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Comment by softwaredoug | Hacker News Reader

Is this really typical? Or are we more aware of these “edge case” stories nowadays given social media?

Just seems we’re in the perfect storm for cherry picking outrage these days. But it’s hard to know if there’s a new or statistically novel pattern occurring.

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It depends what industry you work in and how big the company is. The worst is higher education. Endless scandals over nothing. The most notable example is Bret Weinstein: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bret_Weinstein#Evergreen_State...

And maybe the most recent is Stephen Hsu of MSU: https://statenews.com/article/2020/06/michigan-state-geu-cal... (though it's not surprising, he seems rather unsavvy when it comes to communicating about sensitive topics)

I don’t know enough to litigate the particulars though it does seem from the wiki article it catapulted him into a kind of celebrity...

Well, has he been proven wrong in his assessment of the situation thus far? I found myself supporting his side during the original debacle but also kind of wrote him off as a bit of a crank because he went on a sort of national tour about this supposed problem. Today, though? It's pretty damn clear he was calling it correctly. See the ACA5 vote in California today, for a very timely example.

It's true that he got a lot of attention after he appeared on FOX, but there's more to the story. You can read about it (and many other examples of cancel culture) in the controversial book "The Coddling of the American Mind": https://www.thecoddling.com/

You only need a few examples to make the rest fall in line.

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