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Comment by BiteCode_dev | Hacker News Reader

Yeah BS. I have been humiliated many times in my life, some times in life changing ways, and I'd still take it over real violence.

People seeing it that way should spend some time with me in 3rd world countries to reset their value counter. I'll show you punishment.

Shame is powerful and necessary, but it's very much a first step punishment, a warning, not an ultimate one.

This mismatch between perceived intensity and the real thing is seen everywhere these days: insecurity, activism, political projections.

It seems we solved so many important problems that humans have reset their baseline of comfort to confuse unease with danger.

Loosing your job, your social status or your tweeter audience is not the greatest suffering you can endure.

In fact, that's why exposed crooked politicians and companies keep getting away with things: shaming them just slow them down, not stop them.

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Yes, Reddit's "watchpeopledie" forum was very instructive in just how damn good we have it in the West, and how precious it is and how much we need to protect our society from enemies foreign and domestic.

On /r/watchpeopledie I saw a 16-year-old girl doused with gasoline and burned to death because she was accused of being with a gang that killed a local taxi driver in a mugging, a group of four young men bashed with rocks and set on fire because they were accused of stealing a laptop, and elementary-school children going around an abandoned building murdering tied up men in some kind of ISIS propaganda video. I've seen a woman in Iran hanged by being pulled up from a crane, starting to kick her feet slowly and then wildly and then stopping. A guy in Mexico having his heart cut out while he was alive in front of his son, and then the same happening to the son. A group of women stripped naked and shot in the head in some kind of cartel video. A guy told that he was being released and to turn away, and then used for target practice with some kind of heavy artillery - he essentially exploded when they hit him.

All that shit is out there, and most Americans who have never seen anything worse than a mean Tweet have no idea about it.

There's something very chilling about watching a video of a mob stoning someone to death and noticing some of the people cheering and filming are using iphones. It seems like a horrifying anachronism but it's just how things are now.

> I'd still take it over real violence.

Yeah, the article is a bit over the top here. I do think shame is at it's worst when coupled with real violence or intense threat of violence.

> In fact, that's why exposed crooked politicians and companies keep getting away with things: shaming them just slow them down, not stop them.

This is critical to the whole article: if a person is shameless and/or their community is ok with the "shameful" behaviour, then really there isn't any effect at all.

Yeah, the article is a bit over the top here.

I question whether it's genuinely over the top or if it's just a worrying symptom of society's increasing trend, on both sides of the aisle and every political corner, to equate speech with violence.

>I have been humiliated many times in my life, some times in life changing ways, and I'd still take it over real violence.

I would too, in most cases; that said, I'd rather get a literal slap on the wrist or even the face than be humiliated in an online sphere, especially as related to my real identity. It's not the case that shame and humiliation always trumps physical violence in my order of preferences, and I'd be surprised if it's not the same for you too. "Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me" is a cute rhyme, but utterly disintegrates when one starts to consider degree and the importance of social standing in public daily life (from getting a job to the looks you get at Walmart).

Nah, any of the substantive physical violence I have suffered easily trumps the worst humiliation I've felt over the stupidest things I've expressed online. I'd rather be canceled than get knocked out any day of the week.

>Shame is powerful and necessary, but it's very much a first step punishment, a warning, not an ultimate one.

It's the dog growling to get you to back off so it doesn't have to bite you.

>This mismatch between perceived intensity and the real thing is seen everywhere these days: insecurity, activism, political projections.

This derives from the zero-tolerance policies in school. No bullying allowed and so people, millenials, never quite earnt or understand this.

>It seems we solved so many important problems that humans have reset their baseline of comfort to confuse unease with danger.

A common thing for humans. Right now it's like 18c outside and im freezing. But in the spring when it's 15c its soooo warm.

the same goes for pleasure and pain. If you're always comfortable, you end up needing more and more pleasure heading to an extreme just to be happy. Societies even have this problem, when pleasure becomes imbalanced you end up throwing people to the lions.

While I take your point, I think you might be over stating it a little: I would much rather take a punch in the face than lose my job for instance. A lot of men routinely get into fights over social status, I think their preference is pretty clear there.

While there are experiences worse than death, there are instances where shaming leads to suicide. So at least in those instances the person apparently prefers death to shame. It’s likely that we all experience mental pain differently so the balance between the pain caused by shame and violence may vary by individual and culture. Also, the source of shame in one culture may elicit a “meh” response and in another drive someone to suicide.

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