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Comment by notacoward | Hacker News Reader

I've lost as much respect for Scott Adams as anyone, so I'd agree that quoting him is ill advised, but the underlying sentiment is not wrong. Mobs do cause harm, not least because they make redemption harder than it already is. In a way, treating a Scott Adams quote as an automatic disqualifier is only making the OP's point.

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Exactly because of that, you shouldn't let people like Scott Adams snatch that sentiment and make it theirs. So express that sentiment, if you want, but don't do it through the words of someone that is actively contributing to disqualify its validity in the public discourse.

The quote presents as self-deprecation but reads as a non-apology (at least to me, and I too must confess having lost respect for Adams as well).

Edit: for fun I checked out Adam's twitter posts -- and have no respect left at all.

Adams is very much not trying for an apology here he is mocking cancel culture and the inevitable non-apology that public figures will distribute.

They cause harm when they're wrong. Not when they're right. A mob went after Harvey Weinstein because after the first few accusations they rest realized they weren't alone.

Same is true of lynch mobs in real life. Sometimes they do kill actual baddies. It's the tendency to be wrong that makes vigilante justice a problem.

Maybe take a minute to think about this comment one more time.

Alright since this is still here and I'm being down voted, I'll explain what should be really obvious. Lynch mobs were expressly racist. They also typically resulted in death. They would lay an accusation of something that was either not an offense (like mixing with white people) or maybe sometimes an actual crime that could have been handed to the criminal justice system. Twitter mobs are just talking. Fully protected first amendment speech about things that happened to them that they dislike. Nobody gets harmed. Typically these are things like harassment or bullying that is socially unacceptable but not grounds for any type of legal action.

> Nobody gets harmed.

That is very obviously untrue, and makes me wonder whether you read OP at all. Do you think only physical harm matters? The public nature of accusations and ensuing arguments can have a very significant effect on business/career prospects, personal relationships, etc. Even if you successfully prove that the accusations are false, people's impressions are colored by the acrimony itself. There's another story on HN right now about collusion rings in academic reviewing, which demonstrates this effect. This could do huge damage to many people's academic careers, regardless of guilt or innocence or which side they're on.

If you have never known anyone that this happened to, count yourself lucky. Most people who have reached any level of prominence in any field have probably seen it happen to a friend. Pretending that things aren't real unless they've happened to you is kind of noxious.

Sorry, yes, I meant physical harm. Physical and irreparable harm. Sure a misdirected twitter mob can cause emotional or professional harm. I indirectly know a few people it happened to and they deserved it.

Except there are enough cases of physical and irreparable harm caused by lies being spread on social media.

Let me be clear: there are multiple actual murders and lynch mobs that were the direct result of someone starting a rumor online and it snowballing from there.

How many of those are acceptable? You're dismissing this with "oh chucks most times they are right as opposed to always wrong" when we aren't arguing they are never right.

It's not expressly racist. Look up mobs lynchings from either the past or recent times in various countries, including America, or the definition. You probably just aren't aware of all the non-racist cases.

What's your point? As long as they're right sometimes, it makes the unfortunate casualties worth it? A needed sacrifice for the greater good?

That's not what I said. The parent comment (and others in this thread) seem to think that these kind of accusations are always bad. I tend to think that accusations are usually well-intentioned and well-founded.

> The parent comment (and others in this thread) seem to think that these kind of accusations are always bad.

That's not what I gathered from the parent comment and it's not what "mobs do cause harm" mean, which is why I was confused by your rebuttal.

> I tend to think that accusations are usually well-intentioned and well-founded.

That might be the case, but we still have to deal with the times they aren't.

I think the statement that they "do cause harm" is pretty one sided. The fact is, they are intended to cause harm. The question is if they target someone who deserves it.

They didn't speak in the absolutes you're reading into.

Mobs do cause harm. Cars do kill.

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