These days, being honest will make you a social pariah in every social circle.
Feeling like a pariah, even when you’re not
41–50 of 70 posts
Re: Feeling like a pariah, even when you’re not
#42Earlier quoted context omitted.
All of the above applies to journalism as well, and is something that any media-savvy person will keep in mind at all times. Whenever I see someone expressing an opinion that this or that source is biased, or that there is such a thing as an unbiased source, I do a mental face-palm. The best propaganda and misinformation is framed to appear unbiased to its audience.
Things to watch out for are slogans like "Fair and balanced"
Actually, I think the ham-fisted approach like that is easier to spot without paying attention.
The harder ones to spot will always be the ones that align with your own interests and ideals. The best way I've found to get some perspective on those is to occasionally go to the "fair and balanced" site specifically to get the other take on an issue. It soon becomes obvious that there are actually different takes on the issue, but neither side is giving even lip service to the other sides position, instead just putting up straw men to knock down.
It's a lot harder for these sites to claim being unbiased successfully while having a lot of bias when you have more information than they assume you do, so that's one good way to spot it (but it requires a lot of work and vigilance, so is hard to keep up).
Re: Feeling like a pariah, even when you’re not
#43Social groups, whether in academia, industry, civil society, or anywhere else are never as able to maintain the level of objectivity they think they possess. Group think isn't (just) a structural failure but a intractable bias all human communities face simply because they are made up of humans. I think there is an implicit belief in the scientific and technology communities that rational investigation can be free fr…
All of the above applies to journalism as well, and is something that any media-savvy person will keep in mind at all times. Whenever I see someone expressing an opinion that this or that source is biased, or that there is such a thing as an unbiased source, I do a mental face-palm. The best propaganda and misinformation is framed to appear unbiased to its audience.
> The best propaganda and misinformation is framed to appear unbiased to its audience.
The most effective propaganda I've seen seems to be highly emotionally charged.
Political parties and religions are our most prominent organizations that depend entirely on evangelism, and I don't see many examples of them thriving through appearing to appear purely logical and unbiased.
Re: Feeling like a pariah, even when you’re not
#44Earlier quoted context omitted.
Damn, how about join a casual sports league or volunteer at Habitat or some kind of group sessions. Anything to get social experience.
Damn, have you considered social experience could be the reason someone ended like that? It's a feedback loop and the less in control you are, the less in control you are. Until you hit rock bottom. Which might not happen, and where you might bounce off, or not.
Absolutely, I'm no stranger to having a string of bad social experiences leading to becoming (more) unpleasant and then receiving unpleasant feedback.
I didn't mean to suggest it would be easy, and if you know a better way to start trying to turn things around I'd like to hear it.
Re: Feeling like a pariah, even when you’re not
#45Earlier quoted context omitted.
All of the above applies to journalism as well, and is something that any media-savvy person will keep in mind at all times. Whenever I see someone expressing an opinion that this or that source is biased, or that there is such a thing as an unbiased source, I do a mental face-palm. The best propaganda and misinformation is framed to appear unbiased to its audience.
> The best propaganda and misinformation is framed to appear unbiased to its audience. The most effective propaganda I've seen seems to be highly emotionally charged. Political parties and religions are our most prominent organizations that depend entirely on evangelism, and I don't see many examples of them thriving through appearing to appear purely logical and unbiased.
Key phrase: "that I've seen".
Well done propaganda (framed to appear unbiased to its audience) is not even noticed as such by the reader. The effectiveness of this can be seen right here on HN in the hundreds/thousands of culture-war themed posts where people will quote newspaper articles that are written (intentionally or not) in a loose/ambiguous/leading way that facilitates significant interpretation of the words, so different readers will form different conclusions, and neither can be deemed wrong as they can all be using perfectly sound logic. When someone posts such an article as proof of their viewpoint, predictable heated arguments ensue, with both sides typically believing themselves to be right.
Re: Feeling like a pariah, even when you’re not
#46I listened to an interesting Joe Rogan episode with David Sinclair, a doctor studying aging.
At one point, he published a paper and someone from one of the drug companies wrote a scathing rebuttal, which caused him countless problems. Because his research was called into question, he couldn't get funding, and his lab shrunk from maybe people to only a few.
So he had to do a lot of extra work to re-prove all his assertions and a couple of years were lost.
Re: Feeling like a pariah, even when you’re not
#47Earlier quoted context omitted.
I have worked in a few departments where this has happened. It seemed that it was a means used by a group of engineers to get rid of other engineers they didn't see as "one of them".
Did this happen as a last resort after more noble attempt failed ? Or was it the first reflex of the group ? Also was the other person really unfriendly or detrimental to the group or was it somehow subjective/ego driven (threatened by a newcomer) ?
No, this wasn't some misunderstanding, or even a disagreement. It was control. Those that didn't play the game were ostracized. Where possible they were set up to fail, and were generally made miserable.
Ego driven? Certainly. I don't think there was any fear of newcomers, but was more about loyalty.
Many of these people had worked together previously, and would coordinate to enforce what they wanted. Eventually they moved in mass to another company, killing our eng department. They rinsed and repeated at the new company.
I had an HR rep tell me they felt like there was little they could do, because of their culture of silence, and how profitable they were.
Re: Feeling like a pariah, even when you’re not
#48Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I was the same person before the rejection as I am after it. There is nothing changing in reality - only my own view, my own feelings. This is all mostly self-inflicted. The reality being that members of my own species choose not to be with me or work with me. I am unwelcome. Repeat that many times over many years.
_Some_ members. If every member of our species choose not to be with or work with you it would be a major problem, but probably not an insoluble one.
there's a saying for that.
if everyone else is an asshole, you're the asshole.
Re: Feeling like a pariah, even when you’re not
#49Earlier quoted context omitted.
Damn, how about join a casual sports league or volunteer at Habitat or some kind of group sessions. Anything to get social experience.
Damn, have you considered social experience could be the reason someone ended like that? It's a feedback loop and the less in control you are, the less in control you are. Until you hit rock bottom. Which might not happen, and where you might bounce off, or not.
I'm in the long slow process of rebuilding parts of my life that were stunted in childhood, and learning how to feel and show honest emotions instead of fearing that I'll be rejected just for showing myself.
It is hard, and runs over into all the usual self-help, but the one thing that has pointed me in the right direction is when I realized that I choose how, and what, I show to the rest of the world, and if I want a positive feedback loop, it starts with me.
You are always in control of your end of the loop. Always. No matter how it feels otherwise, You Always Have The Choice.
It took me a lot to learn that, and I'm still working on it.
Re: Feeling like a pariah, even when you’re not
#50It's funny how freely the word pariah is used in english. When I was a kid my parents used to tell me never ever to say that word, and that I might get arrested if I do. I never dug into this to find out why but that's a super taboo word in tamilnadu.
Yes, but in english it's simply used to mean as outcast instead of all the social connotations that it carries from it's originating language Tamil.