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I've noticed a growth of righteous indignation from people, particularly over the past 10 years. It's not enough that one person disagrees with another, now th

I've noticed a growth of righteous indignation from people, particularly over the past 10 years. It's not enough that one person disagrees with another, now this disagreement is manifesting itself in proactive rage. This rage gets directed in a vengeful, sinister effort to gravely harm someone, by getting them fired from their job etc. It seems like it's increasing, and no one is being held accountable. I've not seen this level of vitriol and other cultures, it seems uniquely American.

stevecalifornia 9y ago
China is well known to have this culture as well.
- rjeli 9y ago
  I've never heard of this, please elaborate. What are the dividing topics?
  - schoen 9y ago
    I guess the reports in English usually refer to the "human flesh search engine": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_flesh_search_engine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_flesh_search_engine From the description, this might encompass phenomena that we would call both coordinated harassment and public shaming, and maybe the original article by Megan McArdle also means to encompass both, though it seems to have more focus on public shaming.
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
zaptheimpaler 9y ago
Some people need to find a bad guy to demonize so that they, by contrast can be the good guys.
linkregister 9y ago
The first example that comes to my mind of this manifesting over the internet would be the Korean woman harassed relentlessly over failing to pick up her dog's poop on a subway train in 2005. It was one of the major incidents that drove the country to implement a Real Name policy for Korean website operators. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/06/AR2005070601953.html http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07...
rtpg 9y ago
Lynching, soccer mobs, religious wars, boycott campaigns, advertising pushback... I think the biggest change is that it's pretty low effort to send harassing tweets, relative to (say) figuring out someone's address and sending them threats via snail mail or phone call.
trprog 9y ago
There is nothing uniquely American about extreme aggression towards people holding differing views. Although the current state of American society isn't great it can get so so much worse. A couple of examples. 1) The Cultural Revolution (China) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_Revolution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_Revolution Several hundred thousand to maybe a few million people were killed, often at the hands of angry mobs, for not being the right kind of communist, for not being communist enough or for just not being friends with the right people. A person could be accused by someone who didn't like them with zero evidence of any wrongdoing and still the victim would lose their home, all of the belongings and potentially their life. This lasted from the mid 60 until the mid 70s. 2) Something current https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_Saudi_Arabia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_Saudi_Arabia >Religious minorities do not have the right to practice their religion. Non-Muslim propagation is banned, and conversion from Islam to another religion is punishable by death
- guildwriter 9y ago
  Speaking of religion, what this entire phenomenon really reminds me of is the advent of the printing press and Martin Luther. http://www.economist.com/node/21541719 http://www.economist.com/node/21541719 After Martin Luther printed his Ninty-Five Theses, Europe promptly lost its collective shit across the board. My European History is a bit rusty but a cursory glance at the Wikipedia topic should give a good idea of how much chaos the ability to spread ideas quickly and widely created. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reformation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reformation We're talking years and years of civil war and strife. All because people who were once separated and thought they were alone found out they were not. If we use this as a barometer, we're in for some stormy seas.
guildwriter 9y ago
It's not uniquely American. Do some searches on Korea about the escalating fight between Feminist and Anti-Feminist groups. Megalia is probably the most well known and infamous organization. It's difficult to comment on due to the sheer . . . well. I'll give some links as an example: http://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2016/07/29/487832991/south-korea-is-contending-with-a-gamergate-of-its-own-over-a-t-shirt http://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2016/07/29/487... https://www.10mag.com/megalia-south-koreas-radical-feminism-community/ https://www.10mag.com/megalia-south-koreas-radical-feminism-... https://www.koreabang.com/2016/features/the-rise-of-radical-korean-feminist-community-megalia.html https://www.koreabang.com/2016/features/the-rise-of-radical-... https://www.reddit.com/r/korea/comments/4vb3lb/megalia_south_korean_feminism_goes_online/ https://www.reddit.com/r/korea/comments/4vb3lb/megalia_south... http://i.imgur.com/1uePL0H.png http://i.imgur.com/1uePL0H.png I've given more than several different links for a reason. The difference in perspectives is really jarring and it's difficult to reconcile the two perspectives. Depending on who you talk to, Megalia is anything from a beleaguered feminist organization under attack from a misogynistic society, to a radical feminist group that is deeply hateful towards men of all kinds (straight/gay). If you dig deep enough, you'll see that a lot of important details in accounts on both sides get shaved away to create a compelling narrative. The end result is a real online bloodbath that has touched a lot of different aspects of Korean society.
- mc32 9y ago
  I've only heard of these kinds of vitriol in S.K --but I'm still surprised by the amount of all out hate outlined in your links --in an otherwise, at least on the surface, cohesive society. I'm just grateful that so far, Korea seems an outlier of this, at the present moment --not that it doesn't happen elsewhere or that it could not happen in places where it's rather tame. I hope as a species we find ways out of this kind of unfettered rancor. To be fair, not unlike a few other countries out there, S.K historically has been pretty patriarchal, so given this new outlet, this vehemence is not all that surprising as they learn to navigate these waters (who other might have to learn as well).
  - guildwriter 9y ago
remarkEon 9y ago
How disagreements used to happen: I think [idea]. Here's my evidence. How they happen now: Speaking as a [member in X class], I believe [idea]. We've started to tie up our identities into our arguments, and when you do that you can't get around attacking who someone is as a person when they link their membership in a group to the epistemology of why they think something. This is my working theory for why people have started to equate speech with "literally violence". Disagreeing has become an attack on their identity, so it's only natural to interpret that in an extreme form.
- jacalata 9y ago
  So, where is your evidence that people used to have more evidence based discussions? How does it reconcile the historic role of religion in guiding the average person's beliefs and politics? Hell, how does it reconcile the historic prevalence of religion?
- xxXXxx- 9y ago
  You have a very, very misguided view of the past, we have always tied up our identities into our arguments. In fact, I would say less so now than in the past not moreso.
  - mLuby 9y ago
    it's perhaps misguided, but not very, very misguided. hyperbole fuels the mob.
    - xxXXxx- 9y ago
      Hyperbole? The definition of hyperbole is "exaggerated statements or claims not meant to be taken literally." My statement is not hyperbole, it was not at all exaggerated is meant to be taken literally. People have gone to war over this shit.
- observation 9y ago
  I miss the days when nobody used their real name online and certainly didn't attach photos of their face to it. Most of us would be better off if we went back to those days, I expect a lot of HN users already don't have social media profiles.
peter_retief 9y ago
Also known as virtue signaling
gaius 9y ago
by getting them fired from their job etc. It seems like it's increasing, and no one is being held accountable It's because there's an asymmetry - students neither have jobs to be fired from nor the life experience to understand why it's such a serious matter to do it to someone. The accountability will come when the record of having been arrested for rioting/vandalism shows up in background checks when they do eventually enter the workforce. That's not much comfort I know to their victims. The wheels of justice turn slowly, but they do grind exceedingly fine.
- matt4077 9y ago
  Sorry to interrupt your revenge phantasy, but where do you get the idea that people opposing neo-nazis are exclusively college students, or that they commit crimes in any number that would be significant? Looking at photos of the recent rallies in Boston as well as Charlottesville, I think any reasonable observer would conclude that those opposing the nazis tend to have better jobs than those they are opposing. I'm drawing this conclusion for the distinct difference in the amount of face tattoos between these two groups.
  - gaius 9y ago
    Sorry to interrupt your revenge phantasy I think you are projecting your own fantasies onto what I wrote, such as everyone you disagree with is "a nazi". I am talking about indiscretions of youth coming back to bite people, and online spats that we used to call flamewars spilling over into the real world. For me, the line is crossed when an act of physical violence is performed, and we already have laws to deal with it. We don't need online mob justice too.
observation 9y ago
I don't see this kind of thing in European countries, nowhere close to this level. It's clearly a moral panic.

stevecalifornia 9y ago

China is well known to have this culture as well.

rjeli 9y ago
I've never heard of this, please elaborate. What are the dividing topics?
- schoen 9y ago
  I guess the reports in English usually refer to the "human flesh search engine": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_flesh_search_engine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_flesh_search_engine From the description, this might encompass phenomena that we would call both coordinated harassment and public shaming, and maybe the original article by Megan McArdle also means to encompass both, though it seems to have more focus on public shaming.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]

zaptheimpaler 9y ago

Some people need to find a bad guy to demonize so that they, by contrast can be the good guys.

linkregister 9y ago

The first example that comes to my mind of this manifesting over the internet would be the Korean woman harassed relentlessly over failing to pick up her dog's poop on a subway train in 2005. It was one of the major incidents that drove the country to implement a Real Name policy for Korean website operators. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/06/AR2005070601953.html http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07...

rtpg 9y ago

Lynching, soccer mobs, religious wars, boycott campaigns, advertising pushback... I think the biggest change is that it's pretty low effort to send harassing tweets, relative to (say) figuring out someone's address and sending them threats via snail mail or phone call.

trprog 9y ago

There is nothing uniquely American about extreme aggression towards people holding differing views. Although the current state of American society isn't great it can get so so much worse. A couple of examples. 1) The Cultural Revolution (China) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_Revolution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_Revolution Several hundred thousand to maybe a few million people were killed, often at the hands of angry mobs, for not being the right kind of communist, for not being communist enough or for just not being friends with the right people. A person could be accused by someone who didn't like them with zero evidence of any wrongdoing and still the victim would lose their home, all of the belongings and potentially their life. This lasted from the mid 60 until the mid 70s. 2) Something current https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_Saudi_Arabia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_Saudi_Arabia >Religious minorities do not have the right to practice their religion. Non-Muslim propagation is banned, and conversion from Islam to another religion is punishable by death

guildwriter 9y ago
Speaking of religion, what this entire phenomenon really reminds me of is the advent of the printing press and Martin Luther. http://www.economist.com/node/21541719 http://www.economist.com/node/21541719 After Martin Luther printed his Ninty-Five Theses, Europe promptly lost its collective shit across the board. My European History is a bit rusty but a cursory glance at the Wikipedia topic should give a good idea of how much chaos the ability to spread ideas quickly and widely created. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reformation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reformation We're talking years and years of civil war and strife. All because people who were once separated and thought they were alone found out they were not. If we use this as a barometer, we're in for some stormy seas.

guildwriter 9y ago

It's not uniquely American. Do some searches on Korea about the escalating fight between Feminist and Anti-Feminist groups. Megalia is probably the most well known and infamous organization. It's difficult to comment on due to the sheer . . . well. I'll give some links as an example: http://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2016/07/29/487832991/south-korea-is-contending-with-a-gamergate-of-its-own-over-a-t-shirt http://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2016/07/29/487... https://www.10mag.com/megalia-south-koreas-radical-feminism-community/ https://www.10mag.com/megalia-south-koreas-radical-feminism-... https://www.koreabang.com/2016/features/the-rise-of-radical-korean-feminist-community-megalia.html https://www.koreabang.com/2016/features/the-rise-of-radical-... https://www.reddit.com/r/korea/comments/4vb3lb/megalia_south_korean_feminism_goes_online/ https://www.reddit.com/r/korea/comments/4vb3lb/megalia_south... http://i.imgur.com/1uePL0H.png http://i.imgur.com/1uePL0H.png I've given more than several different links for a reason. The difference in perspectives is really jarring and it's difficult to reconcile the two perspectives. Depending on who you talk to, Megalia is anything from a beleaguered feminist organization under attack from a misogynistic society, to a radical feminist group that is deeply hateful towards men of all kinds (straight/gay). If you dig deep enough, you'll see that a lot of important details in accounts on both sides get shaved away to create a compelling narrative. The end result is a real online bloodbath that has touched a lot of different aspects of Korean society.

mc32 9y ago
I've only heard of these kinds of vitriol in S.K --but I'm still surprised by the amount of all out hate outlined in your links --in an otherwise, at least on the surface, cohesive society. I'm just grateful that so far, Korea seems an outlier of this, at the present moment --not that it doesn't happen elsewhere or that it could not happen in places where it's rather tame. I hope as a species we find ways out of this kind of unfettered rancor. To be fair, not unlike a few other countries out there, S.K historically has been pretty patriarchal, so given this new outlet, this vehemence is not all that surprising as they learn to navigate these waters (who other might have to learn as well).
- guildwriter 9y ago

remarkEon 9y ago

How disagreements used to happen: I think [idea]. Here's my evidence. How they happen now: Speaking as a [member in X class], I believe [idea]. We've started to tie up our identities into our arguments, and when you do that you can't get around attacking who someone is as a person when they link their membership in a group to the epistemology of why they think something. This is my working theory for why people have started to equate speech with "literally violence". Disagreeing has become an attack on their identity, so it's only natural to interpret that in an extreme form.

jacalata 9y ago
So, where is your evidence that people used to have more evidence based discussions? How does it reconcile the historic role of religion in guiding the average person's beliefs and politics? Hell, how does it reconcile the historic prevalence of religion?
xxXXxx- 9y ago
You have a very, very misguided view of the past, we have always tied up our identities into our arguments. In fact, I would say less so now than in the past not moreso.
- mLuby 9y ago
  it's perhaps misguided, but not very, very misguided. hyperbole fuels the mob.
  - xxXXxx- 9y ago
    Hyperbole? The definition of hyperbole is "exaggerated statements or claims not meant to be taken literally." My statement is not hyperbole, it was not at all exaggerated is meant to be taken literally. People have gone to war over this shit.
observation 9y ago
I miss the days when nobody used their real name online and certainly didn't attach photos of their face to it. Most of us would be better off if we went back to those days, I expect a lot of HN users already don't have social media profiles.

peter_retief 9y ago

Also known as virtue signaling

gaius 9y ago

by getting them fired from their job etc. It seems like it's increasing, and no one is being held accountable It's because there's an asymmetry - students neither have jobs to be fired from nor the life experience to understand why it's such a serious matter to do it to someone. The accountability will come when the record of having been arrested for rioting/vandalism shows up in background checks when they do eventually enter the workforce. That's not much comfort I know to their victims. The wheels of justice turn slowly, but they do grind exceedingly fine.

matt4077 9y ago
Sorry to interrupt your revenge phantasy, but where do you get the idea that people opposing neo-nazis are exclusively college students, or that they commit crimes in any number that would be significant? Looking at photos of the recent rallies in Boston as well as Charlottesville, I think any reasonable observer would conclude that those opposing the nazis tend to have better jobs than those they are opposing. I'm drawing this conclusion for the distinct difference in the amount of face tattoos between these two groups.
- gaius 9y ago
  Sorry to interrupt your revenge phantasy I think you are projecting your own fantasies onto what I wrote, such as everyone you disagree with is "a nazi". I am talking about indiscretions of youth coming back to bite people, and online spats that we used to call flamewars spilling over into the real world. For me, the line is crossed when an act of physical violence is performed, and we already have laws to deal with it. We don't need online mob justice too.

observation 9y ago

I don't see this kind of thing in European countries, nowhere close to this level. It's clearly a moral panic.