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> What's particularly off-base about this analysis is that Cosby was always creepy.

Don't mistake this as complete agreement with the article, but I'd like to make the point that I grew up with the Cosby show and really enjoyed it. I didn't think Bill Cosby was creepy at all. I was deeply saddened to hear about his crimes when they were exposed.

I think it's important to internalize that point because it shows we can be fallible in our assessments of people. I can't truthfully say I always knew Cosby was creepy after the fact. While you're saying it as though it was obvious, I didn't think about it whatsoever.

The same thing happened with Kevin Spacey for me. I was actually distraught at the fact that one of my favorite actors could do these things. And if I'm being very honest, it upsets me that House of Cards (US) was essentially ruined by his removal. I don't disagree with his removal, but I can sympathize with competing perspectives on the broader phenomenon.

What got me about Spacey and Louis CK is that these were open secrets. Everyone in the industry apparently knew about it.

But you aren't allowed to do anything about it, until a jury of twelve peers convict them.

I wish my manager could not rate me 'needs improvement' without running it past a jury of twelve of my peers.

It's definitely creepy to hear Cosby talk about Spanish Fly and then combine it with the revelations that came later. I can't say in all honesty that it would have been considered creepy back then though. I've never heard anyone say the Beastie Boys were creepy for singing about it in Brass Monkey:

"Me and the crew we're drinking Brass Monkey This girl walked by she gave me the eye I reached in the locker grabbed the Spanish Fly I put it with the Monkey mixed it in the cup Went over to the girl, "Yo baby, what's up?" I offered her a sip (sip) the girl she gave me lip (lip) It did begin the stuff wore in and now she's on my tip "

I don't think you could say that in 2019.

Just to go off on a bit of a tangent: There's something to be said about the past being inappropriate today. We should have 2 Live Crew post lyrics from their 80's and early 90's material on Twitter and see how quickly they are outcasted from society.

OK; I'll bite. Those are creepy lyrics. They were creepy then and they are creepy now. Beasties probably meant it as a joke as they, to my knowledge, don't have a rep as being otherwise creepy but I'm going to go out on a wild limb and say that if you don't think people talking about drugging people so they have sex with you isn't creepy you're not a woman and/or you don't really have much empathy with them either.

This doesn't mean there isn't potentially funny jokes to be made here, as comedy can go everywhere. Some of Sarah Silverman's stuff is super-dark and still funny. But this idea that people invented the notion of "getting all upset over rapey stuff circa 2017" is ridiculous - it's just more that recently people started listening occasionally to victims.

I agree they're creepy. I disagree that not finding it creepy means you're not a woman or have no empathy for women. I know tons of women who love the Beastie Boys and I've never heard a single person complain about or even comment on Brass Monkey lyrics.

An even more unnerving example than Cosby from the "they were always a creep" files is Jimmy Saville, the British radio and television personality who was "later revealed to be" a serial sex abuser of virtually any sort of bipedal mammal.

Go watch some of that guy's old interviews and TV shows. It was stupidly obvious that he was a creep. He radiated it. I find it impossible to believe that anyone actually working with that guy didn't know.

Saville had charisma and used it to raise a lot of money for various people. It's obvious that people just looked the other way while he raped women and children for years.

> Cosby was always creepy

Always? At all times? Congratulations on seeing it coming; you're luckier than apparently a few dozen women.

> blurring of people

Which is a worse fallacy, blurring Cosby into Louis into Keillor into Barr, or blurring Barr into Keilorr into Louis into Cosby? Or how about this: each case is different?

> market based companies not wanting anything to do with you any more because you suck

More precisely: coordinated pressure campaigns to intimidate market-based companies, and a lack of pushback from the people who just want to stream some R. Kelley, but are too scared to speak up.

> in no way analogous

When platforms act in concert under pressure through culture-wide groupthink, it might not technically be Soviet censorship, but it's pretty damn analogous.

OK, it was unfair to say 'always', but a more nuanced version of my point would have been: "it does not strengthen a case to claim that only in retrospect could Cosby, performer of the infamous 'Spanish Fly' routine, can be considered too creepy to be 'America's Dad'".

Soviet censorship involved the exercise of the hard power of the state to achieve permanent removal of the person or their imprisonment for political reasons, and the 'groupthink' attitudes referred to here involved wholesale redaction of news and the historical record. "Pretty damn analogous" is true only if we consider a slap in the face "pretty damn analogous" to murder.

As a child, I was extremely uncomfortable with Dr. Huxtable when he was in his office. I would regularly walk away from the show when he was in his at-home office alone with someone. When I later saw Philip Banks in Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, I consciously compared the two. One felt safe and nurturing, the other did not.

When a criminal's art replicates the conditions in which he committed crimes, I would hope that the commercial and artistic value of that work would diminish considerably. I hope that the Cosby show would not be able to survive continued syndication. However it should still be thrown into the bargain bin of available entertainment for posterity.

In my opinion, deleting the Cosby show erases the chance for others to obtain that same impression.

Private companies ending Cosby's prior art is giving in to the mob. Had there not been such vitriolic outcry, they'd have happily continued making their profits.

No, the erasure is not on them; it's entirely our fault.

Our modern equivalents of the library are being purged, and you're happily cheering the flames.

Please don't cross into personal attack.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

It's cute that you think that the purging the "modern equivalent of the library" is "not getting to have reruns on network television".

I'm going to go out on a limb here and suggest that the "modern equivalent of the library" is, well, the library. A quick check reveals that it is still possible to find The Cosby Show at most libraries of record.

This comment breaks the site guidelines. Please review and follow them when posting here.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Is this really necessary? The exchange seems quite civil. What exactly in the GP gave offense that warrants pointing it out?

HN seems like a generally civil place. Comments like these make it seem more uncivil, just like police patrolling "bad" neighborhoods more frequently.

We can’t tell whether the posts have been edited

They haven't.

Then dang could have specified exactly which statement transgressed the rules.

"It's cute that you think [dumb thing]."

Don't be snarky. Comments should get more civil and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive.

Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

what is 'snarky' about 'cute'?

I mean its not a very good rule, the general definition [snide and sharply critical.] could apply to most comments; but what specifically is you objection with 'cute', seems it could be taken as a compliment.

And fyi- summarizing this persons quote as 'dumb thing' could be construed as snide and sharply critical.

It's not the case that "snark" could apply to most HN comments. Mostly there's a clear distinction between comments that contain that toxin and those that don't. That's why it's a good rule for HN.

"Cute" is a term of affection, but it's an internet snark trope to use positive language in a demeaning way, because it makes a comment nastier when you do that. Another example is "I love how you", which is used about as often to attack someone as to compliment them (https://hn.algolia.com/?query=%22i%20love%20how%20you%22&sor...).

my instinct tells me arguing this is pointless, because its vague enough that whatever the mods like they can keep and what they don't like can disappear... But just as an example i will break down your last post;

>It's not the case that "snark" could apply to most HN comments.

Breaks the Please don't post shallow dismissals rule.

>That's why it's a good rule for HN.

Breaks the Don't be snarky rule.

>"Cute" is a term of affection, but it's an internet snark trope

The use of "Air quotes" is the first snark trope on google. same rule you broke twice.

Now I'm not calling for you to be banned, just pointing out that you attacked a borderline case and did it with a post that borderline broke the same vague rules.

'dang is a mod.

how ironic.

The fact that this many in the community are willing to question the moderation, is indicative of a higher level of tolerance within the community for what it deems "civil". Please consider being a little more lenient while moderating.

I'm happy to adjust when people object, but it's relatively rare that that happens.

I think this is a case where if you had followed your own rules to begin with, this whole discussion thread could have been avoided. There was nothing wrong with your observation of possible incivility - I've noticed you're very attuned to it. You were absolutely doing your job by calling it out. However, the way you worded it gave no context for what was wrong (shallow), implied that the poster had not read the site guidelines (snarky), and ignored the small possibility that "cute" was not intended to be condescending (the strongest possible interpretation of what they said). It seems

I don't think it would have compromised your message if you had been both more specific and a little more polite the first time around. Something like "Your use of 'cute' appears condescending and snarky. This is against the site rules, which you can find here <link>." I think people are more receptive to that tone anyway, and if you do happen to be accidentally overzealous, you've allowed enough room for both of you to save face.

I realise that I too should have posted this comment the first time around, and my initial reply to you (a simple quotation of the site rules I believed you to have violated) was also shallow and snarky, in precisely the same way. So, sorry about that. By way of apology, let me express that I am grateful for the excellent work you do, and that I would surely be much ruder in your position.

It not possible to treat every comment with that level of detail. There are far too many, and the quantity/quality tradeoff is brutal. Sometimes we do, but it costs a lot of time and energy and denies resources to whatever else we need to do, such as look at other threads. So we do our best to convey the needful and are happy to reply with clarification when people ask.

"Please review the guidelines" does not imply you haven't read them. That's why I say "review" rather than "read". I used to say "(re-)read" but that was clumsy. https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme...

The guidelines say strongest plausible, not strongest possible. I don't see a non-snarky plausible interpretation of "cute" in that sentence.

The comment was internet vitriol and the site guidelines ask users not to argue that way. You're right that it was far from the worst instance of it, but still. Pouring acid over the other side feels like championing goodness, but really is just pouring acid. It's an invitation to the other side to do the same, and that's how HN ends up burning.

You guys remember that Hacker News is a community, yes? Community members have duties to the community, and to one another, no matter how strongly they disagree.

"Please don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work. A good critical comment teaches us something."

Yeah, I have to admit that I felt a kind of 'not following the letter of the rules' when I used the word 'cute'. Frankly, the argument against 'snark' on HN is a bit wearying to follow 100%. All I would have to do is obfuscate a bit and it sounds like principled disagreement ("It's perhaps a naive take that you ...", "I don't completely understand the line of reasoning that led you to think ...").

The thing is, out there in the world, you don't have to bother worrying that there's some starchy HN exceptionalism that doesn't allow you to answer something that's complete bullshit with a 'proper intellectual response'. It is a bit wearying to constantly deal with juvenelia ("Getting dropped from network TV is like being 'disappeared' by Stalin) in a fashion that would be commensurate with, say, a improper attribution of a remark from Wittgenstein uttered in the drawing room.

It feels like HN's policies against 'snark' have the (no doubt unintentional) effect of shifting the Overton window towards requiring remarks - no matter how juvenile and daft - to be met with proper and careful drawing-room etiquette. So saying stuff that's completely absurd needs to be either unanswered (and left to stink up the room) or carefully argued against (making it sound way more plausible than it is).

I understand that the slippery-slope version of my argument here suggests that anyone can meet anyone else with a torrent of personal abuse simply as a result of disagreement. That being said, I'm not 100% convinced that the right answer to someone uttering absurdities is to meet them with logical, guideline-approved non-snark.

Also: to the nice people on the subthread defending my remark as somehow not snarky, thanks, but no. I intended to be a prick here - there's no entirely guidelines-compliant interpretation of my comment. My argument above is that judicious snark is probably better, and more honest, than either masking it ("your argument is characteristic of arguments made by people no doubt considerably less intelligent than you obviously are, my fine Sir") or by pretending that absurdity isn't absurd ("Well, you see, Stalin actually made people disappear and systematically erased them from libraries, while in this case, what we're talking about is...").

> Our modern equivalents of the library are being purged

No, they aren't. Not in any way, shape, or form. Private companies don't have any obligation to continue showing anything. They don't have any such 'moral' obligations at all. They aren't going into libraries and purging books.

An actual purge would be something like systemically recalling, redacting, and deleting any remaining records of art that involve Cosby. Saying this is 'our libraries being purged' is completely alarmist and untrue.

> No, they aren't. Not in any way, shape, or form. Private companies don't have any obligation to continue showing anything. They don't have any such 'moral' obligations at all. They aren't going into libraries and purging books.

What if the libraries are privatized?

> An actual purge would be something like systemically recalling, redacting, and deleting any remaining records of art that involve Cosby. Saying this is 'our libraries being purged' is completely alarmist and untrue.

No. An actual purge would consist of removing the work from circulation and locking the remaining copies in a restricted section in the library (a giftschrank). What you describe sounds like it's inspired by the fictional total censorship regime shown in 1984 [1] than by nonfictional examples.

[1] Which was probably lie even in the context of that fictional world; I wouldn't be surprised if the Inner Party actually had accurate archives kept in a giftschrank.

> What if the libraries are privatized?

Then there’s a serious issue with your society that needs to be resolved independent of anything else - libraries are a public good, not for the benefit of any individual entity.

Public libraries still exist. You're referring to a private company's catalogue. Thus, this entire argument is really moot.

You can still go to libraries and obtain things, there is no purge or anything remotely even close happening. It's absurd to expect a private company to always offer content from now until the end of time.

> > Our modern equivalents of the library are being purged

> No, they aren't. Not in any way, shape, or form. Private companies don't have any obligation to continue showing anything.

True, but in the world today the overwhelming majority of accesses to these things is via paying for access to it from private companies. If private companies refuse then it becomes non-available, for most practical purposes.

Which is still completely different from being purged.

Not having access to a private company's catalogue is a different issue altogether.

> Private companies don't have any obligation to continue showing anything.

Then they should relinquish their copyrights.

That is a completely absurd proposition and ignores the sheer amount of work that goes into making tv shows and the like. They have no obligation to do anything for anyone. The copyrights will expire anyway at some point in the future.

Private companies don't have any obligation to continue showing anything. They don't have any such 'moral' obligations at all.

Consider that We The People developed a legal framework for companies to exist as the existence of companies as a thing was deemed to be a net good. But what if it isn’t any more, if companies are purely focused on profits at the expense of the legal and social environment in which they exist? Then the law can be amended.

That's why laws are amended and why regulations and the like exist.

That is parallel to a company deciding to list or not list a tv show in their catalogue.