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Comment by dijit | Hacker News Reader

I'm always dubious when it comes to hagiographies of individuals in media.

It feels good for someone else to point it out, since in this case it really rings hollow for basically everyone.

Why should we humanise and care about someone who was a terrible boss, a terrible fraudster and a bare-face liar.

What endeavours were not financed because of her? Who's career was torpedoed and who was stolen away from noble causes because of her lies? Taking some accountability is rare, she should, and we don't have to applaud her for it. It should be expected.

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I keep thinking about a similarity with tech in general. Around 2010 or so the media could not stop writing articles fawning over Google and other tech companies. They placed them on such a pedestal, and in doing so, were complicit in helping them amass immense cultural capital alongside their financial capital.

It's trite at this point to say we, the readers, are part of the problem. But it does make me wonder why we keep needing to glamorize the successful. They've made it, no? Do they need to be continually propped up? Probably the human instinct for worship gone astray.

To some extent, we should humanize bad people, because bad people are all human, and some ordinary-seeming humans are bad.

When bad people in media are only portrayed in media as stereotypical villains, it's harder to detect bad people in real life. Bystanders see a gentile, caring, vulnerable person, and they immediately assume they can't be bad, because "bad people aren't gentile, caring, or vulnerable"! Except they are, just not always.

Also, at least some people deserve a chance at forgiveness. When evil is only portrayed as black-and-white, even tiny accidents cause someone to be irredeemable, because "bad people can never do right" implies "good people can never do wrong".

That doesn't mean we should forget bad deeds and eliminate all punishment. Accepting people can be good doesn't mean unconditionally forgiving them, and forgiving =/= forgetting. Like, if Elizabeth Holmes founds another company I'd be very skeptical, and if anyone seemed to trust her I'd actively refer them to Theranos. But specifically in online discourse, moral polarization is one of the biggest issues I see today.

From what I've seen, progressive discourse often reduces things to systemic factors, while conservative discourse often reduces things to individual choice. As I said elsewhere, in situations like this, it's quite easy to bring a reductionist or defeatist frame to the situation. It's a shame because it's not particularly useful. I wanted to say I really enjoyed your comment a lot. Cheers.

I fully agree, but you don't need a puff piece about her for that.

We do get conversations with former convicts who are doing good things for their communities sometimes, and that is worthy of a hagiography, a proper redemption and an understanding that the person was not 1-dimensional.

Just in the interest of earnestness, there are people who are exactly as black as they are painted. I'm not sure if Holmes is one of them, she certainly had opportunities that many will never be afforded and I don't think this point can be denied. But if she wants a redemption arc then it must be earned; not paid for.

Humanising villains is important, but this is not what's happening, these pages are implying that she was wronged, that she's the victim. But it's clear as day that she is the architect of her own misery.

> Why should we humanise and care about someone who was a terrible

But... the parable of the prodigal son? The whole point it makes is that we should be happy when the lost person is found. It specifically tries to talk us out of transactional relationships where we would somewhat instinctively assume that we should treat others proportionately well, compared to how well they treated us. And the point it's trying to make is that human dignity isn't something that can be measured or compared, it just is. And everyone has it, and should be treat as such.

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The article makes it sound though as if Holmes is far from seeking absolution. So, maybe, the concept doesn't apply to her in particular. But, the answer still stands to the more general question.

I think the point is, we should restore the dignity of people she harmed, before we worry overmuch about restoring hers.

It seems to be rare that we get to choose whose dignity we should prioritize. The common answer to questions like this: we should choose both. Both are important.

Also, it looks like Holmes is being already punished for what she's done. So, no point of adding more on top. The frustrating aspect is that, at least according to the article, is that she still doesn't acknowledge her guilt. But, I don't think we have it in the criminal law to punish people second time if they disagree with the first punishment. It's upsetting that someone does that, but it's not a crime.

If you violate trust, then you lose that trust and become less trustworthy than someone who has not yet been trusted at all.

This point should be clear to anyone. Holmes' PR team is essentially trying to get us to trust her again, more-so than she deserves for violating that trust in the first place.

It's not about stealing some rich men's money, though that is certainly reprehensible, it's about the actual abuse she presided over for her own glory, fame and fortune.

She is an example of a narcissist gaining power and she should be a lesson to those who would attempt the same.

After her time is served, she can go liver her life however she wants. She does not deserve to be trusted again.

I believe the parable makes sure that we see the prodigal son as a very bad person. They didn't have VCs and creepy CEOs back in the days when it was written, so we'd have to extrapolate from what they knew unto the present, but I'm convinced that the author wanted us to think that until the prodigal son returned to his father he was beyond redemption.

So, it's not an attempt to deny that Holmes has done evil things. And, in fact, from the article it looks like she's unrepentant... but, my answer was literally to the question as asked. Also, admittedly, you don't have to subscribe to the Christian moral codex, and may reject the notion of every human having dignity as their inalienable right. But that would require a sophisticated and substantial argument.

Or to be overly dramatic: "Who has committed suicide because of her lies?", because we know that answer is not zero, and a direct consequence of her modus operandi of scorched earth legal warfare with anybody who steps out of line.

I'm in favour of being, as a society, so ambitious that you want to give all criminals a second chance, and in that sense, she deserves one.

But that's not, _at all_, how the US justice system is designed. If _she_ gets a second chance, that's.. a ridiculous injustice.

How so?

Recently pardoned silk road dude got his second chance and HN largely looked favorably at that situation (I'm not attibuting this view to you here). What makes Holmes worse, if anything?

I suspect people who favor pardoning Silk Road Dude will tell you he did nothing wrong to begin with.

Sure, but prosecutors showed evidence of multiple overdose deaths via SR transactions - which Ulbricht was at least as responsible for as Holmes was for her scientist’s suicide..

People ascribe some kind of Robin Hood-esque virtue to Silk Road dude, even though he paid hundreds of thousands of dollars in an attempt to have 5 people murdered.

I’d rather never hear about either one ever again.

> Why should we humanise and care about someone who was a terrible

Problematic people are still people, and pretending otherwise in order to feel better about needing them out of society is maybe not a great idea.

Liz Holmes is disgusting enough, but recently Newsweek attempted to rehab the image of one of the rapist/murderers of Dr. William Petit's family.

https://www.newsweek.com/steven-hayes-connecticut-linda-mai-...

I think it depends a bit on how you think about rehabilitation? Many believe incarcerated people should be given a chance to get their life back on track (a difficult thing to do no matter what walk of life you come from), you may not like her methods, but she is certainly entitled to them.

She can absolutely do that without the need for obsequious front-page magazine spreads.

I know some people who went through incarceration. Their life lesson is: don't get caught. They come out of there just being better criminals, not better people.

Easy there. Anecdote != Data.

I agree that we should not be confident in anecdotes, but the statistics support the assertion for the US: The percentage of people who commit crimes again after release varies by state, time, and type of crime, but it's generally around 68% within three years.

https://usafacts.org/articles/how-common-is-it-for-released-...

In general it would be stupid to expect things to be different. What kind of creature gets better because of being locked up for years with a bunch of other worse-than-average creatures of it's kind?

Incarceration, if done properly, might make people less likely to reoffend simply because they get older and their health gets poorer, thus having less energy and becoming less of a nuisance. But that's not done because of insufficient prison capacity. They nearly all get out while still young enough to remain a massive problem.

That all may be so, but it's mighty coincidental that we are reminded of the need for rehabilitation and humane treatment and so on exactly when the convict happens to be famous and rich.

Rehabilitation is about getting your life on a different track. I'm an abolitionist but a PR campaign isn't justice or rehabilitation either.

I typically try to avoid brining a monochromatic lens to situations that I believe are anything but (99% of situations generally). I could present all sorts of recidivism stats about violent criminals, including ones on the same life path, but differently, would it sway you? The only people I know personally who have been to jail are the people I've worked with via TLM, but I certainly don't profess to be an expert on the penal system in any way whatsoever. In matters of luck of life, it's quite easy to bring a reductionist or defeatist frame to the situation. (I think conversations like this are often worth having, I'm not trying to cause a flame war or anything like that.)

Somehow I think if someone has the resources to have the times and people write puff pieces about them, they probably don't need all that much of our help for rehabilitation. We're not talking about someone going back out on the streets here. The a is a powerful member of the capital class with connections and influence.

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