibility and remorse for specific choices, (3) explains how they hope to m…

> The number of people in this thread arguing that apologies can only make things worse is shocking. Are these the same people who reject addressing war crimes with truth and reconciliation, and instead advocate "deny everything, make counteraccusations"? I think you're misunderstanding their claim. They are not making a claim that denial is better for society. They are making a claim that denial is better for the ac…

Thank you for your thoughtful response.

"The accused" is interesting framing. I would hope that no one expects the innocent but accused to apologize for something they didn't do.

For the accused who are guilty, if we agree that denial is worse for society but currently better for the guilty, what can we do to change that, so that it is better for them to acknowledge fault and worse to remain in denial?

Re: So you've made a mistake and it's public

#235

Post by DoreenMichele »

CapitalistCartr wrote: post #228
DoreenMichele wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps the best practice would be to learn to make your point without personalizing it so much. Yes, generally speaking, that's a best practice and one I follow as best I can. Unfortunately, it can't always be followed without hamstringing one's ability to say something meaningful and address more important issues than the tendency of the world to geegaw at me for existing. I wasn't asking for advice. Giving advice…

People who are what santoshalper described as "high ego" are usually charismatic, and that makes a difference with everything.

The probably not obvious at this point context is the comment I replied to was an early reply (the first one?) and is probably assuming "The issue is you are a woman and it must have been a male dominant environment -- just like here on HN where DoreenMichele is a woman in a predominantly male environment." In spite of me promptly replying to say "no, that wasn't the issue," there has been at least one other comment assuming it's about my gender -- which is why I added a link to that comment to my initial reply (in hopes of preventing ten other replies assuming it was about my gender).

Sometimes, there are no good answers.

I'm going to go try to do other things now. If other people here want to continue to make it about me that my comment in this discussion happens to have been upvoted by other people, I'm not taking responsibility for that. It was my third comment for the day on HN and the other two have been utterly and completely ignored so far.

I have no control over other people's upvotes and a really poor ability to predict which of my comments will do well on HN. I spend about half my time going "That was brilliant. Why doesn't anyone appreciate me?" and the other half going "God, why is this being upvoted so much???" and maybe one percent of my time going "Yes, this makes total sense to me how this comment is being received." (Comment not intended to be mathematically accurate nor to cover all scenarios of how I feel about HN reactions to my comments.)

0_o

Toodle doo, y'all.

Re: So you've made a mistake and it's public

#236

Post by fairity »

laughinghan wrote: post #234
fairity wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The number of people in this thread arguing that apologies can only make things worse is shocking. Are these the same people who reject addressing war crimes with truth and reconciliation, and instead advocate "deny everything, make counteraccusations"? I think you're misunderstanding their claim. They are not making a claim that denial is better for society. They are making a claim that denial is better for the ac…

Thank you for your thoughtful response. "The accused" is interesting framing. I would hope that no one expects the innocent but accused to apologize for something they didn't do. For the accused who are guilty, if we agree that denial is worse for society but currently better for the guilty, what can we do to change that, so that it is better for them to acknowledge fault and worse to remain in denial?

I think the crux of the issue is how powerful and unrelenting the internet mob has become.

If there was a way to neuter this power, or better ensure the punishment enacted by the mob fits the crime, less people would advocate for denial.

As it stands, public shaming often goes way overboard.

For those interested in hearing more stories of this: https://www.ted.com/talks/jon_ronson_when_online_shaming_goe...

Re: So you've made a mistake and it's public

#237

Post by FanaHOVA »

derekbreden wrote: post #87
anuila wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have trouble handling others’ mistakes if I’ve corrected them before, they acknowledged the mistake, but they keep doing them. What am I supposed to do with people who won’t learn from their mistakes (in the workplace)? I’m directly affected by them as they increase my workload, so I can’t just ignore them.

I recently had a coworker point out to me a grammatical error I keep repeating, flush vs flesh, that he had reminded me of a year ago. I recently pointed out to a different coworker some whitespace inconsistency in a pull request in a similar fashion as I had pointed out a while back. In digging deeper into both situations where I was the reporter or the reportee, the issue came down to legitimate lack of agreement o…

> I recently pointed out to a different coworker some whitespace inconsistency in a pull request in a similar fashion as I had pointed out a while back.

Just use transformers :)

Re: So you've made a mistake and it's public

#238

Post by acjohnson55 »

textgel wrote: post #143
acjohnson55 wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Progressives are widely known for their enthusiastic use of forcing people into public apologies for perceived crimes against the faith or for not acquiescing to unreasonable demands which can then be framed as a perceived wrong. I think a lot of the kickback against apologising that we're seeing is coming from the numerous public examples of this tactic and the follow-up where any good-faith apology will be used t…

A common tactic seen by progressives during attacks on their victims is to hype up the crime by either making vague claims such as that they "are pretty messed up" and hoping that regular people apply their reasonable measure of "pretty messed up"; to outright lies where they equate the commited heresy with an actual real world wrong. One charming example is this one of Morgan Freeman during the metoo saga where he w…

...and then what happened to Morgan Freeman?

I don't know anything about the alleged situation, but pretty sure he moved on with his life and is still wealthy and largely beloved.

Re: So you've made a mistake and it's public

#239

Post by pmyteh »

11thEarlOfMar wrote: post #155
bosswipe wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Progressives are widely known for things like increasing the minimum wage, expanding access to health care, or legalizing drugs. I've never heard progressives pushing for forced public apologies.

AFAIK, Cortes is a Progressive[0], and a congressperson, which puts her in a position of power. She encouraged her supporters to create a list of Trump supporters so they can be denied employment in the future[1]. Jennifer Rubin, likely also a Progressive[2], said: “any [Republican] now promoting rejection of an election or calling to not to follow the will of voters or making baseless allegations of fraud should nev…

Jennifer Rubin is not a progressive. She's a prominent (anti-Trump) conservative columnist, hired by the Washington Post as balance/provocation. Her blog is even called 'Right Turn'.

Re: So you've made a mistake and it's public

#240

Post by nkrisc »

OJFord wrote: post #217
nfoz wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a Canadian, I was quick to realize that the mere word "sorry" has a different meaning to some people down south. In Canada I'll just say it casually to mean a polite "hope I'm not troubling you" or "sorry that happened to you", and never thought of it as immediately declaring responsibility let alone fragility. But in the US, I've been pounced on for a casual use of that word, as if I'd announced failure and that…

As a Briton, I sympathise. It's easy to say and then feel foolish by the reaction of the counter-party - that you've made something bigger of it than it is, or that you've inadvertently (been considered to having had) admitted guilt to something serious! 'Sorry' to me ranges from 'Excuse me', through 'ha-ha we both reached for that/side-stepped in the same direction at the same time', all the way of course to the ser…

The American equivalent to the "sorry" you're used to is, at least in the Midwest, "oop" or sometimes more like "ope" depending on accent. It's more of an utterance than a word but it means the same thing.
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