Our fundamental right to shame and shun the New York Times • Hacker News Board

Re: Our fundamental right to shame and shun the New York Times

#401

Post by whiddershins » Wed, Mar 23, 2022, 1:19 AM UTC

Latty wrote: post #171

noduerme wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The one thing that's remained constant from times when civil rights activists were imprisoned for "offending" people to now when right wingers are canceled for offending people seems to be that the bulk of the population is incapable of, or unwilling to, set the principle of speech over their own feelings about that speech. I think it's because most people just can't imagine themselves being on the wrong end of a cen…

You are equating government imprisonment with public cancellation here because they both have a chilling effect, but we very quickly run into the paradox of tolerance: do you restrict the expression of "cancelling" to protect other speech? Those Nazis you use an example of abhorrent speech that must be allowed were calling for communists to be rounded up and killed for their views. Surely that is partaking in cancell…

Explicit threats, defamation, calls to violence, harassment, inciting riots, fighting words … these have a legal precedent for the reason that cause and effect are traceable.

By the same token, ‘cancellation’ if it leads to loss of livelihood etc. is questionable.

Being offended or hurt by someone’s words are much harder to quantify.

Re: Our fundamental right to shame and shun the New York Times

#402

Post by vsareto » Wed, Mar 23, 2022, 1:22 AM UTC

Gimpei wrote: post #129

The problem with the debate on "cancel culture" is a lack of specificity. The fact is that there are certain occasions where "canceling" seems fine, and others, where it does not. And I think a problem with the progressive argument is the refusal to acknowledge that there can ever be any excesses. For example, there is the case of Dorian Abbot, who was disinvited from an MIT lecture after he wrote an op-ed criticizin…

>The fact is that there are certain occasions where "canceling" seems fine, and others, where it does not.

To me, this hints that the concept is a convenient tool to own people over social media or use in political attacks for rallying a voter base. There isn’t anything new here except people being shitty to each other. Anything else from it is what you normally get with reputation damage (justified or not).

Once we get rid of the annoying exercise of trying to define cancel culture, there’s some real action items we can talk about regarding reputation/livelihood damage for dumb things being said. Any reason to revisit that is because of technology’s reach now and how seemingly easily it can happen, not that cancel culture is a new thing.

Re: Our fundamental right to shame and shun the New York Times

#403

Post by lliamander » Wed, Mar 23, 2022, 1:24 AM UTC

Misdicorl wrote: post #357

lliamander wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Even left wing dominated cities have large numbers of right wing constituents. To think this is the cause of police brutality is a stretch to put it mildly. > Right wing cancel culture are lynch mobs and the literal bombing of an American city and the imprisonment of an unconscionable number of black males. Again with the random grab of different grievances. None of these are relevant to this conversation, but expl…

Sure. Explain selective enforcement of drug policy and the subsequent imprisonment of a huge fraction of Americans who happen to be black on those charges. How does that not fall under "silencing people the right do not like".

> Concerned about the deadly effect of crack within their own communities, black members of Congress led the charge to pass the 1986 federal drug laws. The bill that was passed — which included the crack/powder sentencing disparity — did so with the support of the majority of black congresspersons. None at the time objected to the sentencing disparity as “racist.”

> In 2006, the feds tried 5,619 crack sellers, and 4,495 of them were black — out of the 562,000 blacks in state and federal prisons at the end of that year. Add in county and city jails, and the figure rises to 858,000. And states’ crack cocaine laws are not the culprits. Only 13 states employ differing sentencing guidelines for crack vs. powder — and their differential is much smaller than that of the feds.

https://larryelder.com/column/five-myths-of-the-racist-crimi...

Re: Our fundamental right to shame and shun the New York Times

#404

Post by phs318u » Wed, Mar 23, 2022, 1:25 AM UTC

rootusrootus wrote: post #305

otterley wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We want to live in a culture where a joke on the internet doesn't lead to a struggle session at work. Everyone wants to do that, until they find themselves the target of a joke while struggling to have a good career, live in a nice place, and raise a family as a member of an unprivileged group with a lot of adverse baggage to overcome. Not everyone thinks such jokes are funny, and they have just as much a right to…

> unnecessarily upsetting them That's just the first half good advice. Don't be a jerk when you talk, don't be a jerk when you listen. Don't try to offend people unnecessarily, and don't be offended unnecessarily. As soon as you decided that the only metric which matters is when someone is unnecessarily upset, offended, or whatever, everything was lost. In that case nobody can say anything .

Please define being a jerk, what constitutes offence, and the distinction between unnecessary and (implied) necessary offence.

Re: Our fundamental right to shame and shun the New York Times

#405

Post by olivermarks » Wed, Mar 23, 2022, 1:25 AM UTC

remarkEon wrote: post #381

oh_sigh wrote: post #337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you quantify "huge" for me? Is it bigger than the neo-nazi problem in Russia, or the US?

It's "neo-nazi infantry battalion is fully integrated into the state security apparatus" big, or "Hero of Ukraine award given to antisemite and Nazi-collaborator" big.

@oh_sigh It's completely irrelevant whether other nation states have a 'huge' or small far right wing neo nazi problem. The Ukranian oligarch Kolomoyskyi is behind the current Ukranian leader's media and political rise and is also a major funder of neo nazi 'battalions'. The Ukranian media was just 'unified' to be one voice (ie far right autocrats now control all their state media). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ihor_Kolomoyskyi

Given the very serious diplomatic disaster and subsequent hot war is now endangering the planet the tight focus is on that nation state's leadership. I consider Russia a fascist country that lost tens of millions to the nazis last century. There is a fringe far right in the US with little political power, but those two realities are of minor importance compared to the disaster that has been inflicted on the Ukranian people who absolutely don't deserve this.

Re: Our fundamental right to shame and shun the New York Times

#406

Post by akhmatova » Wed, Mar 23, 2022, 1:26 AM UTC

librish wrote: post #393

akhmatova wrote: post #365

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

It was a fine argument that you completely avoided responding to.

We see things differently, I guess. I found it jejeune (and the tone behind it rather obnoxious).

Re: Our fundamental right to shame and shun the New York Times

#407

Post by slibhb » Wed, Mar 23, 2022, 1:29 AM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #370

slibhb wrote: post #367

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If someone said "we have a right to food and housing," would you call them "batshit insane"? While I agree that we don't have a right "speak [our] minds and voice [our] opinions in public without fear of being shamed or shunned," you (and the author) are adopting a style of argument where certain positions are subjected to intense scrutiny. The first paragraph of the NYT op-ed doesn't stand up under that scrutiny but…

You don't in fact have a right to food and housing. But a right to food and housing would be a coherent proposition; you could design such a right (within obvious limits). You can't do that with the proposition that people have a right to speech without fear of shame or shunning; like, the logic itself literally doesn't work . You could simply shut down anyone's objectionable political speech by saying that it is sha…

I didn't try to rebut the blog. And anyway, my comment doesn't hang on right to no-shunning/right to food being identical. My point was that the blog is strange because the author agrees with the spirit of the op-ed while taking pains to criticize it. I think this is clearly because he dislikes being on the same side as conservatives.

If I was going to disagree with the blog, it would be over this strange idea that we should only talk about specific cancel culture incidents and never about the principle of free speech. Why not both?

Re: Our fundamental right to shame and shun the New York Times

#408

Post by Misdicorl » Wed, Mar 23, 2022, 1:40 AM UTC

lliamander wrote: post #336

Misdicorl wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even left wing dominated cities have large numbers of right wing constituents. There are more registered Republicans in NYC than live in the entire state of Wyoming. Right wing cancel culture are lynch mobs and the literal bombing of an American city and the imprisonment of an unconscionable number of black males. While I agree the power is waning, saying that it isn't on par with a few people losing their jobs due t…

> Even left wing dominated cities have large numbers of right wing constituents. To think this is the cause of police brutality is a stretch to put it mildly. > Right wing cancel culture are lynch mobs and the literal bombing of an American city and the imprisonment of an unconscionable number of black males. Again with the random grab of different grievances. None of these are relevant to this conversation, but expl…

I'm not able to respond to your below point. I understand why you jumped to the crack/cocaine disparity. In response if like to surface three points

1) it seems unlikely (although I don't have/know data) that a 10% population can have 80% of the convictions without intentional bias at play. Black people are not the only poor people in America.

2) I emphasized drug policy in general. I think you will find it much harder to explain the differential marijuana conviction rates

3) I also emphasized selective enforcement of policy rather than the policy itself on purpose. I know the policy itself is not a clear cut situation. Although I will remark having a few token black members of Congress behind the proposal is not a particularly strong counter argument in my opinion.

Re: Our fundamental right to shame and shun the New York Times

#409

Post by Latty » Wed, Mar 23, 2022, 1:41 AM UTC

whiddershins wrote: post #401

Latty wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are equating government imprisonment with public cancellation here because they both have a chilling effect, but we very quickly run into the paradox of tolerance: do you restrict the expression of "cancelling" to protect other speech? Those Nazis you use an example of abhorrent speech that must be allowed were calling for communists to be rounded up and killed for their views. Surely that is partaking in cancell…

Explicit threats, defamation, calls to violence, harassment, inciting riots, fighting words … these have a legal precedent for the reason that cause and effect are traceable. By the same token, ‘cancellation’ if it leads to loss of livelihood etc. is questionable. Being offended or hurt by someone’s words are much harder to quantify.

So freedom of speech should be limited if you could cause someone to lose their job?

So I go to a shop, and the employee calls me a piece of shit, I could be arrested for telling their boss that they were rude?

Re: Our fundamental right to shame and shun the New York Times

#410

Post by RangerScience » Wed, Mar 23, 2022, 1:43 AM UTC

ouid wrote: post #397

RangerScience wrote: post #387

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you think the problem arises because of the formalization of the social credit score (it existed prior to this, just in a non-quantified way), and/or the accessibility of that score to people who aren't in your community?

Not the formalization, because it isn't formalized, but definitely the consolidation, and the emphasis on linking all of your accounts. For my own part, I have deleted every reddit account that I have ever made in which I felt that I had become attached to my karma. I just rebuild from scratch when that happens. I hate being afraid of saying things. It helps a lot, but I also don't participate in any of the real iden…

> formalization

Prior to the modern era you had something analogous to non-quantified "social scores" and "credit score". By "formalized" I mean, I can see an actual, formally quantified measure by looking at Reddit Karma and/or your Experian provided credit score.