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Comment by enkid | Hacker News Reader

Maybe not being cancelled shouldn't be your top priority? People talk like getting cancelled is a death sentence. Free speech advocates went to jail in times past. Now people act like getting ratio'd on Twitter for saying something insensitive is the worst possible fate.

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That trivialises the destruction of peoples’ lives.

It’s that sort of thought pattern that allows the mob to justify its behaviour.

Getting “cancelled” causes real world harm. Imagine losing your job, being too toxic to find work elsewhere, being unable to pay your mortgage, being unable to keep a roof over your family’s head.

Give me a break. What the above poster calls getting cancelled is not going to destroy their life. He's talking about fear of a downvote for saying something someone disagrees with on Hacker News, that's the context, so no I'm not minimizing the destruction of people's lives.

No, I am talking about things like job loss, followed by loss of ability to pay mortgage, followed by child losing school district. You have no idea who I am, or what my life position is.

There are places I'm willing to stick my neck out, and there are places I'm not. Each of these is an ROI calculation.

It’s hard for people to engage in pile-ons for their own amusement and maintain that they’re a good person if they spend too much time dwelling on the lives of the people they’re ruining.

What opinion are you planning to share on Hacker News that is going to cause job loss?

No, he's talking about the chilling effect of cancellation, which is why such controversial topics are not broached in the mainstream.

LOL, people who get cancelled get their bank accounts and credit cards and exchange accounts shut off, and are completely exiled from modern society. They can't complain about it either because they're banned from all social media. All of the above happened to me!

You obviously sympathize with the mob destroying people's lives to trivialize the effects like this.

You were exiled from modern society and had your bank accounts cancelled? What for? Sorry, but I don't believe that this was caused by a tweet or hacker news comment.

The mention of 'exchange accounts' leads me to believe there are possibly two unique situations this individual is co-mingling:

1) Transferring money between crypto exchanges and regulated financial institutions in ways that trip fraud or AML detection measures leading to closed accounts

2) Actions against one or more social media accounts in reaction to content this individual has posted or shared

People love to act like one social media post against the "mainstream" is potentially life destroying but there's yet to be an actual example of that. Just loud jerks being loud jerks and getting mad when told to leave the party.

Well, quite a lot of people have committed suicide.

cf. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OjMPJVmXxV8

Not everyone has The Comedy Store stage to relieve their depression.

Sorry, I'm not watching a two hour YouTube video to figure out what point you're making. Suicide is a serious concern and we should certainly take more steps to be civil online, but there's also never a singular simple reason for why someone made that decision.

Thousands of members of an online community which was previously supportive exiling you and attacking you, etc. is a pretty good push-over-the-edge.

I'd suggest investing research time proportionate to the weight of your opinions.

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