Don’t Apologize: If the mob comes for you, stand up for yourself
persuasion.community
persuasion.community
> To give such a forceful statement on the nation’s most-watched late-night talk show, it’s fair to assume that Moreno must have understood the “colorism” debate and given her position serious consideration.
Who honestly believes that people on Steven Colbert are giving serious thought and consideration to their responses in the interview? It actually seems more likely that she went on Colbert to promote her show and tell some jokes, got blindsided with a controversial question and gave an answer she regretted (the statement was not at all “forceful” and seemed much more about her personal affection for Lin-Miranda than any serious political motivation). In any case it is not “fair to assume” that interviewees on late night shows are especially prepared - Steven Colbert is not Meet the Press!
Stuff like this is why the newsletter trend is kinda worrying: smart people need editors, otherwise they will write transparently stupid things.
It's well known that guest are (usually) prepared (by the show!) in the sense that they at the very least have a general idea of the major points of conversation, but having a full list of all the exact questions, etc. is quite a bit rarer (AFAIK, at least).
Regardless, the parent poster could also have meant that the guests themselves(!) do very little preparation with the information they get from the show. The amount of preparation by the guest would probably depend heavily on the agent, the contentiousness of the questions that they know about, how high the stakes are (e.g. first ever interview on Colbert for an up-and-comer?), etc. etc.
Or better yet, avoid getting into hot water. I have found HN to be a great barometer for what's "acceptable" and what isn't. Recently, I learned a valuable lesson - I shared an accurate statement about FB's targeting precision, which I am pretty sure nobody would have objected to. But as soon as I tied it to their financial results, it instantly offended one person and others felt they had to jump in as well.
Lesson learned: the fact that Facebook is printing money is such a thorn in the eye for many people that the minute it's brought up in an unrelated context, it will 1) derail the conversation, 2) get people to disagree with what would have otherwise been a straight forward argument, and 3) get people to vilify you.
So now that we know about this thorn, we can not just avoid it in future conversations, but we can also leverage it to our benefit. For instance, all you have to say is: "Man, I wish we could somehow get Facebook banned. Here's how effective their targeting is..." - and voila, everyone is agreeing with you!
Long story short - don't piss against the wind.
You jumped to claiming “offense” first.
I think you should reread your thread in a few days when you’ve cooled off.
The sharks are circling, maybe if I give them some blood they'll leave me alone.
That is horrible advice.
It is the goal of conditioning of any autocratic state. You censor yourself so the state / party / activists dont even have to act to ensure that dissidence and subversion does not occur.
https://edwardsnowden.substack.com/p/on-censorship-pt-1
>""It is not just the right of the person who speaks to be heard, it is the right of everyone in the audience to listen and to hear, and every time you silence somebody you make yourself a prisoner of your own action because you deny yourself the right to hear something. In other words, your own right to hear and be exposed is as much involved in all these cases as is the right of the other to voice his or her view.
Indeed as John Stuart Mill said: if all of society were agreed on the truth and beauty and value of one proposition, all except one person it would be most important, in fact it would become even more important, that that one heretic be heard because we would still benefit from his perhaps outrageous or appalling view."
-Christopher Hitchens
But was that last part what everyone talked about? Of course not, the part that causes the dumb and frustrating was about netlifx taking it down. Maybe had maybe a hundred replies all saying I'm being "entitled" for simply saying "netflix took it down again". People say HN doesn't have a hivemind like Reddit but it 100% does.
The really interesting part was ignored, in favour of shitting on someone over netflix???
JK Rowling is a billionaire who doesn’t need much in the way of connections anymore, but she is certainly constantly attacked and abused, and has lost many opportunities for standing up for what she believes in. That you don’t care about it and think that amazon still sells her books doesn’t mean a woke mob didn’t attempt to cancel her doesn’t make that true, just means you aren’t paying attention.
Comparing either of those two to Harvey Weinstein is the real dishonesty done here.
Perhaps the people who aren’t genuine are those who make opposition to antifa the same thing as ‘favour of white supremacy’.
I don’t think we’re going to come to an agreement.
Of course, whether light-skinned Asians are considered “white” is a question of an arbitrary social convention which differs not only between groups of people, but also the contexts in which the question is considered. (The concept of “white people” is a mistake, which ideally will be made obsolete.)
Also, even if it was clearly against their self interest and they knew it, that wouldn’t strictly speaking logically preclude it.
But, if people expect that advocating for white supremacist stuff is usually motivated by something like self-interest, one generally expects it to be, for the most part, (excepting the rare exceptional individuals who have rather unusual motivations) to be people who would be considered “white”.
(Though, if someone is “white passing”, in the sense that people might initially consider them to be “white” if judging only by appearance, but might change one’s mind if informed of their ancestry, then such a person might have less incentive to avoid white supremacist stuff than someone who very few people would ever consider “white”.)
Does this answer your question?
It would be necessary to show strong evidence of it, which hasn’t happened, or else it’s just someone lying about them to discredit them, and doing so in a way that is utterly ridiculous.
In this case it appears to be a ridiculous claim with no evidence behind it - just a lot of bold lies from bold liars who are seemingly obtuse in the self interest of their ongoing smear campaign against a gay minority man.
A lack of evidence(especially for something as unprovable as a specific individuals personal beliefs) doesn't prove a lie any more than it proves a truth. You seem extremely convinced that these claims are false, enough to insult people who disagree, despite the fact that you don't have any proof of your position either.
I don't know the specifics of Ngo, but at best I can assume you're being disingenuous or intentionally misleading based on the kind of logic you're using to find your conclusions here
You seem to be conflating the far-right with white supremacy. There might be some overlap, but they are not synonymous.
Saying Ngo is "far-right"? Sure, I guess. Saying he's a "white supremacist" is a stretch.
- https://krebsonsecurity.com/2020/11/body-found-in-canada-ide...
- https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Miller_(political_ad...
It’s totally a possibility for someone to be a “minority” or Jewish and also a white supremacist, anti-immigrant, or far-rightist.
I don't have much background on the Proud Boys. I saw an article about one of their leaders pleading guilty to destruction of property or something recently, and I didn't think he was white. So I'm a little confused about this. I would have thought a white supremacist group wouldn't accept him, not to mention it seems odd that someone would join a group to their detriment.
but pointing out that white supremacists have a token minority friend or collude with someone who is serving their interests isn't really all that "challenging".
If you're conflating those two things I think you need to re-evaluate the political spectrum and realize it's a lot more varied than you think.
2) Proud Boys leader (until recently) was Black. Proud Boys are far-right, sure, but you really should stop calling everything you disagree with "white supremacist".
3) Ngo, as far as I can tell, merely used Proud Boys as a "resource" for his own safety and/or under "enemy of my enemy is my friend". As someone born in a socialist country, I cannot really blame him - far-right is evil, sure, but far-left is at least as evil, and I would argue more evil.
4) In any case, the statement "noteworthy by documenting the excesses of the far left" is true. The only framework under which one would need to mention that "but he also offended woke sensibilities in an unrelated/tangentially related matter" is the woke cult, the one that the author (and Ngo) do not belong to. For most of us, it is sufficient to let an arbitrary fact, or an accurate description, stand by itself.
He's a serial fabulist, raising hundreds of thousands after getting punched in the nose and claiming to have a brain bleed, but jetting cross-country to Boston a day later.
He's also a defendant in civil litigation for his apparent participation in a planned (rather than spontaneous) assault in Portland that led to criminal charges against right-wing agitators up there: https://twitter.com/RespectableLaw/status/116496174509978828...
It doesn’t sound like he’s a nazi/white supremacist to me.
Ngo chose to omit the fact of his prior knowledge and movement to the location with the Patriot Prayer group from his own coverage of the incident. You'll have to ask him why.
For those who are confused, here is another perspective on the events of that day with additional context. https://www.vice.com/en/article/d3apyv/super-awkward-for-rig...
You may not like his viewpoint, or his work, but he's a journalist. He's on the ground covering all kinds of protests and riots.
>It seems that you acknowledge his presence there.
Did you know that there were journalists who interviewed Osama Bin Laden, even after he took credit for bombings that took many American lives. Do you also consider them complicit?
>Ngo chose to omit the fact of his prior knowledge and movement to the location with the Patriot Prayer group from his own coverage of the incident.
Oh, well then, he deserves to be attacked, assaulted and harassed for that omission, right?
There are literally people who talk about killing him on Twitter.
Even the beginning is silly. Bringing up the cultural revolution followed by "obviously I don't intend to compare anything to the cultural revolution". Okay, then what's the point? It's how all of these articles work.
He does not say that.
This is the paragraph that Barrin92 is trying to missrepresent.
> Let me be clear: The horror of Mao’s China was singular. I am not making a comparison to the death and destruction it caused or to the severity of the punishment that the mobs imposed. Instead, I am drawing a parallel (one that various journalists and commentators, including the pseudonymous Chinese-American academic, Xiao Li, have made before) to an instinct—the inclination to humiliate and terrorize
If you really think the author did this, please quote the exact passage where you think they defended Andy Ngo.
You can think about the mob coming after you in three groups:
(1) People who aren't listening. Their minds are closed. They are angry or mean or otherwise won't listen no matter what you say. They don't care if you apologize or not.
(2) People with an agenda against you. They are going to keep going after you whether you apologize or not. But they probably actually like it better if you don't -- that inflames the conflict, keeping it going or expanding it. Their agenda is usually served the bigger and longer the conflict lasts. Also, as long as the conflict is going strong, the people from (1) will keep chiming in, but they will lose interest when it dies down.
(3) People who were actually offended or hurt but have an open mind. These are the people you can reach with an apology. These are the people you need to talk to to understand what actually offended or hurt them. You might be able to do even better than an apology and understand where things went wrong. Remember, if you're not a dick, you don't actually want to hurt other people. This is your opportunity to stop doing that. (And if you are a dick, maybe you deserve your internet mob, at least partially?)
So: Talk to people. Apologize sincerely if you can find a way to do it. You won't stop the mob, but you might take some of the energy out of it and you can stop hurting some people.
Society used to "provide corrective consequences/accountability" for atheism/agnosticism, advocating for socialism and workers' rights, advocating for the abolition of slavery and equal rights for PoC, advocating for LGBTQ rights, and so forth since all of those were violently opposed by the majority of society. By using the argument, the parent poster and anyone else who uses it implies that they would not only would have been okay with suppressing those rights but also would have enthusiastically supported "consequences" for those rights advocates if they'd been around in the era before those people became protected classes. If this doesn't make it obvious why that argument has zero validity, nothing will.
What's more the "it's A-OK for society to beat you up for going against the majority" argument is an argument born of _conservatism_, since it literally argues for preserving the status quo. It's stunning to hear people supposedly on the left repeating it.
It’s a bit of a trip to hear people who think they are progressive also think mobs harrassing people is ‘corrective consequences’. It’s just mob rule. The actual nazis attacking people in Germany in the 1930s would have been ‘corrective accountability’ according to your theory.
We won’t ever come to an agreement. I think your point of view is repugnant.
https://www.peoplesworld.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/pjim...
"The system is working as it should."
I think GP’s comment is precisely that they aren’t free to voice opinion.
The challenge is that .001% of society is expressing opinions on that. And that tiny number of people making noise is interpreted as society, since most of society doesn’t reeee on Twitter about opinions.
For me, I’m not GP, it’s not worth the hassle and frustrating of navigating whatever is going on, so I don’t express opinions. I’m not free to express opinions.
The problem might be in how you speak, what words and phrasings you choose, rather than the contents of opinions and perspectives.
A study after each conversation, might reveal that each people involved might've had entirely different experiences about the conversation. That would reveal the gap.
There's a time and place for all speech. It needs the correct setting, and this is nothing new.
That you can use algorithms to rile up people seems interesting though, for weaponization. That'd be fun!
"Cutting off the network of people that moderates my views and is making my views less moderate."
I understand that people can be harsh nowadays, presumably because they often find the views of others particularly harsh and feel a proportional response is necessary, but not wanting to face that isn't an excuse - it essentially amounts to "The criticism that's supposed to keep my views grounded isn't working and my views are getting more extreme, because I don't want to deal with the criticism of my extreme views". And to be fair I'm making it sound simpler than it is, it's a totally human response to avoid sharing those opinions if it has negative consequences. My only point is to remember it's not the crowds fault if you end up with extremist views, it was your decision. We all have to deal with the fact that the crowd doesn't care about our feelings, only their own views, but we do it, and if our differing opinions are important enough to us then we deal with the consequences.
- Issue apology and piss off those who agreed with you and those who didn't won't acknowledge the apology
- Don't issue apology and those who agree still agree and those who don't will forget about it/get over it.
As a father of a small child, I’ve learned that it’s important not to confer extra attention for acting out, otherwise I am effectively encouraging that behavior. I’ve heard this described as “don’t water weeds”.
The modern mob is nothing more than the collective Id of so many sad, child-like human beings. Don't give in just because it’s easier in the short term. Don’t water the weeds.
Personal apologies generally don't work if they're anything beyond what is demanded by conversational etiquette, since the people demanding them usually just want an admission of guilt they can hold over you forever as leverage, and anybody who agrees with you will be disappointed.
Unfortunately the mob will have a compounding effect in conjunction with the aforementioned reduction in online discourse. Differences in opinions will no longer be acceptable.
Eventually the mob will turn on their own as the radicalization accelerates. I would argue this is a great place for foreign psyops to target the western populous and I'm sure its already being targeted to some extent.
Forced apologies and confessions are easy to extract from anybody.
At the end of the day, we're the ones who must live with our own feelings. If I must apologize, I'm going to feel that viscerally, and I'll apologize for my own conscience. Likewise, forgiveness is a favor someone else has to do for themselves to alleviate their own emotions -- it needn't matter to me.
When enough people would be insincere themselves, no matter what you say, they just can't believe your sincerity.
Mobs are mindless and project, but are lead by individuals in the mob that are either caught up in it or just lack certain insights into themselves. What makes it chaotic and unpredictable is that the leaders change and eat their own all the time.
However, when it is not, simply apologizing does nothing for the conversation or furthering any cause. It simply ferments continued abuses. If 'the mob' feels they can apply enough pressure to get you to bend, they will continue.
Yes a mob is full of bullies who attack someone for being different in some way or have a different opinion. I already got downvoted twice with this message.
Write at length and you're almost guaranteed to present something someone will take issue with. Even if it's not a danger to you physically or to your career, it's likely a waste of your time!
Anyway, people will downvote posts that break the HN guidelines (read the link on bottom).
I operate on two rules of thumb in this space:
1) you have absolutely zero control over the mob. The mob is a force of nature. They will decide you are the most important thing for several hours, and then they will change their minds. Or they won't. Point is, you can't control it.
2) The most important thing is to not be surprised by a mob about yourself. If you're going to get mobbed, may it at least happen because of something you intended to communicate, not because of a flippant thought shouted into the global-cast megaphone that is Twitter.
Obviously private apologies between friends and family are an entirely different thing.
It should be stated that this mob is typically comprised of bot accounts. It's not even a real mob. It's just some government or group who wants to peer pressure you with internet good boy points.
Considering that this article is primarily about the American entertainment and media industry, couldn't the writer have used a historical reference that was closer to home?
Or is it used intentionally, to make it seem like Lin-Manuel Miranda's career snafu is on the same level of historical importance as Mao's purges?
I think this is such bad reasoning. This is nothing to do with Occam's razor, this is just the author making random assumptions about what happened without knowing the facts.
In most of the cases that the author talks about, they're literally just bringing their own assumptions about what happened and then deciding someone shouldn't apologize. PJ Vogt wasn't cancelled by a mob, he was cancelled by his colleagues for legitimate complaints they had, and he was absolutely right to reflect on his own behaviour. This article however, just seeks to minimize what happened to one accusation (anti-unioinization) which clearly was not the only problem, and then go "Oh that's not so bad". And he repeats this over and over, people aren't criticizing Andy Ngo for "documenting the worst excesses of the far left".
It's just so weird for a person to repeatedly look at someone apologize for something and say "No, actually I know better, they shouldn't apologize".
I actually think there are cases where the mob is wrong - "Bean Dad" is a great example. But the examples in these cases just seem like such weird right wing hobby horses.
Never apologise to the mob. Even a superficial understanding of game theory shows you that you have nothing to gain from the self-flagellation involved in a public apology. Remember, You'll never be forgiven. I've never seen an example where the mob has pursued entirely altruistic goals. It's the witch-trials of the 21st century. Nothing more.
I would personally rather be cancelled on social media, than having my breathing cancelled.
It's should be possible to disagree and criticize without analogies to various atrocities involving mass murder.
Drawing such parallels is a form of cancelling, as it effectively prevents any defense or discourse on the subject.
Whatever "cancelling" that's going around is not all that new.
What's more, if one lives in a red state surrounded by people similar to them on the political spectrum, they'll still have their employers harassed to keep them from holding down a job. It's not their peers "cancelling" them; it's a minority of people with wildly different worldviews from wildly different parts of the country. It's not all that different from swatting.
> It's entrenched monopolies
Agreed, huge huge problem here. Anti-trust is way way way way over-due. I also think without Competitive (inter)Compatibility (comcom) rules, it is unlikely to be effective at allowing new things to get going.
> in cooperation with the state
Uhhhh I see zero evidence of this at all. Zilch. Nothing. Nada. Not a single thing.
Perhaps you don't fully grasp how communists operate, then.
Maoist struggle sessions in which you were still permitted to breathe preceded your execution by a period of time, sometimes years.
Before Pol Pot sent intellectuals and their families to the killing fields, they were merely fired from their jobs.
Communists may be evil, but they are not stupid. They know that you purge your enemies by boiling the frog slowly enough that the useful idiots defend your actions every questionable step of the way.
Yes, I think all agree with your preference and share it.
But they are both bad, undesirable things.
If I had to choose between assault and murder, I’d rather be assaulted. But I work to reduce assaults AND murders in society.
Drawing parallels between similarly negative things is appropriate to reduce negative things.
I can't help noticing that the media figures who are most upset about this alleged issue are the exact same people that spent years complaining there was a 'war on Christmas', setting fire to football jerseys, asserting he criminality of public figures with no evidence etc. etc.
Perhaps these physicians of society's ills should heal themselves first.
I hate that everything has to be hijacked for politics in the US.
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal...
"Hate can't fight hate, only love can do that"
Somehow we all think we're better at this than MLK was. No matter your beliefs, shame and hate won't help teach a different way.
But many actors are not misled, just actively trying to do harm either for the sake of it, or for personal gain or because they are insane. No amount of love is going to get through to people like that. Think Hitler, Trump, Pol Pot, Putin, Marjorie Green, etc
Sometimes you have to fight back
Hitler may not have been destined to change. But what Daryl Davis does is show these people love. And if you've changed the lives of 200 KKK members - believe me, you've seen it all. You'd be hard press to cherry pick only the nice 200 KKK members.
We all know the kind of people. Paradoxially these emotional black holes of human beings seek love and recognition.
The silent acceptance from the populace of such behaviour speaks volumes.
Collective action is not hate, and change doesn't require hate. Mobs today act out of anger and hate. And that creates more anger and more hate.
It's hard to love people that you perceive as evil - but wow is it ever powerful when you do. Daryl Davis is such a great example of this as another user pointed out.
MLK's approach of "love" (the carrot) also wouldn't have worked without Malcolm X and the Black Panthers' threat of violence (the stick).
It is only in retrospect that MLK has been adopted by the establishment as the "good" protestor and his voice has been twisted to support a "colorblindness" that he never supported.
He was routinely invited to meet with American leaders (Nixon, Eisenhower, JFK, LBJ). Several of these meetings were in the White House. Foreign leaders met with him. He won the Nobel prize. He was on the cover of Time magazine twice. He was an eminent person during his life.
Here’s two newspaper snippets in contradiction with your idea that contemporaries didn’t consider his speeches rousing and elegant.
https://www.newspapers.com/clip/20989079/editorial-on-martin...
https://static01.nyt.com/packages/pdf/topics/MLK/washdream.p...
This newspaper article says “Lyndon Johnson recognized that Martin Luther King possesses a certain mysticism of a crusader who can touch the emotional well springs of people and inspire them to demonstrate in a non-violent way.”
https://www.newspapers.com/clip/53577271/article-discussing-...
His funeral was attended by at least a dozen dignitaries
https://www.britannica.com/story/attendees-of-martin-luther-...