What it's like to be cancelled • Hacker News Board

Re: What it's like to be cancelled

#421

Post by lightgreen » Mon, Jun 21, 2021, 9:03 PM UTC

SassyGrapefruit wrote: post #158

Maybe the author could consider an alternate title for his article. "I engaged in sexual misconduct with multiple women. This behavior may imply life long psychological consequence for them. Yes they are the victims but let's take a minute consider its made me feel." I think we all know the answer...who cares.

> I engaged in sexual misconduct with multiple women

The term misconduct is used usually in the work environment when one party is in a position of power, like a boss of another. This is not the case here.

> This behavior may imply life long psychological consequence for them.

Or may not. Or maybe refusal to engage with women could imply life long psychological consequence for them: women as well as men feel bad when they are rejected.

Don't decide for women what's best for them. They are grown up adults and engage in these relationships voluntarily.

> Yes they are the victims

Victims are those who were assaulted against their will. My understanding that there was no violations like that in this story.

Re: What it's like to be cancelled

#422

Post by lelanthran » Mon, Jun 21, 2021, 9:04 PM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #404

lelanthran wrote: post #403

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You can lose jobs, friends, and clients simply for being a jerk. There's nothing illegal about being an asshole, but plenty of people refuse to work with assholes. Sure, but the current cancel culture results in people refusing to associate with the accused out of fear , not because they think he or she is a jerk. I heartily support freedom of association. I don't support a mob of people, completely unrelated to ei…

I guess I think you can coherently believe that without somehow implicating the justice system. People have different thresholds for this stuff.

> I guess I think you can coherently believe that without somehow implicating the justice system. People have different thresholds for this stuff.

So why are their thresholds more important than others'?

This is literally why we have a justice system - people have different ideas about what is wrong and what is right. The justice system, with its set of laws, is the final arbiter o right and wrong.

If you cannot get enough support for adding in your personal moral code to the set of laws, then perhaps it's not as universally moral as you seem to think it is.

Re: What it's like to be cancelled

#423

Post by rkk3 » Mon, Jun 21, 2021, 9:06 PM UTC

blast wrote: post #240

rkk3 wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In his apology he also referred to himself as a "Sexual Predator" and said that he pressured people into sex... These are pretty loaded terms to be throwing around and no surprise people on Twitter took the worst interpretation. He might be worse than Prince Andrew at PR. https://www.hipstersofthecoast.com/2020/06/noah-bradley-admi...

Sometimes people say that kind of thing out of shame, for example if they feel humiliated and are trying to make the humiliation stop by agreeing with the person shaming them. Such statements should not be taken as factual confessions. I don't know anything about this situation, but that language sounds like that to me. Also, the first sentence of the current article makes me think that the author is given to oversta…

> Such statements should not be taken as factual confessions

What does this even mean? Don't apologize for coercing people to have sex if you didn't do that.

Re: What it's like to be cancelled

#424

Post by nsxwolf » Mon, Jun 21, 2021, 9:06 PM UTC

newbie789 wrote: post #268

jandrese wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The term Sexual Predator has been expanded to cover a lot more in that circle. It's similar to how anybody who has sex with a celebrity is technically raped because of the power difference. It's impossible to give consent when your partner is more important than you are. You might think this sounds insane, but it's a real thing: https://www.nsvrc.org/i-ask-how-power-impacts-consent The handouts on here handwave the i…

From his apology: “I preyed on them. I ceaselessly hit on them. I pressured them into sex. I got too drunk and did all manner of dumb things. Yes, I was one of those shitty, creepy sexual predators you hear about.” I do not get the impression that he apologized for having sex with people while also being guilty of being prominent in his industry. I’m not entirely clear how “any sex with a celebrity is rape” is a sali…

Would have to ask him but I wouldn't be surprised if he used the terminology in this new loose way, and now regrets doing that.

Re: What it's like to be cancelled

#425

Post by sktrdie » Mon, Jun 21, 2021, 9:06 PM UTC

throwaway111999 wrote: post #225

I'm terrified of interacting with female coworkers. I don't have a "-ist" bone in my body. When I review code, I only see the code and not the person that wrote it. When I pick a team, I look at engineering ability and nothing else. I abhor discriminatory behavior and would be the first to put my career on the line to defend someone getting discriminated against. And of course I keep anything sexual FAR FAR FAAAR out…

It's funny because I behave entirely the opposite. I'm as transparent and open as possible. I'm just myself and no way I can live hiding my own personality because of other people's feelings.

If the people around me don't like it or my work won't accept it then I simply move to new friends/work where my "character" is understood or accepted.

I find similarities in this with some standup comedy I do & the group of friends I found there. They accept my "naughtier" funny side because we all talk shit about everything and about each other. We're constantly roasting each other and we all love it. Politics & drama is welcome here!

Surely I can't bring the same character into an office meeting but you'll easily see where the line is - no need to go completely all out as you are.

You wouldn't talk to your grandma about your sex life the same way you talk about it with your buddies.

Adapt and move on, but maybe no need to hide your true self.

Re: What it's like to be cancelled

#426

Post by lightgreen » Mon, Jun 21, 2021, 9:08 PM UTC

chmod600 wrote: post #264

A reminder that it's OK to not take sides and just support your friends. Maybe they did something bad, but we all make some serious errors in judgement. One of my friends was not cancelled but shunned by a lot of people. Not sure exactly why; it was probably a lot of minor stuff that added up. I just asked him straight: "did you do anything bad enough that I shouldn't be friends with you?". He said "no" and we moved…

> A reminder that it's OK to not take sides and just support your friends.

It is probably more complicated than that.

Like if you know for sure that a friend of yours did something completely incompatible with your norms (for me that would be for example stealing money from poor old people), perhaps you don't want to have them as your friend anymore.

But if there's doubt and uncertainty and pressure from the community, it's better to support your friends.

Re: What it's like to be cancelled

#427

Post by tptacek » Mon, Jun 21, 2021, 9:13 PM UTC

lelanthran wrote: post #422

tptacek wrote: post #404

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess I think you can coherently believe that without somehow implicating the justice system. People have different thresholds for this stuff.

> I guess I think you can coherently believe that without somehow implicating the justice system. People have different thresholds for this stuff. So why are their thresholds more important than others'? This is literally why we have a justice system - people have different ideas about what is wrong and what is right. The justice system, with its set of laws, is the final arbiter o right and wrong. If you cannot get…

It doesn't have to be universally moral. People are free to retain professional connections with this person. In effect, what people seem to be arguing on this thread is that people should be enjoined from exercising their own freedom of association when someone is deemed to be unfairly targeted online. I think you can coherently argue that, but I don't think you can reasonably argue it.

What's muddying the discussion is the invocation of the criminal justice system. We all implicitly understand that you can lose your job for being incompetent (not a crime), for calling your boss names (not a crime), for disparaging your company (not a crime), for flying a swastika flag from your car's antenna (not a crime). But because sexual assault is in fact a crime, people move the goalposts: now, for someone to face social and commercial consequences, they need to first be found guilty in a court of law.

That's a strange and, I think, indefensible standard.

Re: What it's like to be cancelled

#428

Post by EastSmith » Mon, Jun 21, 2021, 9:16 PM UTC

We need social DDoS protection.

Re: What it's like to be cancelled

#429

Post by naravara » Mon, Jun 21, 2021, 9:20 PM UTC

koheripbal wrote: post #300

steveBK123 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Journalists participate in Twitter at a rate probably 10-100x the overall population. Most people don't ever log into Twitter, most journalists do daily. I think you can look at it this way: * For normal people, Twitter is not real life. * For journalists, Twitter is real life. Journalists then become the vector by which BS Twitter drama becomes mainstreamed.

Teenagers as well. Teenagers spend 1000x the amount of time on Twitter - their "voice" is amplified.

I suspect there is a general 'content ecosystem' where these different 'organisms' each contribute their part to the ecology. From my--not particularly expert--view teenagers aren't specifically the ones who blow things up, they're more like the mooks who act as megaphones for the general drama. There's another clade of user who do the actual stirring up of drama and they largely seem to be not especially successful members of some creative field like acting, stand-up, art, etc. Definitely careers that attract personality types who highly value approval/adulation.

There's another clade of credentialed or 'pedigreed' professionals, such as activist or non-profit people, 'community management' people, professors, journalists, etc. who seem to have some function in legitimizing and mainstreaming the drama of the day, possibly creating rationalizations for why it's good along the way.

I'm sure Twitter, internally, is already aware of these dynamics. But it would probably help the sociology of it out a lot if that information was more well known.

Re: What it's like to be cancelled

#430

Post by Udik » Mon, Jun 21, 2021, 9:24 PM UTC

caddemon wrote: post #416

Udik wrote: post #364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> from the initial Vice article horrifically misquoting him, to the weirdly rabid hate towards anyone defending him on forums like this and Reddit In fairness those are both very common features of cancellations. Another that comes to mind is Damore, who never wrote what most people attributed to him. I've had perfectly clear for a long time that even smart people will misunderstand the clearest statement if it's wha…

I think there are also some topics where people are conditioned to respond emotionally. Once responding emotionally of course a fair reading is out the window. I do think there is a lot of silence due to social expectations, also probably many of the likes/shares with little additional commentary come from such expectations. But IME the people that write the long rants tearing X person apart are either legitimately u…

> the people that write the long rants tearing X person apart are either legitimately upset, or have an agenda way beyond trying to fit social expectations

These would be the activists who are- as you call them- the instigators, and who might be close to the origin of the events. But the second level is the media- and here you have journalists and bloggers, who are already far removed from the original events and are supposed to report them to a wider audience in a neutral way. And yet you see them grossly misreporting the content of text they have read and that anyone can check: despite much less direct emotional involvement here (if there is any it should be acknowledged and balanced), and the fact that a news article takes much more effort and focus than a simple retweet.

So the justification for the spread of obviously false information can only be either an actual wilful dishonesty (and I don't believe it) or it's nothing else than a selective blindness driven by an instinctive desire to align to the immediate peers.