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Comment by dannykwells | Hacker News Reader

This fundamentally comes down to a difference in opinion: do you change minds by rejecting people and making them outcasts (your approach, I'd guess) or continuing a dialogue while maintaining your principles?

The former approach, um, isn't working (even if it might make you feel warm and fuzzy inside for being morally righteous).

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The latter approach certainly hasn't worked either. Look at the rise of white fascism in America. It grew out of the free-speech open dialogue wild west internet (4chan, 8chan etc) and became so radical that it's racked up quite a body count thus far.

I don't think cancellation is about changing the person-being-canceled's mind on a given opinion. I believe it functions entirely to signal to the rest of society and culture that such positions and actions are unacceptable.

But like, that's not working because the approach isn't being used judiciously. Weinstein was cancelled, as are YouTubers who cancel them selves. Its used when someone messes up a pronoun, and when someone is a serial abuser of women for 30 years.

So the term and the approach is broken. If everyone can be accused, without evidence, of anything and end up being cancelled, that is sending a signal. Just not the one you want.

> Look at the rise of white fascism in America. It grew out of the free-speech open dialogue wild west internet (4chan, 8chan etc) and became so radical that it's racked up quite a body count thus far.

This is incredibly misinformed. White fascism in the US predates the internet[1].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fascism_in_North_America#Unite...

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