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Comment by supernova87a | Hacker News Reader

This is a problem with the recent social movements -- and you can even listen to Dave Chappelle offer this criticism: the people who may be right may be entitled to be offended, but the way they're going about it is not going to help the cause.

It is not good, when anyone who offers even a little bit of truth or reasonableness during a discussion is struck down as the enemy and attacked instantly by the vehemence of someone's offense.

If the successful chief scientist of a huge company can be taken down by forces such as this, while speaking truthful statements, what is the likelihood if I were a lowly junior researcher, I would dare voice an opinion or participate in the discussion? Or after a while, seeing what happens to such people, want to help?

Fear and exclusionary self-righteousness are not the way to win a social struggle. History shows that success comes from making more and more people feel they are a part of the solution -- not making them fear to open their mouths. Especially if, in the end, we each still stand alone in the voting booth and pull the lever based on how we've been made to feel.

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Well, cancel culture is like a superpower for these social science professors and "thought" leaders, who otherwise might not have much klout or academic prestige. Of course they will use it liberally.

It's a kind of anti intellectualism, and ironically largely university funded.

It’s one of the few ways to deal with people who don’t act or talk in good faith. Certainly there’s many cases of it being overused, but in a way it’s sort of denying that there are actual direct people and forces that are fighting tooth and nail against progress.

Seems like a stretch considering there hasn't been a demonstrated benefit to this sort of antagonism, it all just exists to justify itself rather than to facilitate a dialogue. Much more likely is that the humanities are just becoming increasingly desperate to find relevance as they fail over and over to contribute anything new to society. It's far easier to invent gender frameworks and equity rhetoric than to actually solve problems like predominantly one parent households or the seething xenophobia and sexism of the trans community (Latin X imperialism, treatment of black comedians, bigotry towards safe spaces for women, etc)

From my perspective, discrediting the speaker to silence them IS an argument in bad faith. Whether its an ad hominem, tu quoque, or a pitchforking kangaroo court.

If someone is making a good faith rational argument, and the response is "I find your conclusion potentially offensive, so I will suppress your expression"; that is the suppressor acting in bad faith.

The energy around "doing what feels right despite evidence" and "the ends justify the means" have turned into the destruction of nuance. It's very hard to say "I agree with your conclusion, but not your reasoning" because how one arrived at a conclusion no longer matters, only that the conclusion fits the dogma.

It is anti intellectualism.

I agree with your reasoning, but not your conclusion. I think there is a level to which the reasoning stops applying in the presence of trolls, which are absolutely bad actors. The conclusions a troll presents are not even necessarily ones that they even believe, and toxic words and actions also stifles intellectual debate. Flamebait SHOULD be suppressed, and thats fairly universally agreed upon. That a downvoted comment turns more opaque on this platform is evidence enough of that. Often times there's no intellectual debate happening online, just social posturing on opposed sides.

Once you start talking about real people - like say for instance a video is posted of some white woman harassing and calling the police on a black person. Those doing the "cancelling" by calling their office are actively trying to create a societal social boundary, where you can't do that without consequences because you'd lose the trust of people you work with. That people are shocked someone could be fired for such a thing means they don't agree with that social boundary.

Re: "doing what feels right despite evidence" and "the ends justify the means" - those are not at all what I'm espousing and I certainly don't agree with them.

Directly suppressing flame is different than discrediting a speaker to silence them.

I was mostly replying to the "it's overused" claim, that suppressing a bad faith actors may justify collaterally suppressing a good faith. I'm not sure that's what they were saying, but they didn't seem bothered by it.

There's nothing that constrains its application. Its users are those energized by outrage and offense and act on emotional reflex. Their position of pure victimhood is the perception which justifies their right to take down anyone for any reason.

It's single-minded, irrational, damaging to society and acts with little regard for the nuance of actual reality - which means it cannot in the long-term solve actual problems we face without creating bigger ones.

Acting is good faith and with intellectual honesty is always going to require voluntary participation. But if one contestant decides to knock the pieces off the table, then what we're watching is not a chess game, but one party claiming chess superiority because he bit his opponent on the neck.

This is equivalent to saying that mobs are not inherently bad - since they often lynch bad people.

Think about that.

It's not, because lynching and cancelling aren't remotely equivalent.

You're missing the point that mobs are not justice, just because they happen to side with you often.

To make the analogy more in-line with your pedantry, imagine that it's a mob that's smashing storefronts rather than killing people.

Are you suggesting cancelers are commiting crimes?

Ultimately what you're trying to say, it appears, is that people who are choosing to speak out about injustice are bad actors because other people choose to listen to them.

The injustice!

> Are you suggesting cancelers are commiting crimes?

I think they are, it's harassment and mobbing. They should be prosecuted and given serious fines and in some cases jailed.

I think you'll find that there are essentially no jurisdictions where voicing your displeasure about someone's actions is a crime.

In most US jurisdictions, Harassment requires the (credible) threat of violence. Otherwise it's just speech, and protected like any other speech. My understanding is that this is true in most international jurisdictions as well.

Do you consider yourself a supporter of "free speech"?

This concept is so fraught: if I say that I believe someone did a bad thing, that's acceptable. But if a bunch of other people agree with me, suddenly I've committed a crime.

from : https://www.pandasecurity.com/mediacenter/panda-security/how...

"Cyberstalking is the act of using the Internet to systematically and repeatedly harass, threaten or intimidate someone. This can be done through email, social media, chat rooms, instant messaging or other online mediums."

"Cyberstalking is a federal offense and many states have cyberstalking laws. Cyberstalking falls under anti-stalking, slander and harassment laws that are already in place and are punished similarly."

from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyberstalking

"There have been a number of attempts by experts and legislators to define cyberstalking. It is generally understood to be the use of the Internet or other electronic means to stalk or harass an individual, a group, or an organization. [...] Stalking is a continuous process, consisting of a series of actions, each of which may be entirely legal in itself."

"Cyberstalking is a technologically-based "attack" on one person who has been targeted specifically for that attack for reasons of anger, revenge or control. Cyberstalking can take many forms, including:

1 - harassment, embarrassment and humiliation of the victim

2 - emptying bank accounts or other economic control such as ruining the victim's credit score

3 - harassing family, friends and employers to isolate the victim

4 - scare tactics to instill fear and more"

So are are suggesting that "I don't approve of your opinion on this topic" is equivalent to "threatening her with rape and strangulation, publishing her home address and Social Security number, and posting doctored photographs of her.", to quote the wikipedia article you linked?

Or perhaps more specifically, can you present an example of cancelling that was done "specifically [...] for reasons of anger, revenge or control", and not due to other reasons, and that includes embarrassment and humiliation, economic control like ruining the credit score, harassing family and friends or employers, or scare tactics to instill fear?

I can't.

You trying to frame people being upset with someone's actions and expression views you disagree with as stalking is an interesting take, I'll give you that.

> Or perhaps more specifically, can you present an example of cancelling that was done "specifically [...] for reasons of anger, revenge or control", and not due to other reasons, and that includes embarassment and humiliation, economic control like ruining the credit score, harassing family and friends or employers, or scare tactics to instill fear?

Uh? Seriously? Just about any case of cancel culture.

Anger? Check. Revenge? Check. Embarrassment and humiliation? Check. Harassing employers? Check. Scare tactics? Check.

Just the James Damore case fits all these points, and it's just the first that comes to mind (but I think they all apply to almost all known cases).

You aren't reading carefully. I said and not due to other reasons. There are legitimate reasons to complain to someone's employer about their behavior.

Damore's employer for example wasn't really targeted. I know, I worked there during the event. I commented on his doc before it was leaked to the press. Coworkers complained to Google leadership because Damore's document made them feel unwelcome. Ultimately it was for that reason that Damore was fired.

Anger? No. Revenge? No. Harassing employers? Not really. Scare tactics? I can't recall anyone threatening Damore inside Google. It might have happened externally, but wasn't widespread.

The issue that I keep trying to point out is that you're taking people's legitimate airing of concerns and claiming that it is done illegitimately. Ultimately you can't see other people's intentions. Framing all grievances you disagree with as illegitimate and made with only ill intent is a questionable practice.

You can make the argument that everyone lied: that no one really felt unwelcome due to Damore's document, and that Google leadership agrees with you that he did nothing wrong but felt pressured to fire him anyway and that... But at that point you're taking your own preconceptions and applying them to everyone else, and assuming that only your view of the world is valid and that everyone who doesn't take the same meaning away from something that you do is acting in bad faith. That's not solid ground for claiming that someone is a criminal (you can apply the same reasoning and get "everyone who disagrees with me is a criminal", which I hope you'd agree isn't just).

> You aren't reading carefully. I said and not due to other reasons.

I read it and ignored it as a completely arbitrary constraint that you added.

> There are legitimate reasons to complain to someone's employer about their behavior.

Sure.

> Coworkers complained to Google leadership because Damore's document made them feel unwelcome.

This is not a legitimate reason. First of all, because no one can tell whether it's actually true, since it's an entirely subjective feeling, justified by an aberrant interpretation of what he wrote. Andf then because "makes me feel unwelcome" is ridiculous when it's the opinion of a single employee in a company of 120 thousand.

The objective fact is that a number of employees were angry at someone who expressed a political opinion they didn't like and mobbed their employer to have him fired. They can claim whatever subjective feeling as a reason for this.

> Anger? No. Revenge? No. Harassing employers? Not really. Scare tactics? I can't recall anyone threatening Damore inside Google.

So, you deny that the people who asked for him to be fired were angry? That's pretty curious. You believe they were "feeling unwelcome", a pretty vague feeling, but you aren't able to detect a primal, generic anger in their actions.

The firing can easily be interpreted as a revenge against someone who expressed a political opinion they didn't like. They mobbed the employers until they had to do something as drastic as firing him. And finally, they didn't threat Damore, they actually damaged him, implicitly threatening everyone else who might want to voice similar opinions.

> You can make the argument that everyone lied: that no one really felt unwelcome due to Damore's document, and that Google leadership agrees with you that he did nothing wrong but felt pressured to fire him anyway and that...

Exactly. And sorry, but I think that what happened is extremely plain, and it requires a lot of ideological contorsions to deny the anger, the harassment and the revenge, all based on vague purported "feelings", "asked for drastic action but not harassed", etc.

> is acting in bad faith

An individual acting in bad faith lies to others; an adherent to an ideology might lie to him/herself first.

> I read it and ignored it as a completely arbitrary constraint that you added.

Legally, it's quite an important constraint. If you're accusing people of criminal acts, you should, you know, actually be certain that the acts are criminal.

> This is not a legitimate reason.

Bluntly: of course it is. If I feel unwelcome in my workplace, I am encouraged to report it to my management. Psychological safety is incredibly valuable and is something that a lot of companies don't do enough to foster.

Put another way, if someone started posting swastikas around the office, I would be well within my rights to complain to the higher ups that those things made me feel unwelcome. There's no difference except that you feel one complaint is more legitimate than the other. They're still both complaints, made in good faith by those making them.

> So, you deny that the people who asked for him to be fired were angry?

Sure they were angry. But anger was not the specific reason the complaints were made.

> The firing can easily be interpreted as a revenge against someone who expressed a political opinion they didn't like.

Indeed, one is free to interpret the events that way. But that interpretation is no more valid than any other. In fact, it might be less valid given that courts ruled that that isn't why he was fired ;)

> They mobbed the employers until they had to do something as drastic as firing him.

Google was free to not fire him. My understanding is that it was debated, and that eventually executives decided that ethically firing him was the right decision. Could they be lying? Sure. But what makes you so certain that executives agree with you, but feel that their hands were forced? Is it so really unbelievable that a company might feel that it was ethically correct to fire Damore?

I'm not asking if it's harder for you, personally, to face that. Clearly you don't want to believe that, but your unwillingness doesn't make it false. Like, clearly a lot of people thought Damore did a bad thing. So many in fact that there were, to quote you, "mobs". Isn't it feasible that some of the decision makers were among them?

> and it requires a lot of ideological contorsions to deny the anger, the harassment and the revenge

But once again, the question isn't what you believe their goals to have been, it's what they believe their goals to have been. If the goal wasn't to harass, wasn't to get revenge, but instead to improve their workplace, it's not criminal. And I'll reiterate: courts have, on more than one occasion, ruled that Google was within their rights to terminate Damore for the stated reason of making others unwelcome.

You're creating a sort of thoughtcrime: if I complain about someone for the wrong reasons, I'm actually harassing the person that I'm complaining about, and I should go to jail. Also I don't get to decide what the wrong reasons are. You do. That's not just.

> If you're accusing people of criminal acts, you should, you know, actually be certain that the acts are criminal.

Intention matters, and that is usually left to the interpretation of the events. A judge or jury is free to decide what is the probable intention behind an action, whatever is the reason given by the accused.

> If I feel unwelcome in my workplace, I am encouraged to report it to my management. Psychological safety is incredibly valuable and is something that a lot of companies don't do enough to foster.

It's true, but to claim that the politely expressed and abstract opinion of someone makes you feel unwelcome is a stretch. And then, what about the feeling of being welcome and psychological safety of all those who might have a similar opinion? Which opinions this applies to? Am I free to go to the management and say that all those who speak of "white privilege" make me feel unwelcome and I want them to be fired?

> if someone started posting swastikas around the office, I would be well within my rights to complain to the higher ups that those things made me feel unwelcome

I don't really get this "makes me feel unwelcome". Being welcome or not is something between you and the company, not a single one of your coworkers. What you mean is that someone is a jerk and is repeatedly posting highly objectionable content. He might be then admonished to stop. End of the issue.

> Google was free to not fire him. My understanding is that it was debated, and that eventually executives decided that ethically firing him was the right decision.

Of course one can ignore the political pressure, media articles, and very vocal minority who asked for him to be fired. But then it becomes a different story.

> the question isn't what you believe their goals to have been, it's what they believe their goals to have been. If the goal wasn't to harass, wasn't to get revenge, but instead to improve their workplace, it's not criminal

If my idea to improve the workplace is to have all those who express feminist ideas to be silenced or fired, because as a male they make me "feel unwelcome", what do you think? Is it all fine?

> if I complain about someone for the wrong reasons, I'm actually harassing the person that I'm complaining about ... Also I don't get to decide what the wrong reasons are.

If I complain about the communists or the Jehova's witnesses because I don't like them, and I try to pressure the management into firing them, I am the one to be fired, not them. And I don't get to decide what the right reasons are. Seems simple to me.

> What you mean is that someone is a jerk and is repeatedly posting highly objectionable content.

The irony here being that this describes the Damore situation precisely.

> Am I free to go to the management and say that all those who speak of "white privilege" make me feel unwelcome and I want them to be fired?

Of course! I certainly don't hope that you'd be fired for that (nor do I think you would be in most places). You seem to be presupposing the reaction management will have, which makes me think that your problem isn't so much with cancelling, but with feeling unable to express your opinion that "white privilege" is a bad thing.

Now, you might not get what you want, which in this situation is perhaps the people who use the term white privilege to be fired. But that's because management doesn't find your complaint valid, which has been my point from the beginning. Your company has agency and culture that drives their decisions irrespective of what people say to them.

> If my idea to improve the workplace is to have all those who express feminist ideas to be silenced or fired, because as a male they make me "feel unwelcome", what do you think? Is it all fine?

My entire point, this entire time, is that individuals should be free to express the opinions they want, and companies should be able to act on those opinions by choosing to associate with who and how they want based on the company's values. If you can find a company that agrees with you and manages to avoid breaking employment law, more power to you. However if your company disagrees with the opinions you express, ultimately it is up to them what action they take. They are free to disassociate with you.

That's all cancelling is: individuals and groups choosing to use exercise their agency and freedom of association. And I support that. So yes, complain about whatever you want. But don't take umbrage when people choose, of their own volition, to disagree with you and to refuse to associate with you.

Ultimately, this is an issue that oppressed people have dealt with forever: that actions have consequences. It's great that society is getting to the point where everyone can face consequences for doing bad things.

> Of course one can ignore the political pressure, media articles, and very vocal minority who asked for him to be fired. But then it becomes a different story.

No one needs to ignore it. You however are ignoring everything else. That's my point.

I agree with what your saying in general, but this isn't really an instance of someone being taken down. I read it like when one of us normal folks deletes our social media accounts for mental health. Twitter seems like a toxic environment, but it didn't silence him any more than getting sick of the constant weird reality distortion on facebook made me delete mine. It just got toxic enough for him to decide to shut up.

The distinction matters because sometimes people not aligned with the zeitgeist do face serious consequences like being fired, receiving violent threats, etc.

> Twitter seems like a toxic environment

I think you can safely remove the "seems like" about now.

> Especially if, in the end, we each still stand alone in the voting booth and pull the lever based on how we've been made to feel.

For a lot of people, the only way they can safely say that the social movement has gone too far, is by voting for Trump. If they disagree in public, the mob will come for them. However, in the privacy of the voting booth, they will pull the lever for the one person they know these people hate, not because they love Trump, but because it is their one way to protest against the mob.

I agree with your gist but let's not pretend that Yann LeCun has been "taken down." He is still tremendously wealthy, respected, influential, etc... it looks like the only change is that he's not on Twitter.

If an individual retains their personal wealth and lifestyle, but is unable to speak publicly - at least on one major platform, perhaps on many or all - then I don’t think it’s a justification of mob culture to say “well, he has a shiny car.” It doesn’t make the mob any less hurtful or hateful, and it doesn’t somehow redress the harm that’s being done to debate and free speech, which in the long run will probably have very damaging consequences not so much for him as for the mob.

How is he unable, other by his own choice?

Calling this his choice is an odd word selection, if someone is under extortion or blackmail do they give in by choice? If option A is horrible and one has to chose option B, is it fine and dandy because it was made by choice?

Maybe taken down isn't the right term, as if he's some great public figure. Whatever you wish to call it, forced to resign, or voluntarily said "I've had enough of this", etc.

I think the point still stands that if offering reasonable observations under such circumstances leads to this happening to such a person, it could equally well be you or I, who likely have little to no chance of being defended or heard in public.

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