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Repost from a different, and now I think abandoned, thread: I'm curious - I keep getting downvoted whenever I criticise Ashley Madison on the grounds of morali

Repost from a different, and now I think abandoned, thread: I'm curious - I keep getting downvoted whenever I criticise Ashley Madison on the grounds of morality. Why is this? This isn't a whinge about downvoting (if I didn't want to get downvoted I wouldn't keep posting about A-M), but a genuine inquiry into the reasons. Is it that people see discussions of morality as off-topic for HN? Do people disagree with my moral judgement of A-M? Or disagree with moral judgement in general?

DanBC 11y ago
I downvote a bunch of these style of posts because they're i) really unpleasant judgemental gloating or ii) idiotic assumptions.
gkop 11y ago
You sound sincere. Part of it may be the fact that, generally, you are violating "judge not lest thee be judged" and specifically, outing the adulterers also stands to cause real harm to their families, and also many of us know of circumstances where covert extramarital affairs kept families together in a good way.
MichaelGG 11y ago
Perhaps because people don't deserve to be punished by crackers? It's not guaranteed all users on there are harming society. It's not like it's, I dunno, Oracle getting internal documents leaked. Or Sony (and despite how bad Sony may be, some folks were rightfully concerned for the damage to innocent employees). Or BP or the USG. Overall I find it rather funny, and I gotta wonder who the hell would use such a site with their real name and billing info. Though I'm not under any delusion that it's fair, or that it's justice, except against the company itself.
brerlapn 11y ago
IMO, you're getting downvoted because your judgment of people on AM assumes facts not in evidence (i.e., that users of AM are there to cheat on their unknowing spouses), and then judges those people based on those facts that only exist in your head. It's self-aggrandizing, and the tone doesn't come off as participation in a discourse about morality as much as a narcissistic statement about the identity you'd like people to assign you ("wow, duncan_bayne is hardcore judgey about those AM users. He must really be against adultery.") See also [0]. Finally, it's also a derail from the reasons people are discussing the story that is more HN-relevant (technical and security aspects, user data practices, etc.). So to answer your closing questions - 1) "no", people discuss morality all the time on HN, especially in relation to economic relations, 2) Probably "yes", because your judgment says more about what you want to say about adultery than about the actual behavior of AM users (who could have all sorts of non-adulterous reasons to be on the site), 3) clearly "no" (see (1)), but jumping to that overarching assumption that people are downvoting your comments because they just don't like morality is part of that self-aggrandizing impression I'm talking about. If this was a dump of Petsmart's customer database, and you posted a bunch of comments judging the Petsmart customers as deserving to be exposed because they bought their pet from a puppy mill and some PETA links, people would downvote you, too--partially for the substance and partially just for derailing the conversation. [0] http://www.davidbrin.com/addiction.html http://www.davidbrin.com/addiction.html
- WillPostForFood 11y ago
  you're getting downvoted because your judgment of people on AM assumes facts not in evidence (i.e., that users of AM are there to cheat on their unknowing spouses This is all text from the homepage of Ashley Madison: "Ashley Madison is the world's leading married dating service for discreet encounters" Their tagline, a registered trademark is, "Life is short. Have an affair.®" "Ashley Madison is the most famous name in infidelity and married dating." "Thousands of cheating wives and cheating husbands signup everyday looking for an affair. "
  - warkdarrior 11y ago
    You are confusing marketing with actual use. Cf "to serve and protect".
    - lambkins 11y ago
      Not surprised to see the overlap between the anti-cop and pro-adultery crowd.
  - brerlapn 11y ago
    I've been known to drink Budweiser. Does that mean that I believe that women will suddenly find me sexy and the Swedish bikini team will appear as I pop off the bottlecap to lavish me with scantily-clad attention? You are conflating the marketing copy of the company with the intentions and motivations of the users. Just because something confirms your most cynical expectations doesn't make it true. Ashley Madison has absolutely no idea whether any particular user, if they are married, is on there to do anything with their profile other than browse, or whether their spouse knows they are on there, or for that matter if a couple is browsing the site together as part of their joint fantasy life, or if they are in an open relationship, or a number of other scenarios that have no impact on you and really provide no basis for you to cast judgment about their motivations--especially in an absence of evidence. See again, my cite to David Brin's article on addiction to outrage.
    - 11y ago
fab13n 11y ago
> I keep getting downvoted whenever I criticise Ashley Madison on the grounds of morality. Why is this? Because although most people agree with you, your statements are not considered as interesting. Presumably because they're considered as trivially true. Votes aren't about whether what you wrote is true/false, but whether reading it provides some insights to readers. If you commented "War in awful!" under a war-related post, you'd be downvoted too, not because people find war awesome, but because reading such a truism give no valuable information to anyone.
dagw 11y ago
To me the relative morality of A-M and the people using it seem somewhat irrelevant to the larger discussion. It's always fun to gloat when bad things happen to 'bad' people, but even people who live a lifestyle you strongly disagree with should have access to the same basic rights as you wish to have, including the right to privacy.
fencepost 11y ago
I know one person that I suspect would be in there if I bothered looking. If he did have an affair I'm sure he'd have been thrilled for his wife to find out, since they were very attached before the stroke and vegetative state. I admin email systems. Not my place to judge.

DanBC 11y ago

I downvote a bunch of these style of posts because they're i) really unpleasant judgemental gloating or ii) idiotic assumptions.

gkop 11y ago

You sound sincere. Part of it may be the fact that, generally, you are violating "judge not lest thee be judged" and specifically, outing the adulterers also stands to cause real harm to their families, and also many of us know of circumstances where covert extramarital affairs kept families together in a good way.

MichaelGG 11y ago

Perhaps because people don't deserve to be punished by crackers? It's not guaranteed all users on there are harming society. It's not like it's, I dunno, Oracle getting internal documents leaked. Or Sony (and despite how bad Sony may be, some folks were rightfully concerned for the damage to innocent employees). Or BP or the USG. Overall I find it rather funny, and I gotta wonder who the hell would use such a site with their real name and billing info. Though I'm not under any delusion that it's fair, or that it's justice, except against the company itself.

brerlapn 11y ago

IMO, you're getting downvoted because your judgment of people on AM assumes facts not in evidence (i.e., that users of AM are there to cheat on their unknowing spouses), and then judges those people based on those facts that only exist in your head. It's self-aggrandizing, and the tone doesn't come off as participation in a discourse about morality as much as a narcissistic statement about the identity you'd like people to assign you ("wow, duncan_bayne is hardcore judgey about those AM users. He must really be against adultery.") See also [0]. Finally, it's also a derail from the reasons people are discussing the story that is more HN-relevant (technical and security aspects, user data practices, etc.). So to answer your closing questions - 1) "no", people discuss morality all the time on HN, especially in relation to economic relations, 2) Probably "yes", because your judgment says more about what you want to say about adultery than about the actual behavior of AM users (who could have all sorts of non-adulterous reasons to be on the site), 3) clearly "no" (see (1)), but jumping to that overarching assumption that people are downvoting your comments because they just don't like morality is part of that self-aggrandizing impression I'm talking about. If this was a dump of Petsmart's customer database, and you posted a bunch of comments judging the Petsmart customers as deserving to be exposed because they bought their pet from a puppy mill and some PETA links, people would downvote you, too--partially for the substance and partially just for derailing the conversation. [0] http://www.davidbrin.com/addiction.html http://www.davidbrin.com/addiction.html

WillPostForFood 11y ago
you're getting downvoted because your judgment of people on AM assumes facts not in evidence (i.e., that users of AM are there to cheat on their unknowing spouses This is all text from the homepage of Ashley Madison: "Ashley Madison is the world's leading married dating service for discreet encounters" Their tagline, a registered trademark is, "Life is short. Have an affair.®" "Ashley Madison is the most famous name in infidelity and married dating." "Thousands of cheating wives and cheating husbands signup everyday looking for an affair. "
- warkdarrior 11y ago
  You are confusing marketing with actual use. Cf "to serve and protect".
  - lambkins 11y ago
    Not surprised to see the overlap between the anti-cop and pro-adultery crowd.
- brerlapn 11y ago
  I've been known to drink Budweiser. Does that mean that I believe that women will suddenly find me sexy and the Swedish bikini team will appear as I pop off the bottlecap to lavish me with scantily-clad attention? You are conflating the marketing copy of the company with the intentions and motivations of the users. Just because something confirms your most cynical expectations doesn't make it true. Ashley Madison has absolutely no idea whether any particular user, if they are married, is on there to do anything with their profile other than browse, or whether their spouse knows they are on there, or for that matter if a couple is browsing the site together as part of their joint fantasy life, or if they are in an open relationship, or a number of other scenarios that have no impact on you and really provide no basis for you to cast judgment about their motivations--especially in an absence of evidence. See again, my cite to David Brin's article on addiction to outrage.
  - 11y ago

fab13n 11y ago

> I keep getting downvoted whenever I criticise Ashley Madison on the grounds of morality. Why is this? Because although most people agree with you, your statements are not considered as interesting. Presumably because they're considered as trivially true. Votes aren't about whether what you wrote is true/false, but whether reading it provides some insights to readers. If you commented "War in awful!" under a war-related post, you'd be downvoted too, not because people find war awesome, but because reading such a truism give no valuable information to anyone.

dagw 11y ago

To me the relative morality of A-M and the people using it seem somewhat irrelevant to the larger discussion. It's always fun to gloat when bad things happen to 'bad' people, but even people who live a lifestyle you strongly disagree with should have access to the same basic rights as you wish to have, including the right to privacy.

fencepost 11y ago

I know one person that I suspect would be in there if I bothered looking. If he did have an affair I'm sure he'd have been thrilled for his wife to find out, since they were very attached before the stroke and vegetative state. I admin email systems. Not my place to judge.