How can minorities of regular individuals overturn social conventions? | Hacker News Reader

How can minorities of regular individuals overturn social conventions?

iaciac.github.io

68 pointsrzk213 comments

I wonder if social media has weakened our focus to the point where long term change is difficult. BLM matter had a massive run out the gate and then nothing really changed. The Amir Locke shooting has not really taken on a national protest atmosphere like earlier shooting did. There are just so many things to notice today on social media that its difficult to focus on one. You have both sides politically calling for the end of the world if the other side wins, people acting like Joe Rogan is one of the four horsemen of the apocalypse, etc. Everything no matter how niche is presented as an emergency. Human minds can only focus on so many concurrent emergencies so everything just kind of fades away eventually.

For all my dislike of BLM, it is hard to argue that they did not have impact on culture, nation psyche or even law framework. I agree with your 'next emergency' characterization though.

A few decade ago nobody really cared about black history month in Canada — it was basically a non event. Now I see black history month based ads and programs on TV all the time in Canada. Black issues have a disproportionate media and culture presence in Canada given the small proportion of black people in Canada. You also see numerous Canadian companies making statements regarding black issues and events. You never hear about Asian history month or Native American history month. You also never hear Canadian companies making statements regarding Native issues and events such as the genocide of Native people and culture just a few decades ago. In Canada BLM has greatly raised the profile of black issues and somewhat effectively pushed the “silence is compliance” narrative which many companies have bought into.

> BLM matter had a massive run out the gate and then nothing really changed

This is quite incorrect. There have been some pretty large changes in our criminal justice system over the last 2 years.

The main changes have been:

- Reform District Attorneys like Gascon have been elected in many major cities

- Elimination of cash bail in many parts of the US, most importantly New York (we were also very close to eliminating cash bail in California, but bail bond companies invested heavily to stop that)

- Biden appointing a bunch of public defenders to federal courts

Yup, we can credit politicians bending to appease BLM for these disastrous policies. The guy who stabbed the woman 40x in NY this past week had been arrested and released without bail numerous times. Woo-hoo... equity!

It's a massive run they've had, to all our detriment. Fortunately, I think it's all backfiring.

I presume you're hoping he was poor enough that he would have remained imprisoned until his trial, if cash bail were imposed?

No presume he's hoping the woman wouldn't have been stabbed 40x times.

Cash bail wouldn't have prevented him from doing anything if he was rich. How do you propose to address this inequality? Me, I'd prefer we evaluate them immediately to decide if they should remain locked up based on the merits of the case and not how much money they have, and get them into court faster.

This same man was previously arrested over 40 times, 16 of which occured in one day. After a certain point, bail should not have been offered. Even if it had, it should have been ruinously expensive for anyone, no matter how rich.

Whether or not he should have been let out at all is completely independent of the cash bail system, unless you think that the decision of whether or not to release him should be contingent on his financial situation.

Exactly. Too many people confuse "no cash bail" with "no pre-trial jail at all". I'm guessing there is some political messaging involved, sponsored by the bail industry.

Maybe I'm the odd one, but when someone is arrested 16 times in one day, for offenses so minor he can be instantly released, I assume that they're probably suffering from some kind of mental illness and needs help and treatment, which could be provided in a secure environment if they are a danger to themselves or others, but just raising the price of bail seems like a conplete non-solution.

Looked it up, it's another homeless man.

The solution seems to be that if an offender is violent enough then they should not be offered bail, not that bail should be more expensive. The first option addresses violent crime, the second simply punishes poor people. I very much doubt someone that habitually performs violent crimes is going to think to themselves, no violence today, don't want to risk sacrificing my bail money that I may get back in a few months.

> The solution seems to be that if an offender is violent enough then they should not be offered bail

Won't this ruin your life if someone who looks like you commits a violent enough offense, and the police accidentally arrest you for it?

Of course, but by focusing bail on violent criminals or clear flight risks for financial crimes and those with the means to leverage them, you have effectively filtered out a good portion of optimally non violent people who are not a continuing threat to society. Optimally criminal history is part of the decision as well. There will always be issues with innocent people being arrested and held due to the nature of the accusation but no system is perfect. In my opinion holding a person accused of a violent enough crime (think a random assault on a stranger, intent to cause serious injury, etc. vs a fist fight at the bbq) is warranted. The people assaulting Asians on the street, the knockout game, etc. should absolutely be held, no need for bail. Requiring bail for someone accused of stealing diapers should not be required as they are not a threat. Of course everyone's definition of 'good enough' is going to be different and if I ever find myself as that falsely accused person I am sure my opinion would change again.

The per capital crime rates aren’t consistent across races. For example, 6% of the population (black males) are responsible for 50% of all murders.

What will be the reaction to the statistics that white peoples get set free more often than black people because white people tend to commit “victimless crimes” more frequently?

I'm asking in good faith, to be clear:

Can you explain to me the benefit of the elimination of cash bail in new york or point me to resources why the elimination of cash bail is good? I hear a huge earful about how terrible the elimination of cash bail is and pointing at random crimes as caused by this elimination but I hear almost nothing as for the reasons why it was eliminated in the first place.

The idea is that it's immoral to charge people (who have not been convicted of a crime) money to be let out of jail. Cash bail hurts poor people who either can't get the money, or get charged usurious rates to borrow the money.

It's easy enough to find cases where crime could have been avoided if the offender were locked up. Stories of innocent people spending time in jail or losing large sums of money aren't as enticing.

I feel like saying "charge people money" and "losing large sums of money" misrepresents what bail is. It's a deposit that gets refunded to you in full as long as you don't skip town instead of showing up for your trial.

In practice most people are forced to use bail bonds. If your cash bail is set to $150k, you're going to go to a bail bondsman and pay them $15k instead (and lose that 15k forever).

Cash bail is a monstrous creation.

I feel like ignoring that a vast majority of American people live paycheck to paycheck and then pretending people have “refundable deposit” cash piles sitting around is either incredibly disingenuous or the first time you’ve ever thought about poverty

sure, except most people don't have enough money for bail lying around, most can't afford a $400 emergency. So that bail money comes from their family rent / food money. That or they just sit in prison, and lose their jobs. So they may have all charges dropped but still end up financially devastated due to bail.

It's only refunded (minus fees) if you have thousands of dollars lying around. Poor people don't have that. They have to use a bail bond company, which means paying large sums of money they will never get back. Many poor people can't even afford to use a bail bond company and have to stay in jail, or plead guilty to a crime they didn't commit.

> which means paying large sums of money

And in the wonderful cycle of capitalism, that money is then used to fund ballot propositions to keep cash bail in place

I would say it's statism or cronyism rather than capitalism. It doesn't have anything to do with ownership of the means of production.

It's quite literally ownership of assets being leveraged to make more money. It's as indelibly tied to capitalism as any other type of loan.

Unless you meant "cash bail" and not "bail bonds"

Is that due to simple usury or due to cost of risk? In other words, if enough of the bailed pop. skips bail (complete loss for bondsman), that money has to come from somewhere --and that somewhere may be both honest and dishonest criminals as well as innocent suspects.

It's a mix of both.

The bail bond industry (like most "vice" industries) has much higher profit margins than comparable insurance companies: https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2017/05/bail-bo...

The "losing large sums of money" was in reference to taking out a loan to pay the money, they are expensive. I feel like that was pretty clear in my comment.

I live in a country where there is no cash bail (France). Whether you walk free from a tribunal or end up in pre-trial detention is still pretty much based on the whims and desires of racist (and poor-loathing) police, judges and prosecutors. Notably, homeless people are almost systematically locked up for a year or two before they can face trial for what is usually harmless illegal activity they have committed (such as stealing food from a supermarket, or cracking a squat).

Reformism cannot help the people against the judicial system because the judicial system is not broken: it was designed to oppress the poor and the immigrants, and from this perspective it's quite efficient and well-oiled. No amount of good-will reform (short of police/prison abolition) can change much about it. I can admit the situation may be different in the USA, since i hear (from TV shows, sorry) you can be convicted/acquitted by a jury of your peers? If that existed in France (except for the "Assises" court), i can assure you prison population would not have been multiplied in the past decades for what usually amounts to selling weed, stealing from a supermarket, demonstrating against our overlords, or just being an arab/black person walking down the streets when the cops want to beat you up and accuse you of all the wrongs you can imagine.

Keeping a person in jail because they can't afford bail is obviously horrible for that person, and that should be reason enough to oppose it, but it can also be harmful for other people.

A poor person who is finally acquitted after months of waiting in jail is likely to be released to homelessness, unemployment, and debt. They will also be suffering from the mental and physical trauma of their incarceration, which makes it more difficult for them to deal with their situation. Crime may be the only realistic means for them to survive, even if they have never committed a crime before.

Eliminating cash bail doesn't get more people out of jail. It keeps more people in it.

The purpose of pre-trial release is to let those out who are unlikely to cause harm or flee while they await trial.

1) If someone poses no risk, they are released.

2) If someone poses a risk, they are detained.

3) If someone poses a risk and is detained, bail is a tool to allow them out and ensure they return. Without it, you just keep them in jail.

Cash bail certainly provides advantages to those with assets or credit, but this is a separate issue.

> bail is a tool to allow them out and ensure they return. Without it, you just keep them in jail.

This is where it breaks down. I don't think you need bail to make sure they come back.

You can already let those who pose no risk go without bail. What alternative do you propose for people who pose a flight risk?

Denying bail, which is a thing they already do for people who pose a flight risk.

So then you just keep everyone with a flight risk, which is more people than now.

Today those who are a low flight risk can put up collateral to make sure they come back

Unless they are poor. And, again, I don't believe you when you say a monetary stake is required to make them come back.

If a person is proven innocent, they just should get two more questions.

First, they should be asked if they believe the innocent person should be compensated for time and defense costs. Second, if they believe compensation is in order, they should be asked if they believe the prosecutor or the state should pay that bill.

Also NY repealed a state law, 50-A, which is one of the major laws preventing scrutiny and review of police departments and officers. Still more to go on that front though as the newly elected cop mayor rides a minor crime spike as if it were major and attempts to bring back the very prejudice/racist stop and frisk.

Is there anything preventing CA judges from setting bail at $1 in cases where a NY judge will now not set bail?

Judges can't do that because you can't just wholesale eliminate cash bail without other changes as you can't just release everyone. The new laws are necessary to introduce alternatives as part of that elimination.

For example, the law in California would give judges risk scores to switch to a risk based bail system.

Risk scoring has been problematic after AI/expert risk scoring systems produced politically unpalatable results.

It is difficult to see a productive way out of this dilemma since "correcting" the input data is a priori impossible to do in an objective way, and skewing the algorithms will almost certainly produce unintended effects (e.g. a violent criminal being underscored, released, then they victimize innocents again).

Whether the risk score is discriminatory on protected classes can be easily measured. (After implementing a risk score system, is the fraction of bail jumpers equivalent across groups?) I assume that kind of measurement is what prompted the overhaul of cash bail.

But unless the system is either completely perfect (i.e., its predictions are never wrong), or completely worthless because it ignores all input data and always gives the same risk score, then there will always be some measurement that says it's discriminatory on protected classes: https://arxiv.org/abs/1707.01195

The paper you linked to describes three different definitions of fairness that don't agree. I gave a single definition of fairness that is self-consistent.

Yes, if everyone agreed that your definition of fairness were the right one (which I personally do) then there'd be no problem. But in practice there will be people who want to use other ones (in some cases because they want to be able to say it's discriminatory).

A judge in CA could just do that, or even not charge any bail. They have a lot of discretion. However, some judges may decline to offer low (or no) bail. That's where the "no cash bail" elected officials come in. Some DAs, for example, make it policy not to ask for cash bail (and obviously the defense attorneys or defendants will also ask for no cash bail).

->Elimination of cash bail in many parts of the US, most importantly New York (we were also very close to eliminating cash bail in California, but bail bond companies invested heavily to stop that)

Let's have a look at the latest unintended consequences. One example from central New York one man was arrested and released without bail on 16 separate occasions between November and January. [1] This policy is not working for anybody, it isn't helping him, it isn't helping his victims. He would have been better off in jail where he could take some time to cool off.

[1] cnycentral.com/news/local/oswego-county-man-arrested-16-times-in-nearly-three-months-police-cite-bail-reform

Do US courts not have the ability to refuse bail to people like this? You'd have the same problem if he had enough cash to afford bail. It seems like a complete failure of the system for him to even have the option of not being held on remand until trial.

Yes, denying bail was always an option. Bail is non-sensical. Either their alleged crime is severe enough to allow them to be free before sentencing or it's not. Money doesn't need to be involved.

Might be more effective and cheaper to just help homeless people, rather than criminalize them like this.

> This is quite incorrect. There have been some pretty large changes in our criminal justice system over the last 2 years.

Do you have any examples? The biggest changes I've seen lately have been a result of COVID-19 and a judicial reform bill signed by Trump (in contrast to the law & order track record of Biden).

> Reform District Attorneys like Gascon have been elected in many major cities

Yes, and those crazed Red State loonies in San Francisco are trying to recall the king of all progressive DAs, Chesa Boudin. Gascon's next.

When San Francisco has a recall vote coming up for the DA of San Francisco, just decisively ousted progressive school board members, and the entire state had a recall election for the governor, one might imagine the progressive agenda isn't what normal people want. Claim all you want about the right orchestrating these events, but at the end of the day it was registered Democrats who got rid of the board members and it's registered Democrats that will oust Boudin.

For me it was Kony 2012 that taught me this. Here you have every person in the world with a focus on one goal: capture Joe Kony. Did it happen? No.

The internet is a memey money making machine and nothing more.

yes, sell branded merchandise. dropship Q-branded and BLM branded merch. two separate LLCs if you feel you need to. Like how Unilever owns Dove brand and Axe brand. Learn from the Dutch, they've been doing corporations for 600 years.

and derivatives like pitch fork futures.

and cake futures, because eventually they'll get hungry.

okay for the last two I was being facetious but for the first two I am dead serious.

It's called recouperation.

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

I’m doing my part!

Thanks for that, didn't know it had a name.

> Everything no matter how niche is presented as an emergency

A phrase I heard recently for this is "Klaxon culture", and it seems to fit. Effectively, what used to be called information warfare, which was mainly practiced on enemy populations by military agents during war and near-war, has become a democratized, routine tool of domestic politics.

It destroys community, and atomizes populations, among other nasty consequences. I know for me, I have ended up ignoring "real" issues I would have had interest in trying to help with, because I was ignoring the bullshit-machine.

Welcome to the future.

I have seen this in real life, my sister cut off contact with my family as we differed with her over a couple social issues. Not even differed, we just did not take them as seriously as she did. Have not spoken to her in over 3 years. Pretty strange.

I’ve seen this happen. Usually the person who leaves calls the others Nazis, un-evolved, redneck, whatever. It’s a strong sense of superiority.

I’m curious to see how long, if ever it takes for the average person who does this to realize they over-reacted, or how long it takes for the other party to see the light.

I'd say its almost certainly true that foreign actors are playing a large role in encouraging its appearance in domestic politics.

But the biggest driver is the mainstream media who no longer have a business model (destroyed by the internet). So now they just generate fake controversy as cheaply as possible, to attract eyeballs for advertisers. And there is nothing cheaper than opinion. Hot-button issues like racism etc are perfect for this.

>its almost certainly true that foreign actors are playing a large role in encouraging its appearance in domestic politics

I would say it's foreign and domestic actors.

People have a hard time effectively measuring real change. I don't know enough about the instances you cite to speak to them but I have at times tracked my own metrics for things that mattered to me.

Gradual social change is often more persistent than dramatic and obvious change. It's more persistent in part because it goes largely unnoticed.

Change happens all the time yet we tend to feel like whatever is currently the norm is "normal." People are mostly not talented at tracking real change or even noticing it.

We tend to instead notice the crisis du jour.

> The Amir Locke shooting has not really taken on a national protest atmosphere

Well, remember - BLM has been around since 2012 (when Trayvon Martin was shot). They did sponsor some protests here and there (Michael Brown, Freddie Gray) but didn't capture the entire country until 2020. So what was different? I really think it was two things: Donald Trump and corona virus lockdowns. The protests were likely 50% Donald Trump protests and 50% an excuse to get out of the house after having been locked down for a year. Now we don't have either thing, so we're back to "normal" for BLM.

I'd say it was 1/4 Trump 1/4 lockdowns 1/4 the emotional visual imagery of the knee on the neck 1/4 social media penetration of 2020s compared to 2012

I think that the fact that we had irrefutable video evidence of it happening (as opposed to e.g. Martin or other "well the officer thought he had a gun" events) made it much easier to gain traction in the public consciousness. There was no split-second-bad-decisions that could be claimed (such as when officers shot the man for not obeying conflicting commands), just multiple minutes of sickening brutality.

> and 50% an excuse to get out of the house after having been locked down for a year.

Let's not mess up the timeline - at that point it had only been like two or three months.

> Everything no matter how niche is presented as an emergency.

It's "appeal to emotion", and it works.

> Amir Locke

This event was one administration too late to make a splash, unfortunately.

> BLM

They got exposed as Marxists, and everyone started distancing themselves, thankfully.

>They got exposed as Marxists, and everyone started distancing themselves, thankfully.

What does that mean though? Why would Marxism be a signal for avoiding the movement?

I don't know anything about Marxism.

Ideology responsible for millions of deaths by USSR, Communist China, Pol Pot and other similar regimes.

In its own terms, Marxism seeks an end to alienation and exploitation. That is to say, the Marxist vision is to create a utopian society. Heaven on Earth.

When heaven doesn't come, you need a scapegoat, and the Marxists start killing people.

Ukrainian pogroms, Great Leap Forward, Khmer Rouge, there's enough examples to be convinced that Marxism is inherently genocidal.

Because in America anything that isn’t Capitalism is viewed as the enemy after decades of propaganda against the USSR.

Marxism is socioeconomic analysis of class structures. Marx and Engel’s book Capital is largely a critique of capitalism. Vladimir Lenin expanded on these ideas with methods to transition to a communist society (another thing Marx wrote about). After Lenin died Stalin took power over the USSR and committed atrocities against mankind, fighting Nazis, and leading the country through an industrial revolution. Mao expanded on these ideas in China and is still on track with their 100 year plan written ~70 years ago (as far as I know).

Dismissing Marxism is good for capital and the ruling class as it views BLM as its enemy.

The whole notion of class struggle only serves to divide people and allow marxists to seize power. Lenin was not less evil than Stalin. USSR really really sucked (I was born in USSR).

Kids, don't do Marxism, not even once.

> After Lenin died Stalin took power over the USSR and committed atrocities against mankind

The Red Terror campaign under Lenin killed over a million people. Let's not pretend Stalin is the only one responsible for atrocities.

> Mao expanded on these ideas in China

Under Mao's brain-dead economic policies, China suffered the worst man made famine in history. China's recent acendency only came about after Deng Xiaoping's far reaching economic reforms. The idea that China is still following Mao's plan is ridiculous.

I am like a baby when it comes to political and cultural thought. I apologize if my questions are stupid.

Is Marxism a form of Socialism? And are the failings of the implementations throughout history a direct result of the ideology itself?

Read “The Gulag Archipelago”

It will fundamentally change how you view that system.

It shows that the Bolshevik Revolution really was bottom up. They implemented the teachings of Marx down to the letter. The violence and death was considered necessary by Marx himself.

The gulags started under Lenin and were simply continued under Stalin.

Most interestingly, people were so indoctrinated into the Marxist religion that they could be charged for a crime they knew they didn’t commit, be tortured for the required 6-9 months, sentenced to 10-25 years in a Gulag, find out that almost everyone else was innocent (often just captured to fulfill the prison quota), somehow survive the process, and come out the other side still singing the praises of the people and system that did all this to them.

Marxism is the most dangerous cult the world has ever seen and is responsible for more death and suffering than any other organization that has ever existed.

I would like to preface my comment the idea that I have limited knowledge of this entire field.

So it seems that leaders who have tried to implement Marxist ideas have committed great atrocities. Did they commit those atrocities in the name of Marxism, or were they corrupt and used Marxism as a guise for totalitarist actions?

Because class struggle is such a Hot Topic in Marxism, is the above the reason why the idea of class struggle is completely dismissed in America? The reason I ask is because there is a good long history of employers taking advantage of employees. And those employers having government support to do so. Although, most of my examples come from 1850-1920, there are still some issues that working people face today from their employers and the government. Unions aside, did the atrocities committed by Marxists contribute to stigma against questioning the status quo?

The people who lived through those times almost universally agree with its claims. The modern Marxists in the US claim they do not know what they are talking about. Personally, I was thoroughly convinced after reading for myself.

Read or listen to The Gulag Archipelego and decide for yourself. Given the HUGE political push in this direction, you should at least become acquainted with those who went there before, what happened to them, and why they believe it happened. This book tells stories of hundreds/thousands of people who survived that system and passed them on to be written in this book (which was itself something worthy of outright execution in Russia at that time).

Please understand my lack of education in this subject.

According to other comments Marxist governments have committed heinous crimes. I have asked questions about whether or not those crimes are the result of Marxism or the people who enforced it.

I understand that there is a large stigmatisation against criticizing capitalism and the free market in America. Capitalism and free market politics seem, as I have no real education for this type of thing, as though they've become symbols of America. And symbols and ideology are usually venerated.

I am left to wonder a few things:

If Marxism truly is responsible for suffering at scale, then why are there people still fervently attached to the idea? Is it a lack of historical context? Is it the same kind of idea why some people become neo-nazis; some romanticized ideation how the world should work?

Further despite any of this, why do people still espouse the idea of class distinctions? (This sounds like a very right sounding question).

Regardless of any political or economic theory or ideas, I personally think that there is a distinction between the interests of people who work for a wage ,the "average"person, and the people who govern / own property/production/govern. To dismiss this would ignore the whole industry of lobbying. With which the entire point is to further corporate interest in government. Whereas these interests may not necessarily be maligned against the average person, they are not in the interest of the average person.

I apologize for my ramblings as I don't have anybody to discuss this with. My final question becomes this: is Marxism a flawed system but still has some good ideas in it?

>If Marxism truly is responsible for suffering at scale, then why are there people still fervently attached to the idea? Is it a lack of historical context?

As a citizen of a former eastern bloc country, there is more than one reason. The first and most straightforward is the group who held jobs under socialism that barely created any economic value. Since being unemployed for a longer period of time was a criminal offense, a lot of these "bullshit jobs" were created to keep everyone occupied. These people had a rude awakening when a free market based economy had no need for their work.

The second group of people that are deeply disillusioned by the current status quo for various reasons. This group is much harder to define as their ideals combine both economic and social reform. I recommend reading Theodore Kacynski's Industrial Society and It's Future where he articulates his opinions better than I could in this reply. One notable catchphrase of this group is "real communism hasn't been tried" which is followed up by denying the atrocities committed by the soviets.

It's also a brand and national symbol in some places like you mentioned with capitalism. China is a de-facto capitalist dictatorship that is only socialist in name.

>is Marxism a flawed system but still has some good ideas in it?

Of course it has some good ideas. Nothing is black and white. And besides, one man's seized property is another man's government issued living space :^)

If you read the story of famous marxists on wikipedia (Lenin & Mao for example), you'll see a lot of parallels with the movement. The BLM org corresponds to Red Guard probably: the core force of the movement. That's why I think they've chosen a fist as their symbol (can you imagine a peaceful organisation rooting for unity using this symbol?). And just like other marxist regimes, those at the top quickly give up ideals, and start enriching themselves (I'm talking about that house shopping spree of the former BLMGN leader).

Marxism is a failed 19th century socioeconomic/political philosophy with a nine figure body count. Like Nazism, it is to be avoided at all costs.

> Why would Marxism be a signal for avoiding the movement?

Because lots of people have been affected by propaganda (both Leninist and capitalist) equating Marxism with Leninism (and it's descendants), and Leninism has a legitimately horrifying track record.

So is Marxism a victim of being connflated with people masquerading as Marxist committing atrocities?

> They got exposed as Marxists

How so? What are the signals of Marxism within the BLM movement?

What's the difference between Marxism & just unrealistic idealism?

One clear difference is the leaders enriching themselves without advancing the welfare of the people they claim to be promoting.

> One clear difference is the leaders enriching themselves without advancing the welfare of the people they claim to be promoting.

Ah yes that thing that famously only happens in Marxist political regimes.

"What's the difference between Marxism & just unrealistic idealism"

Difference between Marxism and unrealistic idealism, not between Marxism and other political regimes.

But I'd love to see an example of a Marxist regime bigger than a kibbutz that does not display that pattern, if you have one.

This is a nebulous question you are just going to move the goalposts whatever answer I give seeing as every political regime in history has some degree of enrichment for its leaders. This leaves aside the whole "name a successful example except for these successful examples"

Yeah, I couldn't come up with one, either.

Kibbutzim are questionably successful at best - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kibbutz_crisis for example, but they seem to be an upper scalability limit.

One of the BLM founders literally described herself and another founder as "trained Marxists". However that doesn't mean the movement itself is inherently Marxist. Hopefully we can all agree that Black lives do matter, even if some of the movement leaders hold abhorrent political views on other unrelated issues.

https://www.politifact.com/article/2020/jul/21/black-lives-m...

I do find it a bit odd though how someone who describes herself as a Marxist now owns multiple luxury homes.

https://www.blackenterprise.com/blm-co-founder-patrisse-khan...

Is it really that odd that someone in a position of prominence in a capitalist society who has a large income from many jobs is able to buy things? Marx himself sure didn't walk around in a loin cloth demanding people give up all worldly possessions so I'm not sure how this is a valid criticism.

> This event was one administration too late to make a splash, unfortunately.

Nice try but Black Lives Matter started after the Michael Brown shooting, which was during the Obama administration.

correction: first started after George Zimmerman was acquitted on murder charges for killing Trayvon Martin, which the year before Michael Brown was killed, still during the Obama administration.

> They got exposed as Marxists, and everyone started distancing themselves, thankfully.

What?

My understanding is that it's more of a collection of local initiatives.

It’s not like the NAACP that has a central leadership and a board.

Internet discourse will never resemble the church in its capacity to pursue political ends. Sometimes these ends are a good, sometimes, to many people, they are a wrong, but that structure gets people in the habit of concentration and concentrated effort.

See also Taleb's "The Most Intolerant Wins: The Dictatorship of the Small Minority"

https://medium.com/incerto/the-most-intolerant-wins-the-dict...

Discussed a few times here:

The Most Intolerant Wins: The Dictatorship of the Small Minority (2015) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20837171 - Aug 2019 (76 comments)

The Most Intolerant Wins: The Dictatorship of the Small Minority (2016) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16454645 - Feb 2018 (214 comments)

The Most Intolerant Wins: The Dictatorship of the Small Minority - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12576184 - Sept 2016 (6 comments)

The Dictatorship of the Small Minority by Nassim Nicholas Taleb - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12298753 - Aug 2016 (20 comments)

The Most Intolerant Wins: The Dictatorship of the Small Minority - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12290770 - Aug 2016 (10 comments)

The Most Intolerant Wins: The Dictatorship of the Small Minority - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12285545 - Aug 2016 (55 comments)

The Most Intolerant Wins: The Dominance of the Stubborn Minority [pdf] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10687471 - Dec 2015 (20 comments)

The Most Intolerant Wins: The Dominance of the Stubborn Minority [pdf] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10567630 - Nov 2015 (52 comments)

I'm confused by this analysis. It cites no other resources beyond wikipedia, a dude's take on twitter, and an msn article when the other article actually has citations to other research. Where is your evidence that the 40% is "intentionally wrong; propaganda"? It's pointing to numerous other studies where the number ranges from 10 to 40% and examines why. This seems like a bad faith understanding of what the research is trying to accomplish.

I definitely don't want to go back to the social convention of feeling like I have to shake hands every time I meet someone. It went away once Covid hit, but I have a feeling it will come creeping back. Anyone had luck turning down handshakes without coming across as rude, particularly in a business setting? I've found it easier to turn down using self-deprecating humor in a social setting.

Famous speakers I’ve meet have intercepted the handshake with a fist bump in my pre Covid days.

At least we don't have the unfortunate custom of two opposite cheek kisses like the Italians. Boy was that awkward when I realized people here thought I was some kind of Borat weirdo.

Wait to see places where you have to give three kisses!

I used to tell people my carpal tunnel was too bad to do handshakes. Or sometimes I'd tell them I had just sneezed on my hand.

There was one guy I just flat out told, "I'm not going to shake your hand". Ex-coworker, was never polite to me when we were working together, actively sabotaged my tenure there, had the nerve to look hurt.

Not trying to start a flamewar on anything, but that seems very unprofessional/counter-productive, so I'm just trying to understand your thought process here.

Do you have a phobia of physical touch?

I shake the hands of departing coworkers even if we have a cool relationship. It's a simple, polite, no-frills way of saying "goodbye". You're not giving them grace or anything. Is it not more difficult to refuse and say "I'm not going to shake your hand" than it is to shake and move on? If they were impolite, you come across as hostile.

Just curious for more details.

I don't usually avoid handshakes, but I don't offer them, either. Handshakes are very culturally specific. I've learned to not assume everyone wants a handshake. For example, I've met several Muslim women who felt uncomfortable shaking hands with men, but often felt obligated to reciprocate. In my current job, I run into so many people of so many different cultures that it's best to stay on the safe side and avoid putting someone in such a situation.

And while I don't have a phobia of most physical touch, there are people who use the handshake as an excuse to take a hug. When I identify those people, I try to avoid the hand shake. "Sorry, I'm just a hugger" is not an excuse for violating someone's personal space. I'm not a "hugger". If I don't know you, don't touch me in that overly familiar way.

As for the guy I flat-out refused: it was a game night organized by some of my ex-colleagues, about 50/50 a mix of people who were still at the company and folks like me who were no longer there. This guy was not invited but somehow found out about it and crashed the party. Part of why I was no longer with the company was because he had decided he didn't like that I had taken leave when my 2nd child was born and went out of his way to keep me from getting assigned to projects and even tanked a successful project that I was building.

I also think "professionalism" is highly overrated, especially when people use "professionalism for thee, but not for me" to stymie backlash against their toxic behavior. In the grand scheme of things, he's a nobody. That's not to say I'm a "somebody", but rather I don't think refusing his handshake is going to have any kind of impact on my career.

> "I'm not going to shake your hand".

That only had the intended effect because you constrasted it against handshaking. It wouldn't work if you didn't touch anyone.

> Or sometimes I'd tell them I had just sneezed on my hand.

How many people pick their noses when nobody is watching, and don't wash their hands?

Sit at a busy traffic intersection sometime and just watch people in their cars. It's a lot.

Watch how many men leave public restrooms without washing their hands, too.

I normally just go for a fist bump if they put their hand out for a handshake, and they almost always oblige. I don't find myself in formal business situations often, though.

Never understood what problem people have with shaking hands.

Never understood the problem people have with hugs…

Everyone has a different level of physical touch they desire and a level that they are comfortable with.

I honestly lament that the hugging culture in my wider social circle has probably permanently gone away (if that social circle ever really recovers, considering it was built around small venue music and art).

The permanent loss of warmth in my life is very noticeable.

Hugs are great! But, where dudes can be creepy with a handshake, a hug is much more vulnerable. Hugs are for trusted friends.

As a woman, handshakes aren't always great. Some guys take the 'firm' thing way too far and try to crush my hand: I'm not impressed, I'm angry that my hand is sore. One time that was a bruise that lasted several days. Other guys are creeps and keep holding on to trap me in conversation; usually to flirt or say something completely inappropriate. I get that people are touch deprived, but it lends legitimacy to the touch depraved. Hug your buds, I'd be happier with the Japanese bow in business settings.

I suspect - with zero evidence - that handshakes are a male way of greeting, and women got included in it, because what else would you do, but it doesn't work well for them.

This is consistent with my experience. I can’t recall the last time I saw a woman shake hands where it wasn’t basically obligatory. Men on the other hand do. The difference in behaviors is most noticeable in informal settings where personal preference can dictate behavior.

It's also a standard greeting in north American business culture. Failing to fit culture is a "legitimate" reason to be excluded. And yes, lots of men have expressed that handshakes are a men's club. I know guys do the crushing handshake thing as a dominance game. I'd love to be left out of that garbage without being deprived of equal opportunity.

I can understand the crushing handshake as some kind of game between men.

Doing it to a woman seems more like a form of assault.

No. Just like ass-slapping, it's assault if it's unwanted, regardless of gender.

Like everything, it depends on the context. Ass-slapping athletes are different than Ass-slapping construction workers.

No. Consent is the only thing that matters. Gender and profession is completely irrelevant. It should be obvious that you don't touch people without their consent.

> I know guys do the crushing handshake thing as a dominance game.

It's ironic how an attempt to show dominance is actually such a clear demonstration of (psychological) weakness.

Not sure if it's urban legend or not, but I read somewhere that handshakes started in feudal times: you shook each others arms to make sure nobody was hiding a knife underneath their armor. But that might be another "railroad tracks are the width they are because of roman war horses" story.

Maybe, I've noticed that most females prefer the hug greet over a handshake greet.

I don't think it has anything to do with gender. I'm a man and have the same complaints about handshaking as klyrs, and the person who crushed my hand the hardest was a woman.

Interestingly enough, handshakes started as a "I'm not carrying a weapon", and that war/combat is essentially a male field.

In reality though, it's very much a male tendency to pursue and display their physical strength; that handshakes also become an avenue for this is unsurprising.

Yeah, there are the heavy squeezers, but they are quite rare. Otherwise even women can shake hands.

You expressed curiosity about why people dislike handshakes. I've been in the biz for over 20 years now. In my experience, about 1 in 100 guys are going to do one of the two behaviors I mentioned. That means I can expect at least one every few days at a conference. "Rare" in your experience doesn't translate to "uncommon" in mine. It's not an irrational fear.

I miss handshakes. As a young male, I value a convention that requires men to be in contact with one another, and to look each other in the eyes.

I've taken to fistbumps, but I miss handshakes. I also despise the idea of everyone being on different wavelengths regarding greeting gestures for the next 15 years. I don't want to be a part of this friction!

This problem isn't going to keep me from being happy, or putting food on the table, but a lot of good work started with shared trust and a handshake.

> requires men to be in contact with one another, and to look each other in the eyes.

Why? That favors con artists over honestly nervous people.

I can only speak for myself, but it's nice to have physical contact with people. An easy way to battle the touch starvation

Why do you need physical touch from relative strangers?

When you don't want them to remain strangers.

I'm baffled at how millennia old* rituals involved with no-longer-being-strangers are lost on some commenters

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Funerary_stele_of_Thrasea...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:OTArsameiaSockelIIIDexios...

Seems to me that the ubiquity of such greetings across all cultures would imply that you're the exception here, no?

A lot of cultures bow rather than shake hands.

Other cultures require you to get a lot closer than a handshake.

Strangers don't owe you that and there's still a global pandemic on.

Pay for a massage or take up ballroom dancing or something if touch matters to you.

Oh they don't owe me anything, and I didn't mean to say that they do.

However, I am free to decide who I would rather do business with/work with. And as such I am free to prefer to work with people who shake my hand.

As for the pandemic, I don't think it will remain an issue for forever. And even if it does, I don't mind carrying a bottle of hand sanitizer around.

Yes, you are free to decide with whom you choose to do business.

The pandemic has dragged on a lot longer than expected. We still don't have a clear end in sight and some people feel this is "the new normal."

I find it creepy and inappropriate that someone would feel that I need to service their touch starvation to do business with them when they can't be bothered to arrange their personal life to adequately meet that need for themselves. It smacks of something just shy of sexual favors since sex is a large part of how most people quench their need for physical touch.

It's a rather far jump to go from handshake to sexual favours in my opinion, but if you feel that way then of course you can just choose to not shake people's hands. Nobody forcing you to after all!

Nobody's forcing me but if enough people refuse to do business with me because I don't shake their hand, I -- what? -- get to choose between shaking hands and going hungry?

No pressure.

Just an FYI: I'm a woman. In my experience, a lot of men looking for excuses to touch me, such as shake my hand, are really angling to get next to me sexually.

Maybe that's not a big issue in your life. It unfortunately is in mine.

Edit: just to be crystal clear, my reason for not shaking hands is germ control, as stated elsewhere.

What I was referring to is that such a situation is highly unlikely. Even if we do not take current labour shortage and the historic lack of IT people into account I am certain that there would be more than enough employers or business partners who do not care about whether or not someone is willing to shake their hand.

But yes, in general if a society places enough value on a social norm to decide whether or not to do business with a certain person it is possible that certain people will be alienated based on their willingness to participate in such a social norm.

And, to address your edit: I am fully aware that we are currently in a pandemic and I am not saying that we should go around and start getting overly close to one another for no reason.

As the original content all the way up this chain I was mostly referring to a time post COVID, assuming that such an outset is realistic. If not then hand shaking will be the least pressing problem regardless.

I am medically handicapped. My desire to not shake hands is not specific to the pandemic.

I don't really think the pandemic will end without social norms changing. Handshakes are a social norm that spreads germs. I think we would do well to move to something else. In many cultures they bow.

So my belief is that we only get to post pandemic by doing away with things like handshakes. That's my opinion and I can't back it up with studies or anything, but your mental models and mine just don't mesh well in that regard.

You have a good day. I think you and I are likely speaking somewhat past each other and I'm not interested in engaging further in what is likely pointless miscommunication.

Your extreme minority disabilities seem like a pretty poor excuse to attack everyone else you are interacting with to the extreme degree you are doing.

Yes, sure, people should make reasonable accommodations to help deal with your extreme minority situation.

But it is a sure for you to demand that everyone else change their entire lives, and perfectly reasonable preferences, to satisfy only you.

It's impossible to win, if you don't shake a women's hands you are treating them in the old fashioned, less progressive way, if you do, you are looking for excuses to touch them. Interacting with others in any context requires some sacrifices and compromises, it is impossible for the other party to know what is appropriate unless you tell them as shown in my first sentence, and most times it is best not to cause animosity and just go with it. Men do this social adaption too btw.

There used to be a social convention for men not to shake women's hands, still observed in some contexts. However, Covid aside, in most modern business context refusing to shake a woman's hand would look horribly sexist to most bystanders.

I would strongly disagree that sex is how most people quench their need for physical touch.

Not being able to hug my grandparents during the pandemic took a big emotional toll on me.

I pet my dog, hug my kids and shake hands with my friends. These are all examples of how I use touch to show affection in my life.

However, I strongly agree that your preferences should be completely respected especially in a business setting.

You forgot it's not just a handshake. It's often a shoulder touch or a tug or a really hard hand squeeze to assert dominance or whatever other nonsense they read in their book on how to be a creepy con artist.

I decide to not do business with people who expect a handshake. If they reach out I'm already game over. If they bring up sports.. oh hell yea I'm gonna stand up and walk right out. We have nothing more to discuss.

Well then problem solved, and both of you don't have to interact with each other?

I am not sure why someone else's preferences would offend you so much.

Sometimes, different people just have different ways of interacting with each other, and that is totally fine, and you don't have to be friends.

There is no need to be upset at them.

Why not touching and keeping eye contact with your friends, and let strangers have some space?

The entire point of a handshake is as an introduction.

They become no longer strangers via that interaction.

How else would I make sure their knife hand is empty?

Keep your gross clammy hands to yourself, please and thank you.

Hey I agree with you on this one, you seem to have a lot of people disagreeing with you but I also like handshakes. I think they serve a good purpose in establishing a rapport and helping to build a conversation with a new person. Elbow bumps and fist bumps just don't have the same effect. Of course, we're all more health conscious nowadays, I think it's pretty easy to not touch my face after shaking someone's hand and hand sanitizer is now ubiquitous, so it doesn't seem like a big deal to me.

>> "I think they serve a good purpose in establishing a rapport and helping to build a conversation with a new person. Elbow bumps and fist bumps just don't have the same effect."

I hope you understand that someone who doesn't want to do handshakes doesn't necessarily get the same effect. Shakes and bumps would actually be misinformation in this case. For example: I never could work out how much pressure to put into a handshake. So nine times out of ten I get a dude on the other end crushing my hand because he either reads me as weak (too little pressure), or as challenging him (too much pressure). And I have no idea how to fix it! So I just don't.

It's the same consideration people like me want from others. We're doing you a kindness by not trying to read your mind through your hand or elbow! You're welcome.

I find that people who prefer nonverbal stuff often overvalue these as signals, while they actually mean nothing coming from me. They want to try and scry my inner state by reading my face or the way I actuate limbs, but they always get it wrong and ignore me pleading with them to listen to my actual words. I'm a very honest and upfront person, so you won't get anything from non-verbal stuff that you can't get from my words. Generally, the only people who get otherwise are people who've made me feel like I need to manage their emotions to secure my own wellbeing, and I try to disassociate with them.

So you can see why I don't find much value in even trying: the people who I want to know understand and come to trust the kindness and truth of my words, and everyone else gets flung into deep space. Life is too short to spend it trying to live up to someone else's expectations.

Same.

I just go for the handshake.

IME the people who reject it are almost universally socially awkward in other ways anyway, so whatever. Call it a filter.

Of course, handshakes are culture-dependent. Large parts of Asia had always been handshake free unless meeting Westerners.

I don't consider people who refuse to shake my hand to be rude.

Generally I consider them to be hypochondriacs. This places them directly in opposition to me, because it strongly correlates with their likelihood to be in the 'cus covid' clan.

In that case, there is no way to avoid being rude, because the reason you don't want to do the thing is precisely the reason I _do_ want to, as a show of resistance against antisocial behaviours.

exactly, its also very important to me that I judge individuals over a single polarizing issue and discard anything else that makes them a human. My reaction to other peoples opinion on that issue also totally makes everyone else a whacko and not me. /S

Refusing a handshake is an action, it's not an opinion.

I don't really care what opinions my friends and business contacts hold, but if their actions show that they're afraid of even touching me then like, we're just not going to get on, what's the point? Call it a day, plenty of fish.

I don't think it's helpful to make assumptions about the reason for someone's personal preference or comfort and then to deny them the respect of empathy.

If you're rude because you jump to the conclusion that I "irrationally" fear covid, you may need to consider that you're at risk of radicalization. Just a thought.

If conservatism is radical to you, that's cool by me. At the end of the day, we don't need to agree.

> If conservatism is radical to you

non-sequitur, I think.

Indeed, I don't think his comment makes sense either.

TBH that's a very baffling definition of conservatism to me. Makes me wonder what the root of your defined values are.

First search result, Wikipedia:

Conservatism Conservatism is an aesthetic, cultural, social, and political philosophy, which seeks to promote and to preserve traditional social institutions.

Literally that; I place value in traditional social institutions.

Like my University, my local pub, the office, lecture halls, and yeah, the handshake. Freedom of travel. That stuff.

I think they're more important than coronavirus nonsense. A lot more. Certainly now, so now we have to fight to get them back to where they were. They're worth as much to me as one of my limbs would be, they're life itself.

To be fair, the reason freedom of travel has been limited is precisely because the virus has the power to take away people's lives and also the health of their vital organs (e.g heart, lungs). I think it's reasonable to want to fight for normality and tradition, but there has to be a balance.

Here in the UK we're nearly there. Our government is considering removing all restrictions sometime in the next 2 months (it may end up being a bit more phased - lot's of people are in favour of continuing to mandate self-isolation when you actually currently have the virus). If you want that where you live then consider advocating for vaccination uptake, because that's what's allowing us to make these changes here without triggering a public health crisis.

I live in the UK and my balance throughout has been "completely ignore all of the scaremongering".

1% risk of death. Wait, now sub 0.1%, thx vaccine. Meanwhile schools are still in dystopia mode, Universities are nothing like they were when I went, almost every job in my field is gone, shitloads of businesses have permaclosed, etc.

We can't even reverse it now, loads of it is baked in. Remove all legal restrictions and half of the people are still wearing face masks and avoiding socialising 'cus Covid'.

March-May 2020 kind of sort of made sense (I still think we could have just asked people rather than using legal force but whatever). Beyond that, sunk cost after sunk cost and just an increasingly bizarre game of one-upmanship "look, I can make my life worse than yours!".

_This_ is radicalization - believing an ever deepening web of bollocks and as a result drastically changing one's way of interacting with the world. They don't even remember how they used to live and why.

I stand by my statement - it is conservative to accept a slightly increased risk in order to maintain our traditions. It is radical to flip the world on a dime. (The UK Conservative Party is emphatically not conservative by any reasonable definition).

Fighting against the germ theory of disease is definitely conservatism.

The germ theory of disease is well established, what's that got to do with the price of fish?

A lot of people including me (and I'm old, conservative, technical geek) are not actively social. Not being actively social is not at all the same as antisocial. Antisocial is associated with a negative behavioral aspect, a disorder potentially. Not wanting to have a beer at the pub doesn't make me antisocial. I don't mind shaking hands but, from a medical perspective it seems like a tradition that would best be left in the past.

Disagree on the last part (coronavirus is not transferred much if at all via hands), agree on the rest of the post.

If you don't enjoy the pub that's fine, different strokes for different folks. That's why we have freedom of association, I hang out with my people, you with yours, job done.

What I'm calling antisocial is bans, restrictions, shame, etc etc. The virus is out there and basically everyone is gonna get it, turning onto each other is hate for the sake of hate.

refusing to hang out with me because i don't drink makes you antisocial though.

when i hang out with my friends many have a beer while me and some others don't and nobody is bothered by that. that's what makes us social. our drinking habits don't factor into it at all.

Agree.

> Disagree on the last part (coronavirus is not transferred much if at all via hands), agree on the rest of the post.

Dude I've been in enough public bathrooms to never want to touch some random stranger's hand. You know how many people I've seen go from the toilet straight out the door? TOO MANY. Too many people on the internet who were like "My hands are clean, my privates are clean, I never touched anything dirty!" or whatever. EUGH.

GROSS.

>from a medical perspective it seems like a tradition that would best be left in the past.

Personally speaking, I think this argument is extremely poor.

From a medical standpoint, basically anything that's not shutting yourself in, working out moderately and eating an exceedingly boring diet should be left in the past as well. Good food (Obesity epidemic), extreme sports, any profession with any notable level of risk (Advice from medical professionals is exceedingly slanted to the side of caution), any drink with an alcohol content above 0.

Acceptable levels of risk are part of everyday life, and we're certainly not going "there's a nonzero risk so I refuse to do it" every time you cross the road or leave the house, is there?

> Acceptable levels of risk are part of everyday life, and we're certainly not going "there's a nonzero risk so I refuse to do it" every time you cross the road or leave the house, is there?

Sure but at the same time, I don't go "hey let's do some donuts in the middle of the freeway! There aren't that many cars around right now!" or go driving without my seatbelt on or whatever.

Edit: I also don't fly kites in thunder storms.

Sure, but I'm pretty sure that handshakes are pretty low on the risk side of things.

Moreover, this is a response to

>I don't mind shaking hands but, from a medical perspective it seems like a tradition that would best be left in the past.

I simply dislike the use of a "medical" justification here, as it feels more like an appeal to misleading statistics than anything else.

Hey, I get it - the pandemic has been very hard and very frustrating.

But, please consider that you're not doing any favors to your beloved institutions by being rude to your peers there as a result of your assumptions about what motivates them.

Do you own a dog house?

Your skill in resisting antisocial behaviours has increased to 76! Your skill in resisting antisocial behaviours has increased to 77!

You have unlocked "clandestine hang out"!

You have been invited to "meet up guild!"

You have acquired "partner that actually wants to go on a holiday!

You get coronavirus! You now have 23,773/23,774 HP! Oh no!

Funnily enough, I'm wary of people who can't make small adjustments to their behavior in respect to whomever they're interacting with. If they're incapable of adjusting to even small differences, it's a pretty good indication that their overall behavior isn't going to be so cognitive either. And sorry dude, pandemic rejection is societal institution rejection and thus definitively not "conservative". It appears you've been taken in by a bog standard political con.

I have a serious medical condition. I rarely shake hands because of it. I get sick easily and avoiding exposure to germs is an important means for me to stay off drugs and out of the ER.

I work from home. My life is online, so I mostly just avoid the issue. To whatever degree you can handle things by phone or Zoom or whatever, that's one means to make it less of an issue.

When I have had to meet people, I have successfully turned down handshakes at times. Body language can sometimes help sidestep the question. Not sure how to explain that but just don't be "open" to it and some people won't offer their hand. If they offer and I must decline, I'm polite, warm, friendly and assure them "It's not you. It's me."

Practice makes perfect. The first few times may feel awkward but it gets better.

> In particular, we show that the critical mass required to induce norm change is dramatically reduced when non-committed members of the population are less susceptible to social influence than previously assumed.

What precisely does this mean? It's not intuitive that it takes a smaller number of people to change a norm when others are less likely to change from influence.

Perhaps it's commenting on the level of entrenchment of the norm: it'd be easier for one good argument to sway those with "strong opinions weakly held" than it is to sway folks who say "I'll change when everyone else does too."

A possible explanation is that when non-committed members are more susceptible to social influence, they are more likely to side with the majority. From the paper:

> However, as consensus becomes easier (increasing β), the social influence within groups tends to favour the name of the initial majority (B).

FWIW, there is a very interesting book called _Influencer_, by Patterson, Grenny, Maxfield, McMillan, and Switzler. It says to change things there are 6 areas to work on, which it presents in a 2x3 chart with 2 headings across the top: Movitation and Ability, and 3 down the left side: Personal, Social, and Structural. Then in that chart, the rows say:

  1 make the undesirable desirable
  2 surpass your limits
  3 harness peer pressure
  4 find strength in numbers
  5 design rewards and demand accountability
  6 change the environment

Then it tells interesting stories and gives suggestions for doing each of those. Like one about a restaurant staffed by former felons, and the rules they have to make it work. Or about eliminating a bad disease in Africa (guinea worm?). Really an interesting read.

Edit: I'm not sure though whether to classify with the advertising/marketing books that aim to show how to manipulate people. They present good things i think, and one becomes enthusastic in reading. But there is the whole consideration of what is really in the best interest of individuals and us all, and do we choose it based on maturity and understanding, or are manipulated, and is the manipulation ever a good thing. Too tired to say better about that at the moment. :) (and late to the discussion anyway, nor do I remember now if they discuss that in the book. ~"use it for good not evil...")

I think the book is mentioned in wikipedia also.

(Or it is just a matter of honesty and the Golden Rule.)

I think it's more about organization and motivation, not just the number of people.

The "silent majority" doesn't even get their way in many cases, so what hope would a disorganized minority have?

Most social movements of the last 5 years haven’t been all that organized though. Usually there’s no clear leadership. It’s all memes

This paper presents a hypothetical model for opinion changing, but doesn't actually try and validate that the model applies to the real world. The empirical datasets that they use are only to inform what the graphs look like, not whether the model accurately models social change. I don't like that the way this work is presented implies that this model says anything about our world.

I tried to read the article. It comes across to me as unrequited teen angst culminating in parabolic disharmony; kind of like a Picasso painting.

Just curious what is it about Picasso's paintings that come across as unrequited teen angst?

“The reasonable man adapts himself to the world: the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.”

As many here, I am skeptical of the results. There is only a reference to 40% of the population as the main finding, but I did not see a clear reference to the relative power of each individual in the population, power centers or all of the other little pieces that could easily undermine the result.

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed, citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”

― Margaret Mead

Key finding:

"the critical mass required to induce norm change is dramatically reduced when non-committed members of the population are less susceptible to social influence than previously assumed"

This suggests a corollary: that a general weakening of people's receptivity to social influence makes disruption of norms easier and thus more frequent. This seems closely related to the ongoing "truth decay" efforts which - not specific policy positions - are the primary focus of professional disinformation groups.

I can't understand what this title is saying

What do you mean? You don’t understand how a special group of non special people can change things? ;)

placate the need for change through low effort seemingly impactful convenience, you quall motivation for change

Flagged

Please read the site guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.

Hello Dang,

Out of curiosity, what rule did I break? I had a fairly long post.

I had people responding to me but I guess I can't respond to anymore?: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30361631

Mikeyouse said:

>And that idiotic CNN chyron was clipped to be troll bait for the credulous. If you honestly believe that's how the protests were covered, you should spend some time reflecting on where you get your news and who you trust.

This was in response to me posting: https://twitter.com/JoeConchaTV/status/1298863702272344064 and making comment.

This was in the context of my post explaining how non-violence similar to MLKjr and Ghandi is an absolute rule. That saying 'peaceful protest' while standing in front of cars on fire is a violation of the rule.

I feel this is a reasonable and fair discussion.

I interpreted your comment to mean "I flagged this submission," which would be breaking the site guideline "If you flag, please don't also comment that you did."

Now that I've looked more closely, I realize that you actually originally posted a totally different comment and then effectively deleted it (by overwriting it with "Flagged"). Normally we ask people not to do that—you can use the 'delete' link as long as the comment has no replies.

In this case, your comment got one reply but the replier subsequently deleted it. This is a corner case. It might even be a bug in our software if the 'delete' link didn't reappear.

Edit: I checked the code and I don't see that bug, so I believe there would have been a 'delete' link at the time you edited your comment.

>I interpreted your comment to mean "I flagged this submission," which would be breaking the site guideline "If you flag, please don't also comment that you did."

I don't have buttons to delete, edit, or flag, never did on my previous account neither. My understanding was that I do not have these as part of upvote threshold like being unable to downvote. Maybe it's my fault and some sort of addon doing something?

>Now that I've looked more closely, I realize that you actually originally posted a totally different comment and then effectively deleted it (by overwriting it with "Flagged"). Normally we ask people not to do that—you can use the 'delete' link as long as the comment has no replies.

I personally did not do this.

>In this case, your comment got one reply but the replier subsequently deleted it. This is a corner case. It might even be a bug in our software if the 'delete' link didn't reappear.

Well no, there was also another comment insulting me mostly. I dont recall the username. I wasn't planning to reply to that one. It was obvious that they were triggered by my comments about the democratic party. I didn't really intend to cause a fight over those comments.

I guess that Mikeouse has the right of the person who replied to me.

Thanks I guess, I'll move on.

Every post to HN has a 'delete' link for a certain amount of time after the post is made, as long as the post doesn't have replies. (We try not to delete posts that got replies, because doing so would be unfair to the other commenters in the thread.) This doesn't depend on karma.

Flagging depends on karma but the threshold is low (only 30) so you can certainly do that. See https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html#cflag about how to flag comments.

I'm a bit confused here:

> I personally did not do this.

Are we talking about the same 'this"? The logs say that you edited https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30361111 to replace the text with "Flagged" a few minutes after you originally posted it.

I'm definitely not meaning to be critical and I don't want you to go away feeling unfairly treated, so I'd prefer to get this clear. Especially if I'm mistaken about something.

>Are we talking about the same 'this"? The logs say that you edited https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30361111 to replace the text with "Flagged" a few minutes after you originally posted it.

Wasnt me, I assumed I cannot edit my posts in relation to the downvote karma threshold thing. Like so I needed to prove my worth or something. I stand by my posts even if I was wrong. Just like I just was with my recent post about the definition of vaccine. I am wrong in my post. My brain definition of vaccine certainly included 'prevents infection' factor.

It's probably a problem on my end. I was missing the reply link when trying to reply to prohobo but now see it there. I cannot explain.

This post however was indeed fairly charged/hot post about social movements, the requirement to stay nonviolent, comments over the democratic party, trump, etc. I expected to take heat. I provided a link criticizing the democrats over their inaction of resolving an obvious problem in the USA. My post did take heat quite rapidly in that one.

I dont personally believe my comments were flamebait or trolling. I cannot see my original post any longer, maybe I did go over the line. So be it. Not to get religious, but:

“The past is already gone, the future is not yet here. There's only one moment for you to live, and that is the present moment” ― Buddha

Let's not waste on further time on the past. Doing so will solve nothing.

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