Meta commentary, part 1:
By exposing her soft belly and saying "stab me with your best shot," OP has revealed the soft underbelly darkside of HN. By lowering themself in front of HN, they've made themselves a target for everyone to dump on them. And what do people dump? What is the first thing they offload? The things which by offloading would let them feel best. The first thing people offload on another, is the things which they think are bad, and which they fear they themselves are or have been told they are. By offloading on another, the other becomes that thing more than they, and in their own mind, they no longer are. Serenity unlocked.
So by examining the accusations against the willfully vulnerable OP (who has perhaps inadvertently made themselves a target for others projections) we can understand what HN (or this sample) fears about themselves.
Let's take a look at the stats. The OP's crimes, by the numbers:
- creep: 41 occurrences
- sociopath: 13 occurrences
- NPD/narcissist: 11 occurrences
Seems there are a lot of "afraid-they're"- creeps, sociopaths, and narcissists out there, who have jumped at the chance to dump on another and show their own selves it's not them. But what surprises is that this is probably not the case. Can their really be so many lurking evildoers in a small sample of HNers?
I think it's more likely that these words are bandied around, and the HNers misunderstand their power, and take them to heart.
Meta commentary, part 2:
What if the OP is not wrong, but we are?
What if the industry is wrong? What if it's not that the OP has caused some untimely and gross violation of the moral fabric that binds us, but what if there's some sort of unspoken bias in operation here (aaand...it wouldn't be the first time), that leads people to incorrectly malign and sideline OP?
What if OP is black? Or a trans man? Or what if they have a big scar from a cancer surgery down their face? Or what if they have cerebral palsy? Or are in a wheelchair? Or what if they are "neurodivergent"? In our society of "tolerance and accommodations" is it really up to the OP to adapt themselves, when we persist in proclaiming they are already "disabled" or "marginalized", if that were true, should we not adapt ourselves? What bias lurks in the shadows of Mordor?
What if the OP is a regular person, not perfect, just imperfect, and it is simply this bias against whatever unharkened trait has led to these outcomes? On such limited information we're all ready to hang OP high for their crimes against our delicate and beautiful Technofaith Ethical Superculture Utopia, but no one's questioning the premise? No one's the jury of the 10th man? "I was allowed to," protest the critics. "OP consented." I'm only reminded of Stanford prison experiment. The guards were allowed to be guards, the prisoners consented to being prisoners, and in 10 days it all went to shit. Shame on you, HN, shame on you.
Only a half /S
Conclusion:
But really what we do to this poor, meek, and vulnerable person in this state, is what we do to ourselves, (why would we sling these arrows at them, if we were not knowing they were arrows, and how do we know they were arrows to sling, if we were not making these arrows, and holding them against our own skin, at our own throats, knowing how sharp they are) and the care we show towards this poor soul, is the care we show towards our own soul, and ourselves, isn't it?
What's the the punishment...the accusations of zero compassion levelled without compassion. Paradox blind. Does our industry have a culture of punishment problem? Did all techheads have awful parents and are now socially maladjusted, un self aware, perpetuators of an abusive cycle, even if only at a passive-aggressive and socially "acceptable" way?