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0 pointszahlman11mo ago0 comments

> Are you trying to imply this was some kind of a real thing that happened?

I won't speak for GP, but it was very clearly a real thing (no "some kind of" qualifier necessary) that actually did happen.

I observed it to happen.

I observed it to negatively affect people I personally met and cared about.

I observed the creation of entire subreddits dedicated to the application of the technique, such as r/byebyejob which today has 650 thousand subscribers.

Wikipedia recognizes that it has happened (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cancel_culture). (And this is despite that I would generally consider Wikipedia's coverage of political and cultural topics to be biased against me.)

I have been observing it for over a decade, longer than it had a name (if Wikipedia is to be believed, anyway — although of course one should naturally expect "cancelling" to have existed for longer than the "culture" around it). For just one example completely off the top of my head, consider the case of Dr. Matt Taylor, who was browbeaten into apologizing for wearing a shirt (which was a gift from a female friend) deemed "sexist" (for depicting women in outfits that wouldn't be out of place in a general-audience comic book) and further harassed after apologizing. I followed this story closely as it happened.

Aside from that, if you disagree with someone else about facts, please speak plainly. Phrasing like yours implies a level of disdain and disrespect that is well outside my understanding of how discourse is expected to work on HN.

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wredcoll11mo ago· 2 in thread

> Wikipedia recognizes that it has happened

The main point I want to make here is the difference between what people said happened and what actually happened.

> I have been observing it for over a decade, longer than it had a name

Let's define what "it" actually is:

Someone receiving social shame/criticism with the stated intent to change behaviour.

If you look slightly more than a decade ago, it happened then also. And the decade before that. And the century before that. Pretty much as long as we have records with the appropriate level of detail, we can find examples of this.

So yes, people were publicly shamed in the last decade. They were publicly shamed the decade before that as well. There was absolutely nothing special about anything that happened "recently" other than some pundits deciding to invent a catch term and push a meme around the culture.

My issue is that the people who started this meme and pushed it the hardest, were doing so in an attempt to deflect or prevent themselves and their ideas from being criticized, and mostly they really deserved criticism.

It's certainly possible to be an "unwitting dupe" and continue to spread this meme, not knowing any better, but I'm not sure it's the most likely scenario.

As for your example, the evidence you've presented certainly makes him seem like an innocent victim of bullying him. I sympathize and wish it hadn't happened to him.

But you can't use this as some kind of statement to justify being against shame and criticism just because people use it immorally.

zahlmanOP11mo ago

> Someone receiving social shame/criticism with the stated intent to change behaviour.

It was not simply "social shame/criticism". People lost their jobs for doing things that simply didn't reasonably merit such a consequence. In fact, they lost jobs for things that I don't think can reasonably be considered wrongdoing at all. Not only were they targeted on social media, but in high-profile cases the media ended up grossly misrepresenting their actions.

See also e.g. James Damore. I have read what he actually wrote. The large majority of accusations that were made (and are still referred to) about what he wrote, are simply not supported by a plain textual analysis. He was accused of expressing unacceptable ideas that he objectively did not express, and he lost his job because of it.

And then, well, perhaps you remember https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5398681 . Attempts at cancellation occurred in both directions there. Though it's worth highlighting that the joke was not directed at anyone (including the presenter) and not even intended to be heard by Ms. Richards, or really anyone besides the guy's (male) colleague. And the guy who made the joke is, in my mind, weirdly contrite about having done nothing worse than making a puerile joke in a nominally professional space, for a social purpose. (Also, everything would have worked out just fine if Ms. Richards had kept the story off social media and followed the procedure that had been outlined in the newly added Code of Conduct that was specifically provided to pacify people like Ms. Richards who had been unsatisfied with the atmosphere of the convention in previous years.)

> My issue is that the people who started this meme and pushed it the hardest, were doing so in an attempt to deflect or prevent themselves and their ideas from being criticized, and mostly they really deserved criticism.

Disagree, in the strongest possible terms, based on what I've actually seen play out in practice. When I saw these things happening on social media, and looked into the evidence, in the large majority of cases I found that the actions were blameless and the criticism ridiculous.

> It's certainly possible to be an "unwitting dupe" and continue to spread this meme, not knowing any better

To "not know better", I would have to be wrong.

I know that I am not wrong because there was an extended period of my life when I would spend hours a day examining the evidence. Cases like the one you find sympathetic were the norm, not the exception.

I don't remember more than a few cases because in large part I have tried to move on from that phase of my life. But I find it frankly insulting to be told that my personal experiences were not as I actually experienced them, and condescending to be described as "possibly an unwitting dupe" in a way that implies that this is supposed to be the charitable take.

wredcoll11mo ago

So this is a complicated subject that's hard to cover in a hackernews text box and I do actually appreciate you taking the time to engage with it.

To briefly touch on your examples of Damore and "mr-hank", as you point out, the total consequence of Damore being shamed was... he got fired. That's it. Millions of people get fired every year, I think we can assume that not all of them are justified.

The point I actually want to make is that speech absolutely does and should have consequences. Free speech is a great principle to apply to a government creating laws, it's less great when you're trying to apply it to individuals associating with each other.

The "mr-hank" python convention example frankly seems incredibly minor. Someone got offended and complained and someone else apologized and then a whole bunch of people argued about how offended any person actually should be. Is this supposed to be some kind of a big deal? Like, I'm all in favor of a good pointless argument about the nuances of jokes vs offense, but a "cultural phenomenon" this is not.

The problem with talking about "cancel culture" as a real thing is that it is primarily used to attempt to shield people from legitimate criticism.

You brought up the Damore incident, and I don't think it's worth re-litigating the entire debate, but from my perspective, his speech was stupid and offensive enough that I wouldn't want to work with the dude. And more to the point, you shouldn't be allowed to silence my response to his speech.

Damore is "allowed" to say his thing. He didn't get arrested. It's not illegal. Instead, everyone else is allowed to respond to him. Some of that was articles calling him an idiot, some of that was apparently firing him. This is a good thing and I vehemently disagree with this idea that people's responses should be censored.

Even in the most high profile cases of online "cancelling", the consequences tend to be extremely minor. I'll quote from a relatively high profile example:

> In November 2017, comedian Louis C.K. admitted to sexual misconduct allegations and, as a result, his shows were canceled, distribution deals were terminated, and he was dropped by his agency and management. After a period away from show business, Louis C.K. returned to work in 2018 and won a Grammy award in 2022.

Do you think any part of this was unjust in some way?

The term "cancel culture" was always intended to be a pejorative, intended to shame and disparage the people involved in speaking out against those in power. Did it occasionally apply out side of that? Sure, but very rarely to any serious degree.

Look at, dunno, the whole "gamergate" thing where some dude spent years attempting to "cancel" a female journalist over made up allegations. No one started generalizing about an entire culture of anti-free-speechers or whatever. Instead it took people complaining about powerful people being sexist/racist for it to suddenly be an issue.

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