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Comment by shadeslayer_ | Hacker News Reader

I'm a bit sceptical about this because it talks very little about what happened that caused OP to get "cancelled", and an awful lot about how they came back from it. I do understand, first-hand, the trauma that comes from being cancelled (although I have like 1500 followers on Twitter so you could argue the stakes are less) and there's no doubt that it is a bitch. But there is something to take away from it - or at least there was in my case - which was that I, in fact, was an asshole. That does not seem to be the overarching narrative of this post, and I do not see a lot of learning they have done from being cancelled.

In conclusion, kudos to the way you bounced back but I really wish there was a bit more introspection into how you see your past behaviour in the light of being cancelled.

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> I really wish there was a bit more introspection into how you see your past behaviour in the light of being cancelled.

I don't get this comment. The author says explicitly that he was an asshole in the past, that he changed who he was, and that he apologized privately to the people he had hurt. What more do you want?

I think this quote from the article is a good example:

>I don’t think I can fully describe the heart-wrenching pain of seeing your life & career crumbling around you and feeling utterly powerless to stop it. I thought I was fast approaching my inevitable and permanent end. I don’t cry often, but I cried a lot that night.

The author has harsh words for his previous behavior, but the question I have is about the sentiment at the center of his reflection on the experience: if he had agency in the attacks on him. I certainly believe that he does not think he does.

A lot of this comes down to deeply personal questions about how to address misbehavior and what we expect from other people. I do not know the details of what Noah did or what the people he mistreated want, but in his incomplete account I can certainly think of things that jump out to me.

- He says that no one has accused him of raping them. I personally know people who were raped and never accused their rapists. It was not worth the trouble or they did not have the social capital or they did not want to pursue law enforcement. How much introspection Noah should have depends a lot on the specifics but is it certainly not clearly enough to say that you didn't do something because no one accused you. That's not reflection.

- At the end of the day no one has an obligation to like you. It is not up to the perpetrator to decide what the appropriate restorative process is. We do not need a legal system to give us permission to dislike someone.

- He says, towards the end "If you’ve been cancelled and want someone to talk with who won’t shame or judge you, shoot me a message." I mean...I suppose I get what he means, but it seems hard to simultaneously put forth that your previous behavior was wrong and should be judged harshly and also that you will not judge others for their previous behavior. I am all for a path to restoration, but if I am to believe in reform I would like to see a more complex understanding than I get from this essay. I believe any real path to restoration must include judgement about past misdeeds.

I think about the Dan Harmon apology for the sexual harassment her perpetrated against a coworker[1]. It has its own flaws and, to a degree, I think it overly-centers Harmon, but one thing I think it gets very right is that Harmon made sure to apologize in a way that was accepted by his victims and was detailed about his misbehavior. He is clear-eyed about the way that he took advantage of his power, how selfish and small his motivations were, and how much damage he did to his victims. His apology feels merciless to his past self in a way that I do not see in Noah's account.

Now maybe Noah has fully satisfied his victims and they simply do not want to go public and ofc that changes my understanding of this situation. But I do not get the same unceasingly unsympathetic treatment of Noah's past behavior. He seems like he wants it to go away rather than make it part of his story and, I think, that approach feels less fully-engaged than others that I've seen.

Ultimately accounts like this, where we are all judging behavior of strangers we haven't meet in past events we did not experience, are always questionable. I don't feel certain at all about Noah. I also think it is easy to read this account of his experience and be uncertain about how he has changed. He mentions, at the start, that cancelling "those who are attempting to grow is such a counterproductive and potentially dangerous trend" - but I do not understand from this article how he is attempting to grow. Instead, I see a disagreement about how to deal with his past behavior.

[1] https://www.thisamericanlife.org/674/transcript

> if he had agency in the attacks on him

I think he did in the sense that he could have chosen to respond in different ways. He could have said, for example, something like: "I admit I behaved badly in the past. I have changed who I am so I don't do those things any more, and I have apologized in private to the people I hurt. That's all I'm going to say about it." And then just ignored whatever happened on social media after that.

The question is whether that would have affected, for example, his getting fired and disowned by companies he had worked for. I don't think it would have, because I don't think the companies that fired him were doing it based on any evaluation they did themselves of his behavior; they were doing it based on fear of social media.

> it seems hard to simultaneously put forth that your previous behavior was wrong and should be judged harshly and also that you will not judge others for their previous behavior

I don't think that's what he's saying. The things he was accused of on social media and which caused companies to fire him were not things he had actually done in the past, but accusations about things he had not done in the past. So I don't think he's complaining about being judged on what he actually did. I think he's complaining about being cancelled on the basis of things he had not done, simply because social media never stops at what you actually did, but always goes on to accuse you of things you didn't do, and you have no way of defending yourself. And he's saying he won't judge other people based on things social media says about them because most of the things social media says about anybody aren't true.

(Note that if you disagree about whether, for example, he actually raped someone, naturally you'll disagree about the extent to which the social media cancellation was justified. But the fact is that he says he didn't rape anyone, so what he is saying is not what you are describing. He's not saying that rape isn't bad or that he wouldn't judge someone harshly who had raped someone. He's saying he won't judge someone harshly just because social media accuses them of raping someone.)

I think you point to the basic question here: is it fair to only judge him for the things he has apologized for and taken ownership of, or would it be moral to form and act on our own opinions?

If you feel it's only appropriate to judge people on the behavior they admit to, then I think your read is correct. That also, to me, feels like it becomes tautological - it places the locus of power on the accused and the onus of coming forward on the victim.

We want some level of responsibility on the victim. False accusations exist (though research suggests they are extremely rare). I don't have good answers - but someone asked what more someone could want and I answered. There are parts of how he talks about the experience that make me uneasy. I can understand that unease making others uncomfortable.

The line I would draw is one of looking for reflection on personal behavior. As I said in my post, I'm not comfortable accepting his description of the events as the end of it and I do not see any understanding of why that might be in his answer. I don't think he needs to have intended to commit sexual assault to have done it and I don't think someone needs to accuse him (privately or publicly) for him to reflect on the possibility.

I said elsewhere that I would work with him, but I would certainly understand if people didn't feel comfortable about it. I guess I've seen many people leave companies or not get hired for far more mundane interpersonal mismatches. It is really hard for me to take seriously that cultural fit matters at work, but that people must accept a former abusers' representations they have changed.

I also just want to say:

>[the companies fired him] based on fear of social media.

I have no idea if this is true and neither do you. I have seen external embarrassments handled in different ways and I am skeptical it was this simple. Of course, I could be wrong, but there are plenty of prominent figures who had accusations made against them and they either kept their jobs or found new positions.

> I think you point to the basic question here: is it fair to only judge him for the things he has apologized for and taken ownership of, or would it be moral to form and act on our own opinions?

I'm fine with forming and acting on your own opinions, if they are based on reliable information.

What I'm not fine with is cancelling someone without even bothering to find out reliable information, which is what appears to have happened in this case.

> False accusations exist (though research suggests they are extremely rare).

What research are you referring to?

For a journalistic take I recommend[1], but if you would like to go right to the papers the wikipedia article has a good overview[2]

[1]https://www.thecut.com/article/false-rape-accusations.html

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_accusation_of_rape

> >[the companies fired him] based on fear of social media.

I have no idea if this is true and neither do you.

Fair enough. We don't have access to internal company deliberations.

> At the end of the day no one has an obligation to like you. It is not up to the perpetrator to decide what the appropriate restorative process is. We do not need a legal system to give us permission to dislike someone.

I agree with this, but here we're not talking about just disliking someone. We're talking about cancellation--someone's livelihood is taken away (he was fired, from multiple jobs). Just disliking someone does not justify doing that. We don't have a right to have other people like us, but we do have a right to make a living, and we should have legal recourse if false accusations impact our livelihood.

I believe he does have legal recourse against false accusations. Slander and libel law is pretty old and well-established. Also, outside of protected classes, we have a legal system that assumes people do not have a right to be hired.

I think each employer would need to make their own decision. There is nothing in his account that would make me uncomfortable working with him. But, I think your critique really points away from 'cancel culture' and towards a more robust set of employment protections. I favor those, but they aren't really related to 'cancelling' people.

> I believe he does have legal recourse against false accusations.

He does if he can prove damages. In practice that is extremely hard to do, even if we leave out all the additional difficulties associated with accusations made by anonymous people on the Internet.

Also, the only legal remedy is compensatory damages and punitive damages from a successful lawsuit. But who is he going to sue? Twitter? They'll just say they aren't responsible for false accusations made using their platform, and AFAIK that position has already been upheld in court. And beyond that, we come up against those difficulties I just referred to: how do you find people in the real world corresponding to various Twitter identities and get them into court? And what do you do if they turn out to be judgment proof?

> I think each employer would need to make their own decision.

I agree. But the decision should be based on reliable information. What's more, I would say it should be based on reliable information that is related to the person's job performance.

> I think your critique really points away from 'cancel culture' and towards a more robust set of employment protections.

To the extent that "cancel culture" has an impact on people's employment, the two are related. Of course a company isn't going to come right out and say "we fired this person because we were afraid of being shamed on social media". That doesn't mean there isn't causation involved. Would Bradley have been fired if there hadn't been a social media firestorm? If someone had just privately informed Wizards of the Coast (or any other company he was doing artwork for) about what Bradley had done in the past? That's the key question, and I'm not sure it's addressable by more robust employment protections, since there's no way to prove causation even if it's there.

Fair point! I guess I was writing this to people who have already heard the story. But I do get into what happened and why it happened in the podcast I recorded, if you're genuinely interested (and have some time to spare).

Put simply, there's a lot to cover here. There's a lot of history, context, perspective, etc. and covering it all would take, well, probably a book. I couldn't get it all in this article, but maybe I should have included a little more on the lessons I learned before and why I had already changed. Next time.

this is typical of people self-labeling as, and seeking pity for, being 'cancelled' in my experience...

What happened is quickly glossed over in vague terms with a half hearted apology and treated as a mere unimportant sideshow to the real problem: I faced consequences. Ignoring the pushback or saying 'well I could have provided more detail about what I learned as a person' isn't actually explaining what you did wrong. There is a big gap between 'acting like an asshole' (to use your language) and 'being a sexual predator' (to use another headline). Those details matter - because they frame the rest of the description of what happened. It's the head nod to 'I'm sorry if anyone was offended' so we can get to the real topic...

The real topic is claiming victimhood when the consequences of one's behavior come out. No challenge of facts, of what others are saying, simply an acclimation that you are put upon based on your evaluation of the consequences. By bypassing all of that, you are starting from the idea that you (and your wife) are really the victim here and building that narrative very intentionally. These types of articles are basically an argument by assertion that accountability is not important.

Cancel culture is not real - the term 'cancel culture' is an attempt to recuperate[0] the language of equal rights and justice to protect people from the consequences of their actions. You're sitting here writing a blog post about this. It's on the front page of HN, you posted about it on your twitter. Please...

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recuperation_(politics)

Do you believe every man is a liar? Can a man change their spots? Is it acceptable to attack someone in the court of Twitter, victimise them, hurt them, and hurt their friends and family?

Should society try to help everyone learn to be better, or should society righteously punish those who trangress the invisible boundaries of decency?

His narrative is certainly believable, although I am in no position to judge your accusations against him.

I fear to even answer you, as I am sure others are, because perhaps you are someone to start a crusade against me for no reason more than you have the ability to do so.

All adults need to take some responsibility for his his actions: he is steeped in a society that tacitly accepts womanising in its media (think “Two and a Half Men”), a society that has accepted sleezing as a valid sport (jock culture). Neither you nor I accepts such hideous behaviour, but clearly we are not yet winning against the wider society of the world, and what should we do with those that get sucked into red pill culture?

I am not apologising for his behaviours, nor am I defending myself by proxy. I do fear for where “cancel culture” is trending towards silencing any discourse. (Disclaimer: I am a white guy who isn’t in the US. I try to always do my best, although I am as fallible as any other person).

Edit: perhaps this comment would have been safer made using a throwaway account?

> Do you believe every man is a liar?

No, I believe we are all our own unreliable narrator

> Can a man change their spots?

Absolutely

> Is it acceptable to attack someone in the court of Twitter, victimise them, hurt them, and hurt their friends and family?

begging the question. I am merely commenting on the credibility of accepting an argument about victimization from someone who demands that we bifurcate that from how they have victimized others. There is one reality and yet we all have our own. You aren't entitled to demand your reality be adopted as the only one.

I'm a white guy too, I've never felt the need to opt out of discourse out of fear of being canceled. Cancel culture is designed to silence discourse...but not in the way you think. The term was created out of whole cloth and is designed to silence critique. It is a label applied to exempt behavior from critique. Discourse requires critique, cancel culture is designed to be a singular label to ensure ideas from certain people (i.e., you and me) are not subject to critique. You can note that this entire thread has treated any critique of the author as largely akin to a violent attack on them. What kind of discourse is that?

'Cancel culture' is a bad faith argument, not something you need to fear. It is a narrative created specifically to make you feel the way you describe in your edit when there is no evidence to support that. You don't need a throwaway...just like I'm totally identifiable from my account history while continuing to say dumb things, I manage that by (mostly) being respectful of people. Cancel culture is right wing propaganda.

You are victim blaming here. If you have good reasons to believe the victim was attacked for a good reason then state it, otherwise don't blame the victim.

I admire your willingness to write that article, although I doubt your wisdom in doing so.

So far anything I have seen that directly or indirectly argues against cancelling invites a vortex of political bullshit to descend upon the writer, and you are already tainted so you are seen as a legitimate target for more abuse.

I can easily see how I could be falsely accused, and how difficult I would find to recover from that, so I can empathise with your decision to open the wound again.

There's a little more context here: https://www.hipstersofthecoast.com/2020/06/noah-bradley-admi...

> “I was terrible to women,” Bradley wrote. “I preyed on them. I ceaselessly hit on them. I pressured them into sex. I got too drunk and did all manner of dumb things. Yes, I was one of those shitty, creepy sexual predators you hear about.”

This is literally the first I've heard of Bradley, and I have no knowledge of him outside of this HN post. That's a pretty self-damning quote, though.

Yep, it is. I was trying to take full ownership of what I was like and overplayed what I had done in an effort to not seem like I was downplaying it. It's dumb in hindsight but there it is.

I don't know if you overplayed it, or if if you were dumb.

You had in the past done some terrible things, you agree.

The internet these days tries to utterly destroy people for having in the past done terrible things, with no way out.

This does not in fact make it less likely for people to do terrible things; it does make it less likely for them to admit to them (even to themselves), to apologize to those who have hurt, or to do what those they have hurt need for repair and redress.

So, that's not great, all around, it's true. It's a problem. This response does not actually reduce harm, it just further treats people as disposable.

But if, say, the people you had hurt needed/wanted to hear you say it like that publicly? Then you did the right thing, you didn't do a dumb thing. You owed it to them regardless of consequences, because of the harm you caused. And I respect it. And I think you can feel good about owning up to the terrible things you did, instead of feeling dumb about it, it's the right thing to have done -- which doesn't mean you have to think "the internets" (or your friends :( ) response to you was appropriate.

I'm glad you are figuring out a way out of the hole, and I'm glad you have figured out how to stop treating people like you did in your youth. I respect the way you tell the story without trying to excuse or escape the harm you caused in your youth.

your mistake was apologizing and playing into the game at all. Extracting an apology from the accused is part of the cancellation process. Now they don't have to justify at all - they can point to your own admissions and say 'see even he agrees he's a sexual predator'. Now you can be blamed for your own cancellation, so any action against you is permissable. You admitted to 'preying' on women. You gave them an excuse that will never die.

The mob is never satisfied. The mob will never accept an apology. The mob will never stop.

You can never address a mob. They are only chasing you, or you're part of them. The target of the mob is dehumanized and blamed for their own persecution. That's you.

> I do not see a lot of learning they have done from being cancelled.

That's the mob mentality speaking. Just because a bunch of assholes on the internet took something they said out of context, and refused to acknowledge that people other than themselves are not objects and are capable of changing over time, that doesn't mean the person they targeted needs to "learn" anything except that people on the internet are assholes.

I don't understand. If they are capable of changing over time, surely they are capable of looking back on their past selves and acknowledging what was wrong with them?

Sometimes people don't want to talk about it. I know society likes to paint people in terms of victims and culprits but people _can_ change. When this happens, sometimes you cut off those parts of your life and then you don't go back. It's hard enough to forgive yourself at times and it takes strength to realize what kind of person you were back then and try to reconcile that with now.

Here's an example of that learning: he obviously has turned from some sort of jerk into someone whose wife didn't want to leave him after all of this happened.

Seems like a big change to me.

The post says that there isn't much learning to show because he's not that person any more, and being cancelled happened long after he had already stopped doing the bad behavior.

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