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For what it's worth (if it's any solace), you're not alone in noticing this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=evWiz6WRbCA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=evWiz6

For what it's worth (if it's any solace), you're not alone in noticing this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=evWiz6WRbCA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=evWiz6WRbCA I think part of it is the fear of becoming e.g. Justine Sacco. It's incredibly easy for something you say to be taken out of context and to become the target of the internet hate machine. Nuance, complexity, context - whatever you want to call it, it's hard for people to digest. As a result, "celebrities" become either angels or devils. I don't think this unwillingness to accept complexity is a new facet of society, but it's much easier than ever before to get a mob together for the proverbial witch hunt. As a result, lots of people (and I'm not claiming to be an exception) are either going over the top to proclaim their piousness lest they be declared witches, or slinking along silently hoping that no one would ever want to accuse them in the first place.

danso 9y ago
I think Justine Sacco got a raw deal too, but I don't see this as a simple example of society becoming more sensitive. I sympathize with her -- not just because I think you shouldn't ever send death threats to a stranger because of a tweet -- but because I'm sure me and my friends and acquaintances have made that kind of joke too. And the reason why we don't tear each other apart is because we know enough about each other to assume that we are being facetious/ironic/darkly humorous. But Twitter is not a bar, or a group SMS. It is a platform on which you can instantaneously broadcast something to an entire world. The world does not know you, and it's presumptuous to think that hundreds of millions of people should have known who you were. Again, this doesn't justify the hatemob -- I'm just saying that Sacco's situation was less an issue of society becoming too sensitive, and more an issue of tech amplifying our reach far beyond what we comprehend.
- FluteBook 9y ago
  > I'm just saying that Sacco's situation was less an issue of society becoming too sensitive, and more an issue of tech amplifying our reach far beyond what we comprehend. Indeed, and you can see that I agree with you: > I don't think this unwillingness to accept complexity is a new facet of society, but it's much easier than ever before to get a mob together for the proverbial witch hunt.
geofft 9y ago
Huh. I have to admit I'm curious about how that skit got planned internally - SNL certainly leans liberal / social-justicey enough that some of the cast members would have genuinely been on the "this was totally reasonable" side of things, right? So I kind of want to know how they handled the discussion / planning of the skit, and also, I am not quite sure the intended message is as simple as "this went too far, we all know that, but we can't say it". If their message was "there's room for a genuine good-faith discussion about whether this was reasonable or went too far, both of which are reasonable positions to take, and we're all too on edge to have that discussion," I would agree with that. If anything, the fact that a lot of people feel a need to be excessively pious does a disservice to those people who genuinely hold the pious opinion - the excessively pious won't engage in good-faith arguments that they're wrong, because they already know they're wrong, which just ends up hurting the discourse.
- FluteBook 9y ago
  > If their message was "there's room for a genuine good-faith discussion about whether this was reasonable or went too far, both of which are reasonable positions to take, and we're all too on edge to have that discussion," I would agree with that Not to be snarky: I thought it was clear that this was/is the intended message. I certainly didn't get the impression that the skit was taking a stance one way or another and indeed it seems like the characters have differing opinions on it (compare Aidy Bryant's comment with Beck Bennett's). It's incredibly difficult to talk about these things without thinking extremely carefully about how you word your thoughts - hence all the "careful..." comments by the characters in the skit. > If anything, the fact that a lot of people feel a need to be excessively pious does a disservice to those people who genuinely hold the pious opinion - the excessively pious won't engage in good-faith arguments that they're wrong, because they already know they're wrong, which just ends up hurting the discourse. This is indeed a fairly common critique of modern-day "SJWs" (or whatever you want to call that group of people) - that the excessively pious ("virtue signaling" is the usual term) are indeed alienating the more rational and causing the discourse to disappear. (This is also obviously true in the other direction with the "alt-right", though not necessarily relevant to this discussion).

danso 9y ago

I think Justine Sacco got a raw deal too, but I don't see this as a simple example of society becoming more sensitive. I sympathize with her -- not just because I think you shouldn't ever send death threats to a stranger because of a tweet -- but because I'm sure me and my friends and acquaintances have made that kind of joke too. And the reason why we don't tear each other apart is because we know enough about each other to assume that we are being facetious/ironic/darkly humorous. But Twitter is not a bar, or a group SMS. It is a platform on which you can instantaneously broadcast something to an entire world. The world does not know you, and it's presumptuous to think that hundreds of millions of people should have known who you were. Again, this doesn't justify the hatemob -- I'm just saying that Sacco's situation was less an issue of society becoming too sensitive, and more an issue of tech amplifying our reach far beyond what we comprehend.

FluteBook 9y ago
> I'm just saying that Sacco's situation was less an issue of society becoming too sensitive, and more an issue of tech amplifying our reach far beyond what we comprehend. Indeed, and you can see that I agree with you: > I don't think this unwillingness to accept complexity is a new facet of society, but it's much easier than ever before to get a mob together for the proverbial witch hunt.

geofft 9y ago

Huh. I have to admit I'm curious about how that skit got planned internally - SNL certainly leans liberal / social-justicey enough that some of the cast members would have genuinely been on the "this was totally reasonable" side of things, right? So I kind of want to know how they handled the discussion / planning of the skit, and also, I am not quite sure the intended message is as simple as "this went too far, we all know that, but we can't say it". If their message was "there's room for a genuine good-faith discussion about whether this was reasonable or went too far, both of which are reasonable positions to take, and we're all too on edge to have that discussion," I would agree with that. If anything, the fact that a lot of people feel a need to be excessively pious does a disservice to those people who genuinely hold the pious opinion - the excessively pious won't engage in good-faith arguments that they're wrong, because they already know they're wrong, which just ends up hurting the discourse.

FluteBook 9y ago
> If their message was "there's room for a genuine good-faith discussion about whether this was reasonable or went too far, both of which are reasonable positions to take, and we're all too on edge to have that discussion," I would agree with that Not to be snarky: I thought it was clear that this was/is the intended message. I certainly didn't get the impression that the skit was taking a stance one way or another and indeed it seems like the characters have differing opinions on it (compare Aidy Bryant's comment with Beck Bennett's). It's incredibly difficult to talk about these things without thinking extremely carefully about how you word your thoughts - hence all the "careful..." comments by the characters in the skit. > If anything, the fact that a lot of people feel a need to be excessively pious does a disservice to those people who genuinely hold the pious opinion - the excessively pious won't engage in good-faith arguments that they're wrong, because they already know they're wrong, which just ends up hurting the discourse. This is indeed a fairly common critique of modern-day "SJWs" (or whatever you want to call that group of people) - that the excessively pious ("virtue signaling" is the usual term) are indeed alienating the more rational and causing the discourse to disappear. (This is also obviously true in the other direction with the "alt-right", though not necessarily relevant to this discussion).