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The reputation economy is turning us into conformists (2017) [video]

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Re: The reputation economy is turning us into conformists (2017) [video]

#41

Post by mc32 »

InitialLastName wrote: post #18
wonderwonder wrote: post #14

Social media has massively amplified the penalty for making a mistake or offhand remark. People used to make tasteless jokes all the time and it was treated as it was, just a joke and life continued. Now anything out of the pale that catches the attention of some sort of influencer spells doom. Anyone caught at a bad moment on camera is pilloried, made out to be the anti christ and have people actively seeking out th…

> Publicly espousing an unpopular opinion now can be career suicide Let's not pretend this is new: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollywood_blacklist The difference now is that visibility is more uniformly distributed across the population.

No normal person will deny this.

But there is no comparison to a small population being affected (ironically in the USSR, lots of artists and authors got not only blacklisted but sent to the Gulags --gee, I wonder if they wrote to Stalin on behalf of their brethren) to potentially anyone and everyone being a potential subject at any moment for something otherwise innocuous.

What’s more this is much worse. It’s not about a singular subject (communist sympathizer) but just about anything at any moment. It's a shifting landscape so much so that there is internecine sniping among all groups.

Today you can’t even make a genuine faux pas without the risk of someone coming down on you and risking your livelihood. That’s quite different.

If Pelosi said off handedly, you know Trump did a couple of things right, or you know I don’t agree 100% with everything BLM she’ll be in trouble and she’s the top politician outside the president. Imagine a school teacher…

Re: The reputation economy is turning us into conformists (2017) [video]

#42

Post by morsch »

caeril wrote: post #12

Pretty rich, coming out of an organization that assaulted and chased Vincent Canfield out of CCC for . . . . owning trollish domain names. I'm sure the presenter doesn't necessarily share the Congress's values, but it's funny nonetheless.

I have no idea why he got thrown out, but he apparently provides anonymous email that's used for bomb threats and had the slogan "Hitler did nothing wrong" on one of his websites (hosted in Germany, no less), so it's not hard to imagine he gave them more reason than owning rude domains.

Not saying it was justified (don't know, don't really care, I'm not affiliated or involved), but you're not giving the whole picture.

Re: The reputation economy is turning us into conformists (2017) [video]

#43

Post by ta1234567890 »

InitialLastName wrote: post #18
wonderwonder wrote: post #14

Social media has massively amplified the penalty for making a mistake or offhand remark. People used to make tasteless jokes all the time and it was treated as it was, just a joke and life continued. Now anything out of the pale that catches the attention of some sort of influencer spells doom. Anyone caught at a bad moment on camera is pilloried, made out to be the anti christ and have people actively seeking out th…

> Publicly espousing an unpopular opinion now can be career suicide Let's not pretend this is new: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollywood_blacklist The difference now is that visibility is more uniformly distributed across the population.

YC has a blacklist of people and companies.

Not sure what will land you there, but I know they have it and use it.

Re: The reputation economy is turning us into conformists (2017) [video]

#44

Post by imgabe »

AutumnCurtain wrote: post #37
imgabe wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You draw the line at where it has an actual, measurable impact on other people. “Joe Schmoe has an opinion you don’t like” doesn’t impoverish anyone, it doesn’t prevent anyone from getting food or housing or any other need. It’s just a person having an opinion. Going into hysterics over trivial nonsense that ultimately doesn’t matter is not helping anyone. It’s not making the world a better place. Quite the opposite.

The early US had many people of the opinion that black people were inferior, more akin to animals than humans. Do you think that led to anyone not getting food or housing, or to anyone living in poverty?

Indeed, and in that time people having the opinion that black people should be free would have been considered to have “wrong” and “dangerous” opinions that would cause great damage to society.

Would we be better off today if those in power then had been able to silence unpopular opinions?

Re: The reputation economy is turning us into conformists (2017) [video]

#45

Post by AutumnCurtain »

imgabe wrote: post #44
AutumnCurtain wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The early US had many people of the opinion that black people were inferior, more akin to animals than humans. Do you think that led to anyone not getting food or housing, or to anyone living in poverty?

Indeed, and in that time people having the opinion that black people should be free would have been considered to have “wrong” and “dangerous” opinions that would cause great damage to society. Would we be better off today if those in power then had been able to silence unpopular opinions?

We are best off when we acknowledge that "opinions" can and do deal deadly harm every day, and not avoiding that point when it is explicitly made.

Re: The reputation economy is turning us into conformists (2017) [video]

#46

Post by [deleted] »

jnsaff2 wrote: post #29
caeril wrote: post #12

Pretty rich, coming out of an organization that assaulted and chased Vincent Canfield out of CCC for . . . . owning trollish domain names. I'm sure the presenter doesn't necessarily share the Congress's values, but it's funny nonetheless.

Are you attacking the presenter or CCC? On first read it might seem as you are mixing them together and it can be quite unfair to the presenter if you are only mad at CCC.

[deleted]

Re: The reputation economy is turning us into conformists (2017) [video]

#47

Post by nixpulvis »

Let's use Gender as a quick example, why not?

A few years ago, I couldn't have said I thought about it at all. For better and for worse, it wasn't part of the discourse. Now, I'm not all that different, yet it comes up again and again. I'm often forced to choose a side, even when it's all hypotheticals and virtues. I feel forced because online media is permanent, each statement is my closing argument. When the litigation tries to bend toward actual experience, the thorny truths are much too thorny to accept. I've seen this play out time and time again, on a vast number of subjects. We summarize the sad state of things as "lacking nuance". It seeps into my personal life as well now, having become a part of my personality.

Fact is, it's not just a lack of nuance and it's not just conformity. It's hard boiled fear. Fear of the repercussions, fear of the judging eyes, fear of any reaction at all. Conformism requires something of a leader to follow, but with "social cooling" it's simply following nothing into the depths of atrophy and despair. Many don't even notice.

So there's those who challenge and those who accept, like always. The winners will be the charismatic and successful, but I have still yet to hear one from any side I'd follow. Am I blind? Am I missing something critical to living in this fucked up world? Am I being too rhetorical, too demanding, too focused on the issue outside my control?

At the end of the day I sleep poorly, wake restlessly, and like anyone still holding on to sanity, I find my own distractions.

Re: The reputation economy is turning us into conformists (2017) [video]

#48

Post by inglor_cz »

germinalphrase wrote: post #11
ceilingcorner wrote: post #10

The upvote / downvote system is at fault here too, at least with online discussion forums. Everything that doesn’t match the local culture and norms is immediately downvoted. It’s a self-reinforcing echo chamber. Reddit is notoriously bad at this. I preferred the old forum style, where even unpopular or strange messages were still placed in chronological order.

Making show dead the default would be a nice step.

After setting "show dead" to "on", I am rarely more enlightened than before. It seems that HN moderators are an order of magnitude better at their jobs than average and recognize value or its absence fairly well.

Re: The reputation economy is turning us into conformists (2017) [video]

#50

Post by SpicyLemonZest »

Goronmon wrote: post #24
wonderwonder wrote: post #14

Social media has massively amplified the penalty for making a mistake or offhand remark. People used to make tasteless jokes all the time and it was treated as it was, just a joke and life continued. Now anything out of the pale that catches the attention of some sort of influencer spells doom. Anyone caught at a bad moment on camera is pilloried, made out to be the anti christ and have people actively seeking out th…

Where do you draw the line though? Are we never allow to criticize someone for their opinions or "jokes", regardless of content or context? It's easy to just state "People should be able to make jokes or have a bad day." and while maybe that's true, I don't think we should be able to brush off all behavior by just labeling it a "bad day".

In a post-Donglegate world, I don’t know how interesting this question is. I don’t know exactly where to draw the line, but it seems like we’re so far over it that most people could take “don’t gossip” as a reasonable heuristic.
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