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Comment by dualvariable | Hacker News Reader

I started to notice a bit over a decade ago (about the same time as Cersei's walk of shame on GoT) that millennials as a generation were piling into naming and shaming people publicly as blindly appropriate punishment, without any consideration of what could go wrong and considering it their right and entitlement to do that. Any time a public figure gets into any kind of trouble, people demand to know all the details so they can satisfy their need to express outrage. It really is not healthy. Even if another person who was harmed comes out to express that they are satisfied with the outcome and the process that was followed, the crowd still wants to know all the details so they can feel angry.

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I'm not sure this is unique to that generation. Tabloids have always been like that. It's just been "democratized" so anyone can start it.

Also I note that a lot of "legacy" pretexts for shaming are off the table. It's not done to shame people simply for being gay; that's now acceptable even in Conservative circles. So perhaps the total shame has just been redistributed, somewhat arbitrarily.

(And another thing: this has evolved shame resistant politicians just like antibiotic overuse evolved MRSA)

Yeah, the same happened on Facebook, long before smartphones were normal for everyone.

This has also resulted in "punishing" people for having the "wrong ideas" by publicly shaming them with partial truths just because they disagree.

It sometimes feels like everyone around is secretly working on behalf of the thought police and we're being coerced into believing one specific narrative.

I think it's their frustration of other things they can't control - climate change, K-shaped economy, PFAS in everything, no healthcare, 7% and rising mortgages for $1.5 million 1000 sq ft built in 1965 shitboxes, corruption by politicians, suppressed elections, pedophile rings operating carte blanche while law enforcement casts a blind eye, presidential pardons for sale to the rich, clawbacks of longstanding LGBTQ and women's rights... culture wars against trans people to distract from class inequality.... and on and on.

Well, I can't make much progress on or change those things so let me distract myself checking out this shitbird who won't help his wife or hold the baby while she gets some nachos. I can be outraged at him because it's small and tangible compared to being outraged at structural inequality of our current economic reality or the looming climate crisis.

for our parents generation, mortgage rates were 10%+

And the mean house sale price was under $96k (which is still under $250k, adjusted for inflation).

From roughly 1953 to 2000, the inflation-adjusted cost of the mean house was around $200k-$250k in today's dollars. Now it has nearly doubled, and mortgage rates are on the rise and headed back towards 10%.

I can see where it comes from, but it is still highly dysfunctional, and a lot of millennials will use those arguments to defend that behavior.

I think it needs to be called out as being bad, and deconstructed properly, and that outrage needs to get redirected back onto the structural issues.

Which is another argument--that when people behave badly because of structural issues, that isn't an excuse.

I agree. If you feel previous social systems of justice and fairness have eroded, the only outlet that seems reasonable is "democratic" mob action.

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