Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Don’t Apologize: If the mob comes for you, stand up for yourself

persuasion.community

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

131–140 of 143 posts

Re: Don’t Apologize: If the mob comes for you, stand up for yourself

#131

Post by sanity31415 »

aerosmile wrote: post #14

Winston Marshall had to leave Mumford and Sons to be able to stand up for himself. For anyone willing to throw away a life's worth of investment into their career in order to speak their mind, that's a good piece of advice. For everyone else, apologize. Or better yet, avoid getting into hot water. I have found HN to be a great barometer for what's "acceptable" and what isn't. Recently, I learned a valuable lesson - I…

> For everyone else, apologize.

The sharks are circling, maybe if I give them some blood they'll leave me alone.

Re: Don’t Apologize: If the mob comes for you, stand up for yourself

#132

Post by ThinkBeat »

aerosmile wrote: post #14

Winston Marshall had to leave Mumford and Sons to be able to stand up for himself. For anyone willing to throw away a life's worth of investment into their career in order to speak their mind, that's a good piece of advice. For everyone else, apologize. Or better yet, avoid getting into hot water. I have found HN to be a great barometer for what's "acceptable" and what isn't. Recently, I learned a valuable lesson - I…

Winston Marshall had to leave Mumford and Sons to be able to stand up for himself. For anyone willing to throw away a life's worth of investment into their career in order to speak their mind, that's a good piece of advice. For everyone else, apologize.

That is horrible advice.

It is the goal of conditioning of any autocratic state. You censor yourself so the state / party / activists dont even have to act to ensure that dissidence and subversion does not occur.

https://edwardsnowden.substack.com/p/on-censorship-pt-1

>""It is not just the right of the person who speaks to be heard, it is the right of everyone in the audience to listen and to hear, and every time you silence somebody you make yourself a prisoner of your own action because you deny yourself the right to hear something. In other words, your own right to hear and be exposed is as much involved in all these cases as is the right of the other to voice his or her view.

Indeed as John Stuart Mill said: if all of society were agreed on the truth and beauty and value of one proposition, all except one person it would be most important, in fact it would become even more important, that that one heretic be heard because we would still benefit from his perhaps outrageous or appalling view."

-Christopher Hitchens

Re: Don’t Apologize: If the mob comes for you, stand up for yourself

#133

Post by sershe »

Werewolf255 wrote: post #50
LegitShady wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please explain what Andy Ngo did that nobody should be able to have a different opinion of him without you dismissing him? JK Rowling is a billionaire who doesn’t need much in the way of connections anymore, but she is certainly constantly attacked and abused, and has lost many opportunities for standing up for what she believes in. That you don’t care about it and think that amazon still sells her books doesn’t mean…

Anybody is free to have an opinion on Andy Ngo but calling him, with complete credulity, someone who "became noteworthy by documenting the excesses of the far left" without mentioning his vocal and widespread reporting in favor of white supremacy, with the Proud Boys being the most prominent example, doesn't make me think the author is being genuine. If the article had a more nuanced view as opposed to pushing a poin…

1) Ngo is not white. I read his book and saw nothing there about "white supremacy". [edit] Ok, except maybe a biased take on Arbery murder in particular. Which doesn't really have much to do with anything systemic, or with most of the rest of the book. He's very clearly a classical liberal, either conservative-leaning or considering the right to be the lesser of two evils.

2) Proud Boys leader (until recently) was Black. Proud Boys are far-right, sure, but you really should stop calling everything you disagree with "white supremacist".

3) Ngo, as far as I can tell, merely used Proud Boys as a "resource" for his own safety and/or under "enemy of my enemy is my friend". As someone born in a socialist country, I cannot really blame him - far-right is evil, sure, but far-left is at least as evil, and I would argue more evil.

4) In any case, the statement "noteworthy by documenting the excesses of the far left" is true. The only framework under which one would need to mention that "but he also offended woke sensibilities in an unrelated/tangentially related matter" is the woke cult, the one that the author (and Ngo) do not belong to. For most of us, it is sufficient to let an arbitrary fact, or an accurate description, stand by itself.

Re: Don’t Apologize: If the mob comes for you, stand up for yourself

#134

Post by hintymad »

giantg2 wrote: post #129
giantg2 wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"...in favor of white supremacy, with the Proud Boys being the most prominent example..." I don't have much background on the Proud Boys. I saw an article about one of their leaders pleading guilty to destruction of property or something recently, and I didn't think he was white. So I'm a little confused about this. I would have thought a white supremacist group wouldn't accept him, not to mention it seems odd that s…

Why downvote without a reply? I was asking about information related to this.

Because you asked an inconvenient question that challenges some people's narrative. It shouldn't be surprise to you that not everyone on HN starts with the question "is it true" or "is it a fact", such as did Andy's report on BLM violence true?

Re: Don’t Apologize: If the mob comes for you, stand up for yourself

#135

Post by native_samples »

mnowicki wrote: post #118
LegitShady wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, what’s weird is calling a religious Jew and a gay Asian man a nazi/white supremacist. It’s ridiculous on its face. They’d have to believe in the righteousness of their own destruction, something neither had espoused. It would be necessary to show strong evidence of it, which hasn’t happened, or else it’s just someone lying about them to discredit them, and doing so in a way that is utterly ridiculous. In this cas…

They don't have to believe in their own destruction. There are several minority youtubers who are ver successful who support the far-right for their own benefit, to gain support and notoriety to support their grift. And the far-right loves tokenizing these minorities to 'prove' they aren't racist. A lack of evidence(especially for something as unprovable as a specific individuals personal beliefs) doesn't prove a lie…

You don't seem to consider the possibility that they genuinely agree with these "far" right wing views, nor that those people's support of those ideas is indeed genuine evidence that the ideas aren't racist. Instead you work backwards from your ideological certainty that the "far right" is all about racism, therefore any evidence that it's not must be some kind of subtle deception.

Re: Don’t Apologize: If the mob comes for you, stand up for yourself

#136

Post by lloydatkinson »

aerosmile wrote: post #14

Winston Marshall had to leave Mumford and Sons to be able to stand up for himself. For anyone willing to throw away a life's worth of investment into their career in order to speak their mind, that's a good piece of advice. For everyone else, apologize. Or better yet, avoid getting into hot water. I have found HN to be a great barometer for what's "acceptable" and what isn't. Recently, I learned a valuable lesson - I…

I found the same thing happened for something totally innocent and unrelated. Someone commented they were watching SG1. I said that I'm also doing that, but that I have to torrent it because Netflix took it down again. Also, that the episodes had been actually improved by AI effectively increasing the resolution, really impressive stuff.

But was that last part what everyone talked about? Of course not, the part that causes the dumb and frustrating was about netlifx taking it down. Maybe had maybe a hundred replies all saying I'm being "entitled" for simply saying "netflix took it down again". People say HN doesn't have a hivemind like Reddit but it 100% does.

The really interesting part was ignored, in favour of shitting on someone over netflix???

Re: Don’t Apologize: If the mob comes for you, stand up for yourself

#137

Post by IanSanders »

jmull wrote: post #52

I don't think this is great advice. You can think about the mob coming after you in three groups: (1) People who aren't listening. Their minds are closed. They are angry or mean or otherwise won't listen no matter what you say. They don't care if you apologize or not. (2) People with an agenda against you. They are going to keep going after you whether you apologize or not. But they probably actually like it better i…

No matter what you say, someone somewhere will get offended, or think they got offended.

Re: Don’t Apologize: If the mob comes for you, stand up for yourself

#138

Post by prepend »

eclipxe wrote: post #55
LegitShady wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Alternately maybe the overwhelming social pressure doesn’t necessarily make an opinion true, just popular, or everyone else who agrees is just as scared to risk their careers etc as he is.

You are free to voice your opinion. Society is free to provide feedback to you on those opinions. If you have an opinion that a sufficient cohort of your peers in society feel is out of bounds for where society is headed or not compatible with the prevailing world view, society will provide corrective consequences/accountability. The system is working as it should.

> You are free to voice your opinion.

I think GP’s comment is precisely that they aren’t free to voice opinion.

The challenge is that .001% of society is expressing opinions on that. And that tiny number of people making noise is interpreted as society, since most of society doesn’t reeee on Twitter about opinions.

For me, I’m not GP, it’s not worth the hassle and frustrating of navigating whatever is going on, so I don’t express opinions. I’m not free to express opinions.

Re: Don’t Apologize: If the mob comes for you, stand up for yourself

#139

Post by prepend »

jopsen wrote: post #43
livinginfear wrote: post #23

Likening modern 'woke' mob outrage on Twitter to Maoist China is the correct analogy. The purpose of being 'cancelled' is not any kind of real social justice. It's the enforcement of an ideological orthodoxy. Never apologise to the mob. Even a superficial understanding of game theory shows you that you have nothing to gain from the self-flagellation involved in a public apology. Remember, You'll never be forgiven. I'…

> Likening modern 'woke' mob outrage on Twitter to Maoist China is the correct analogy. I would personally rather be cancelled on social media, than having my breathing cancelled. It's should be possible to disagree and criticize without analogies to various atrocities involving mass murder. Drawing such parallels is a form of cancelling, as it effectively prevents any defense or discourse on the subject. Whatever "c…

> I would personally rather be cancelled on social media, than having my breathing cancelled.

Yes, I think all agree with your preference and share it.

But they are both bad, undesirable things.

If I had to choose between assault and murder, I’d rather be assaulted. But I work to reduce assaults AND murders in society.

Drawing parallels between similarly negative things is appropriate to reduce negative things.

Re: Don’t Apologize: If the mob comes for you, stand up for yourself

#140

Post by lenkite »

Werewolf255 wrote: post #50
LegitShady wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please explain what Andy Ngo did that nobody should be able to have a different opinion of him without you dismissing him? JK Rowling is a billionaire who doesn’t need much in the way of connections anymore, but she is certainly constantly attacked and abused, and has lost many opportunities for standing up for what she believes in. That you don’t care about it and think that amazon still sells her books doesn’t mean…

Anybody is free to have an opinion on Andy Ngo but calling him, with complete credulity, someone who "became noteworthy by documenting the excesses of the far left" without mentioning his vocal and widespread reporting in favor of white supremacy, with the Proud Boys being the most prominent example, doesn't make me think the author is being genuine. If the article had a more nuanced view as opposed to pushing a poin…

Please provide some proof that he reported lies. Just merely reporting about matters - even matters you don't like exposed and want swept under the carpet - is not a reason for character assassination.
Post reply on HN