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

Shame Storm

firstthings.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 247 posts

Re: Shame Storm

#61

Post by brodouevencode »

perfmode wrote: post #59
jerf wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stand in his place for a week and tell me that. To echo manfredo, if the only people we can nominate to the Supreme Court are people who can just calmly sit there while the absolute worst accusations possible are flung against them, we're not going to be nominating new justices any time soon (Democrat or Republican). Or, alternatively, we're going to get a very, very distorted set of justices who lack all emotional a…

That office is so important that I’m happy to wait until the right candidate shows up. And I don’t want republicans or Democrats. I want scientists of law with integrity. And there are plenty competent people with integrity. It is people who lack integrity that marginalize them.

Shouldn't that office should be held to the same standards as the other three branches?

Re: Shame Storm

#62

Post by lern_too_spel »

manfredo wrote: post #48
perfmode wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

His attitude while defending himself on the stand is the basis for which I would rescind his nomination. His behavior was not befitting of someone who is about to be conferred lifetime appointment to the highest court in the country. I don’t want him crafting laws and making decisions that impact huge groups of people.

Behavior such as? Most people who I've seen criticize his behavior essentially boil down to criticizing him for not admitting guilt, or because he tried to discredit Ford - neither of which are valid points in my view. Defending oneself from an accusation inherently entails discrediting the accuser, to criticize defendants for doing so is essentially saying it should be socially unacceptable to defend oneself from an…

He was often blackout drunk according to his classmates, but he repeatedly lied and said he wasn't.

Re: Shame Storm

#63

Post by notahacker »

hopefulengineer wrote: post #34

progressives have taken us back in time to the days of the inquisition where heretics must be removed from society. These beliefs have absolutely taken on a religious fervor James watson, the man who discovered DNA structure, has been excommunicated for saying intelligence could be genetic and that would ruin the equality movement so he had to be removed It reminds me of galileo and his imprisonment related to helioc…

I'm not sure that Watson's expressed views that the inequality of races is demonstrated by the experiences of "people who have to deal with black employees" is a high water mark for scientific enquiry, or that his related comments on being particularly cautious about promoting black people were likely to have a neutral or positive impact on science. What I find curious is people who argue that unlike the progressives who eventually lost patience with a scientist using the profile he (deservedly) earned to articulate a long list of offensive crankery, Watson's own shaming of people for being fat, black, autistic etc really isn't worth paying attention to.

Re: Shame Storm

#64

Post by agentultra »

So the author of this piece appears on a panel to defend a book by an author who had published another book called, Liberal Fascism [0]. This piece is supposed to make me feel sorry for her?

Well I don't fully understand the entire context of this person's story but I do know something about being publicly shamed. When I was a kid in high school I had to suffer being called a fgot every day. By every one. I had been hospitalized in an altercation and had been involved in several more. My car had been vandalized on more than one occasion. People would openly point, yell the word, and laugh until the whole crowd had joined in. It was an exercise in torture.

No side eye on the train. No wondering what people were shaming me for. The police couldn't do anything about it.

I used to think public shaming was a bad practice given my poor experience with it. When I heard the first stories of people using social media to shame serial offenders of the social norms of public life I thought... who are these people to judge and decide? What if that person had a reason? Do we really want to lower ourselves to this vigilante justice?

However this is 2018. This world has books like, Liberal Fascism. It has platforms for people with radical opinions to gain an audience from the comfort of their living room. Instead of limiting the spread of anti-LGBTQ sentiments it has fostered them and allowed them to spread. Instead of reducing racially-charged crimes and hate speech, social media and the Internet has enabled it. On a whole new level.

I think you should count yourself lucky that the people hurt by your conservative views have made you feel ashamed. You felt the discomfort of someone who doesn't fit in. Welcome to the club. How will you change now?

[0] https://www.amazon.ca/Liberal-Fascism-American-Mussolini-Pol...

Re: Shame Storm

#65

Post by DanielBMarkham »

alehul wrote: post #5

Really interesting read-- this reminds me a ton of the New Criterion, which is constantly publishing articles of a similar style [1]. It's composed in this verbose, sometimes satirical New Yorker-style of writing, and offers such a stark contrast to what's normally cited as a "politically right" source, like Fox News, which I find pretty abhorrent in quality. Thanks for linking to this; it's immensely important to le…

Fascinated with the concept, I subscribed to the New Criterion a year ago. I'm not right-wing by any measurement, and I didn't even know the mag was oriented that way, but the idea of a magazine with no ads, no glossy pictures, no 6th-grade reading level? Based around art and commentary? I had to try it.

I like it a lot. It challenges me to be a more intelligent art consumer. It's not pumping stuff. It just wants to challenge me. I'm glad I tried it.

Re: Shame Storm

#66

Post by zozbot123 »

BryantD wrote: post #37

I have a pretty simple algorithm for articles about the dangers of public shaming. If they fail to catalog GamerGate and the online shaming of Zoe Quinn as an example of the problem, they are probably not a balanced look at the phenomenon. I find Justine Sacco's case is a reasonable metric for the other half of the equation.

> If they fail to catalog GamerGate and the online shaming of Zoe Quinn as an example of the problem

One word: /v/

So yes, the online shaming of Zoe Quinn is a crystal-clear example of the problem we're dealing with here! And this fact alone (though a seldom-acknowledged fact) actually explains much of how a lot of the "censorship" that fed the GG controversy originally came about.

Re: Shame Storm

#67

Post by jstewartmobile »

jerf wrote: post #47

As I've mentioned before, one of the interesting things I like to study in a casual way is the effect of social community structures on behavior. At this point it is not terribly controversial that modern social media systems encourage shame storms, via things like easy "viral" sharing, the existence of moderation systems that can be used to nuke any attempt to defend oneself out of existence, and the way modern soci…

We used to have a simple system for this--duelling.

Having all of these people on Twitter and cable news draw on each other at high-noon...

Re: Shame Storm

#68

Post by all2 »

jerf wrote: post #57
all2 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One does not simply 'engineer' a moral foundation. While the law of the land hints at what the morality of a people is, the people themselves are responsible for their behavior. While systems can amplify or dampen certain behaviors, they cannot, without brutal authoritarianism, enforce behavior.

"While systems can amplify or dampen certain behaviors" That is the topic I'm opening, yes. We're clearly amplifying it right now. How can that be changed?

HN lacks some features that allow (and focus) conversations in a single medium.

At the very least, we could take notes from this interface for social interaction: things like 1) lack of notifications, for anything, 2) lack of PMs, 3) lack of any sort of 'personalized' stream of information. We have to pick and choose what we consume, rather than being spoon fed.

Coming from the other side: what allows these storms to form? I think part of the root cause is the ease of sharing information. It is very easy to re-blog/tweet/share on many platforms. In some cases (like Twitter or Facebook) a person doesn't even have to interact with the stuff they're passing on. The act is nearly passive.

I think my thesis is this: things are better here (in part) because it is more difficult to interact with content and people.

A partial solution could then be: add friction to things you don't want to see (or disallow them outright, like HN). Alternatively, make the stuff you want to see very easy.

Re: Shame Storm

#69

Post by blattimwind »

all2 wrote: post #55
jerf wrote: post #47

As I've mentioned before, one of the interesting things I like to study in a casual way is the effect of social community structures on behavior. At this point it is not terribly controversial that modern social media systems encourage shame storms, via things like easy "viral" sharing, the existence of moderation systems that can be used to nuke any attempt to defend oneself out of existence, and the way modern soci…

One does not simply 'engineer' a moral foundation. While the law of the land hints at what the morality of a people is, the people themselves are responsible for their behavior. While systems can amplify or dampen certain behaviors, they cannot, without brutal authoritarianism, enforce behavior.

> While systems can amplify or dampen certain behaviors, they cannot, without brutal authoritarianism, enforce behavior.

"Social" media managed to amplify detrimental behaviours by unquantifiable factors. The idea being that maybe you can also built it in a way that doesn't happen or perhaps even in a way that amplifies positive behaviours and dampens detrimental behaviours? Neither is the case currently; with social media being a marked negative influence across the board (except for shareholders).

Re: Shame Storm

#70

Post by jerf »

perfmode wrote: post #59
jerf wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stand in his place for a week and tell me that. To echo manfredo, if the only people we can nominate to the Supreme Court are people who can just calmly sit there while the absolute worst accusations possible are flung against them, we're not going to be nominating new justices any time soon (Democrat or Republican). Or, alternatively, we're going to get a very, very distorted set of justices who lack all emotional a…

That office is so important that I’m happy to wait until the right candidate shows up. And I don’t want republicans or Democrats. I want scientists of law with integrity. And there are plenty competent people with integrity. It is people who lack integrity that marginalize them.

"And there are plenty competent people with integrity."

But there are also plenty of people who lack integrity and, if it is permitted and gets them what they want, will fling arbitrarily nasty false accusations at people. There is no one with so much integrity that false accusations can't be made of them. You're pushing a rope.

Post reply on HN