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The Shaming-Industrial Complex

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Re: The Shaming-Industrial Complex

#81

Post by erikpukinskis »

tetromino_ wrote: post #20
forum_ghost wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are the examples of these shameless cultures? I'd like to join them.

Traditional American culture (as compared to traditional Japanese culture, for example). See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guilt%E2%80%93shame%E2%80%93fe...

Traditional American culture is rife with shame. The concept of “manly men” is based on shame. The concept that women are responsible if they attract unwanted male attention is based on shame. The concept that anyone can succeed so if you don’t it’s because you didn’t try hard enough is based on shame.

I could go on?

Re: The Shaming-Industrial Complex

#82

Post by mark_l_watson »

It is a good article, but this is an important topic. I prefer the more in depth book “The Shame Machine” by Cathy O’Neil that I bought last week (book was just published).

Human nature will be human nature, but I feel we need to recognize corporate owned automated profit systems and not fail to understand the threats they pose.

Re: The Shaming-Industrial Complex

#83

Post by Barrin92 »

roenxi wrote: post #6
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…

> However, it may well be maladaptive at the scale of global society There is a pretty good argument that it is maladaptive in any community bigger than a few hundred people. The most successful political innovations - legislative bodies & courts - have both taken strong measures to make it difficult to shame people into cooperation or provide effective ways to fight back against a shaming. Good political decisions c…

I assume that argument excludes the legal/political/cultural institutions of the non-Western world? Because in particular in East Asia shame has a very long and central role, and a fairly successful one, in maintaining group cohesion.

We're talking about mechanisms here that have proven to stabilize societies for literally thousands of years, enumerating things doesn't quite have that history yet.

Re: The Shaming-Industrial Complex

#84

Post by motohagiography »

The shame machine has created a disequillibrium, and personally I won't miss it when societies correct. More gravely, I think there is a coming generation of young men who will also wake up one day and say, "I don't need your redemption, it has no value." And like that, they will no longer avoid or deny shame, or be governed by it because redemption is a hustle, the carrot to shame's stick.

When they see that they have been raised and kept in an extended nursery of deceptions produced by subtly fabricated narratives, designed to subjugate their identities and replace the cognitive tools they have for experiencing and understanding themselves with constructions of a simulation, they will also likely discover the power of force. Iterating down that timeline gets really grim, really fast.

We've accumulated a reality-debt, suspended by academia and tech, leaking into appendent institutions like media and government, and the most interesting problem now is how ot unwind it without triggering a chain reaction, imo.

Re: The Shaming-Industrial Complex

#85

Post by arcticfox »

mark_l_watson wrote: post #82

It is a good article, but this is an important topic. I prefer the more in depth book “The Shame Machine” by Cathy O’Neil that I bought last week (book was just published). Human nature will be human nature, but I feel we need to recognize corporate owned automated profit systems and not fail to understand the threats they pose.

> I prefer the more in depth book “The Shame Machine” by Cathy O’Neil that I bought last week (book was just published).

About half of the article is dedicated to "The Shame Machine" and O'Neil so I don't think it's an either-or. The article is contrasting her thoughts with those of others.

Re: The Shaming-Industrial Complex

#86

Post by carapace »

spawarotti wrote: post #76
verisimi wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Advanced morality about things like race and gender is complex and not within everyone's reach. "Advanced morality" - what's that? Can you teach me? Afaik, morality begins (and ends) with the Golden Rule 'do unto others'. "Treat others as you would like others to treat you (positive or directive form)" "Do not treat others in ways that you would not like to be treated (negative or prohibitive form)" https://en.wiki…

What if I am very secure about given topic (e.g., balding), so I feel very comfortable joking about it, even "at my cost". Should I disregard the fact other people might be insecure about it, because I don't mind people "doing unto me" such jokes?

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?)

Re: The Shaming-Industrial Complex

#87

Post by yunohn »

superdisk wrote: post #72
yunohn wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Criticism and responses would be fine. That is always the majority of comments. Just like not all tweeters are being cancelled. > So the only reasonable thing to do is just not express opinions online. And yet, here you and I are expressing our opinions and having a discussion. Every single criticism I’ve heard is about policing the people who point out any problematic opinions. Truly ironic! > You could "cancel" l…

> And yet, here you and I are expressing our opinions and having a discussion. You and I haven't said anything controversial. > Care to link to any real cases[...] Nolan Bushnell got cancelled because Atari was allegedly sexist in the 70s, and got an award revoked for it. [1] There's of course the infamous dongle joke fiasco at PyCon. [2] James Damore got cancelled for the Google memo, and got fired for it. [3] These…

> You and I haven't said anything controversial.

You’re the one who said anything could be controversial:

> where if it happens that something you said, no matter how innocuous, snowballs for whatever reason, you're screwed

I like how you “ [...] “ out the words racist/sexist and proceeded to list exactly those kind of cases.

> [1] … Bushnell holding company meetings in a hot tub and attempting to coax a female employee to join him

All he lost was an award. He’s still a successful millionaire.

> [2] “I really did not mean to offend anyone and I really do regret the comment and how it made Adria feel. She had every right to report me to staff, and I defend her position”

[3] There’s way too much wrong with Damore’s actions, notwithstanding his actual memo. Do you really think it’s acceptable for someone to circulate such a misinformed screed in a company setting?

Plus, all of these people got jobs after the criticism died down. Like literally everyone else who’s ever been “cancelled”.

Re: The Shaming-Industrial Complex

#88

Post by refurb »

yunohn wrote: post #58
janto wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We are now at a stage where a twitter mob would see "men should not be allowed to compete in women's sports" as a bigoted statement. To the vast majority of people there are important differences between men and women, and will now have to awkwardly self-censors their speech. Or they will worry whether they are actually bigoted and attempt to signal that they are not really a bad person by relenting to the group. We…

Quoted post unavailable.

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

Re: The Shaming-Industrial Complex

#89

Post by AitchEmArsey »

motohagiography wrote: post #84

The shame machine has created a disequillibrium, and personally I won't miss it when societies correct. More gravely, I think there is a coming generation of young men who will also wake up one day and say, "I don't need your redemption, it has no value." And like that, they will no longer avoid or deny shame, or be governed by it because redemption is a hustle, the carrot to shame's stick. When they see that they ha…

> ...an extended nursery of deceptions produced by subtly fabricated narratives, designed to subjugate their identities...

Parklife!

Re: The Shaming-Industrial Complex

#90

Post by BenoitEssiambre »

dalbasal wrote: post #73
BenoitEssiambre wrote: post #59

The article kinda misses a major point: > Flanagan calls shame accompanied by progressive values “mature shame” I would argue that shaming used to promote your political views is often the most damaging kind of shaming because on top of being the most divisive, it is likely counterproductive, an offputting move that damages your brand and often creates a powerful backlash against it. Now there's some subtlety here. I…

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 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 dirty word. How often have I stood into a room full of university graduates deriding populism equating it to demagogy. This is a form of punching down.

But when done with a perspective of helping with the "handicap", people are more receptive than you would expect. I've made this argument on twitter once and maybe it was because of the criticism of the "elitist" down punchers but found myself for the first time gaining maga followers, the very people who's intelligence I insulted.

Kid Rock's ode to MAGAism includes lyrics like:"NO I’VE NEVER BEEN THE SMARTEST (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=agvibm7Wqy4)

These people know they have a handicap when it comes to academic intellect and are looking for others who will respect the struggle that comes with that.

People don't vote for Trump because they think he is smart, but because he respects the lack of academic smarts, because he is for them a refreshing example of success and respect without smarts in a world where it's increasingly difficult to achieve and people will cancel you if you are unable to reason at that academic level of morality.

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