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

The Shaming-Industrial Complex

newyorker.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

141–150 of 155 posts

Re: The Shaming-Industrial Complex

#141

Post by zppln »

Razengan wrote: post #13
hunglee2 wrote: post #2

Shame is a powerful moderator of behaviour considered marginal or taboo in society, likely it forms an essential role in group cohesion. However, it may well be maladaptive at the scale of global society, where the mechanisms of shame - the 'calling out' of transgressors, the dogpiling that ensues following a successful call out - are chaotic, following no process or moderation itself. The inevitable result is self c…

And it carries over to the glorious new age of technological empowerment, where systems that was supposed to mitigate human ills instead perpetuate them: All forums, even vote-based ones like Reddit and HN, devolve into echo chambers where any dissenting opinion is buried before many even get to see it.

Meh, if anything voting systems accelerate the ride to echo chamber.

Re: The Shaming-Industrial Complex

#142

Post by krageon »

KarlKemp wrote: post #105
visarga wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Guilt–shame–fear spectrum of cultures https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guilt%E2%80%93shame%E2%80%93fe...

That's really interesting, thank you. I'd always considered guilt and shame to be correlated, as two sides of the same medal. And believe the person above also conflated the two, since their "shamelessness" is really an inability to experience guilt. So maybe the problem is that guilt (felt by the person without specific external input) stopped working, and shaming is taking its place?

Why do you believe a lack of (feelings of) guilt is a problem?

Re: The Shaming-Industrial Complex

#143

Post by krageon »

Tainnor wrote: post #123
dalbasal wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are elitist traps in here, somewhere. First, that a lot of people are too uneducated, stupid or uninformed to be responsible for the moral viewpoints. Hence why all blame should be foisted onto the "villainous leaders who manipulated." Second, that your (our) moral viewpoint is the advanced... and the contrary presumably degenerate or primitive. That kind of empathy isn't well received. It's condescension. At i…

This sentiment is often voiced on HN and I don't understand it. Somehow the statement "other people have a different opinion from yours" is used as an argument for why some person's opinion can't be right (or more right, or something). That's not only demonstrably false in lots of cases, it also doesn't advance discourse because now we're talking about potentially fictitious people with potentially fictitious beliefs…

> This sentiment is often voiced on HN and I don't understand it

Note that the sentiment is "condescension is not empathy", and empathy is what you need to approach this problem.

> I claim that it's perfectly legitimate to think that certain other people are ill-equipped to make certain decisions.

You then condescend. You are superior, the "general public" is too dumb ("ill-equipped") to "make certain decisions".

> That's of course different from the question of whether you should let people know that you think they're ill-informed

How would you know? You simply feel they are ill-informed, but it doesn't mean that they are. By assuming (implicitly) that you must be correct, you deny them the agency of figuring things out for themselves: Clearly they cannot have done so, they are simply too wrong.

Re: The Shaming-Industrial Complex

#144

Post by krageon »

CodeShmode wrote: post #127
quantumwannabe wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are still being incredibly condescending. The people you mock don’t view themselves as “academically handicapped” and they voted for Trump because they thought he was smart, not because he was rich. At some point the “academic smarts” have to demonstrate success, otherwise people will rightfully discard them. Decades of constant failure from supposedly elite people in every possible field have lead to a reaction…

> Decades of constant failure from supposedly elite people in every possible field have lead to a reaction where people just don’t trust them no matter what they claim. That’s a big claim to make without offering any examples.

Everyone fails constantly, so it makes sense that "elite people" (whatever those are) do too. Why would you have to give examples for something that is a fact of life? It is like breathing. Everyone does it, you do not need examples for it.

Re: The Shaming-Industrial Complex

#145

Post by krageon »

k__ wrote: post #117
seattle_spring wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That seems like a completely empty and likely incorrect phrase. What exactly does it mean to you?

That people who are against good things happening are part of the reason these good things aren't happening.

> virtue signaling

> good things happening

Those are not similar.

Re: The Shaming-Industrial Complex

#146

Post by icejjfish »

quantumwannabe wrote: post #114
BenoitEssiambre wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is what makes it difficult to discuss this. It's hard to do without rudely insulting people. How do you find words that are not too condescending. There is a long history of using "the people" to mean non intellectuals including it being enshrined in the US constitution. But that often does not make it clear enough for everyone to understand that we're talking about a vulnerability. Populism gets turned into a d…

You are still being incredibly condescending. The people you mock don’t view themselves as “academically handicapped” and they voted for Trump because they thought he was smart, not because he was rich. At some point the “academic smarts” have to demonstrate success, otherwise people will rightfully discard them. Decades of constant failure from supposedly elite people in every possible field have lead to a reaction…

You may appreciate the book “Intellectuals and Society” by Thomas Sowell.

Re: The Shaming-Industrial Complex

#147

Post by yunohn »

refurb wrote: post #88
yunohn wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

There is no point to free speech unless it protects speech that offends.

> protects speech that offends.

Why are you beating this fake dead horse? Free speech is protected, offensive or not. There are no governmental consequences.

However, it also covers and allows for the replies, tweet storms, public shaming that occur when your free speech is racist, sexist, or bigoted and malicious.

That's what this debate is /actually/ about - you just want protection against backlash.

Re: The Shaming-Industrial Complex

#148

Post by yunohn »

rayiner wrote: post #77
yunohn wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> diversity of thought No one is stopped from having diverse thoughts - you can always think whatever you want. But why do you think you have the right to publicly & globally tweet it without anyone responding to it? Are you looking solely for supportive replies? And zero debate or criticism? The irony is that all the people fighting “cancel culture” with their “diverse” thoughts really seem to mainly just have hot-t…

You’re missing the point. Folks aren’t reacting to being called out for “racist and sexist” statements, but California imposing its view of what constitutes those things on a global platform. “Who gets to define racism” is a critical question: https://contexts.org/blog/who-gets-to-define-whats-racist/ > Rather than actually dismantling white supremacy or meaningfully empowering people of color, efforts often seem to…

> “Who gets to define racism” is a critical question

Absolutely, I agree that problematic views are global and not just American. However, could you link some examples of people getting "cancelled" for nuanced takes on niche potentially charged topics? Almost always, they're mainstream, textbook malicious rhetoric, no nuance whatsoever.

> But by Twitter standards, many of her views would be deemed “sexist”

You're missing the point - topics like racism & feminism evolve over time. That doesn't mean your mom needs to be "cancelled" despite her "unassailable credentials" - it just means that like everyone else, you need to learn more as the world changes.

Regardless, she has nothing to worry about - unless you're suggesting she is a prominent person in a position of influence, who regularly tweets hot-takes promoting her view on racism/feminism, while going on rampages bashing other's opinions or viewpoints. Because, let's be real - those are the kind of social media users that this debate is about. Eg, Elon Musk, JK Rowling. And again, none of these people are really "cancelled".

Re: The Shaming-Industrial Complex

#149

Post by SuoDuanDao »

yunohn wrote: post #129
janto wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So how you want the game to work is that you expect me to defend myself against being called bigoted or yield to your ideology. That's how you are propagating your perspective?

It’s not an ideology - acknowledging the nuances of the actual debate (trans vs women sports) is basic courtesy. Deliberately ignoring it multiple times is malicious.

Some would say giving a deliberately simple statement like the parent commentator's the interpretation most offensive to you is evidence of malicious intent.

Re: The Shaming-Industrial Complex

#150

Post by carapace »

verisimi wrote: post #108
carapace wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's context-dependent isn't it? The same joke can be harmless fun in one context, and a cruel jab in another, eh? "Do unto others..." isn't a compressed file that expands into generic rules for every situation. (If life was simple enough to be covered by a set of generic rules we wouldn't have evolved these huge calorie-guzzling brains on the ends of our spines, eh?)

'Do unto others' is a principle that can be applied into every situation. You might think the situation is too broad or complex etc, but your calorie-guzzling brain can work the many and various context-dependent scenarios out. For every wrong there is a right answer. We live in a moral world. Luckily, its not your job to sort the world out. You can only work on yourself and ensure your actions are aligned with moral…

No worries. FWIW I agree with you.
Post reply on HN