8 ms·

Maybe We Should Go Easy on Uncle Bob

19 points by kmdupree 8y ago

jamestimmins 8y ago
In general, it seems that we easily decry public shaming or mass pile-ons when we have no dog in the fight, but when we feel we have the moral high ground, it's all too easy to fall into mob-thinking. History is full of dangerous mobs who felt morally justified in their actions only to be judged as immoral at a later time, which is perhaps reason enough to avoid mob-thinking. This is clearly one of humanity's blindspots.
- DanielBMarkham 8y ago
  I keep getting back to one word, whether it's hiring good teams or public displays of purity: humility. On HN, we try to assume positive intent. Many times I fail. But it's that effort, that humility, that makes productive conversations happen. I'm okay with being correct and moral and having strong convictions -- and the world not agreeing with me. That's because who knows? I might be wrong. Been wrong a lot before. But once I drop that humility, then it's only natural to go out seeking wrongs to right. After all, I have the high ground!
walterstucco 8y ago
Hillary Clinton cannot be a socialist under any definition of socialist Trump and white suprematism are the same thing not because a lack of understanding, but because he used their rethoric to convince them to vote him (I'm the first white president) If there's something that leftists don't save on it's analysis (on the analysis of the analysis and so on...) We should go easy on Uncle Bob because he's older than us, not because something else
DanielBMarkham 8y ago
Watching the uproar, I am ashamed of the tech community I've called home for many decades. Bob's always been the kind of person that would take a position, popular or not, and ask people to reason with him so that either he's wrong or the other person is. There's no hate here, just open inquiry. Sometimes Bob has good ideas, sometimes he has bad ideas. Like the rest of us. Sometimes he states his ideas poorly. My mission is to make technology developer's lives happier and more productive. To do that I meet people where they are and openly and honestly try to help. I find when I get my focus on to other things, I tend to do a really poor job. When I see this kind of herd-like mobbing and shunning, supposedly by professionals, I wonder what it's like to work with some of these people. Would I want to bring somebody in to an emotionally-charged situation that publicly shames and shuts down conversation they're uncomfortable with? At some point you're either humble and your mission comes first -- or you're sitting on the sidelines throwing rocks at people. If I ran a brothel and it caught on fire, I would want some people in a red truck to show up and put the fire out. I wouldn't want a lecture on evils of the business I was in. Save the lectures for your church group. I apologize for the rant. I personally know people on both sides of this. It is disturbing. I feel like what happened to Bob can happen to anybody. As one person IMed a week or so "Having an opinion like Bob's or supporting him is a good way to lose your job!" It is. And that's fucked up.
regularfry 8y ago
There comes a point when all the arguments are well known, the direction of travel is obvious, and there's no real grounds for disagreement given the facts. At that point one can easily assume that the disagreement is not in good faith, and therefore not worth engaging with.
- steve_g 8y ago
  I think there can be good faith disagreement even when all the items you mentioned are agreed upon. The basis for the disagreements may be presuppositions, values, and priorities - people may differ here, in good faith. To use a controversial (and simplified) example, the abortion debate may result from conflicts between a women's right to autonomy over her body vs. a child's right to life. I think both sides would agree these two values are positive; the difference is which takes priority. Now it may also be true that it's not worth arguing about values, because they are not likely to change based on argument. But I still think many of these arguments are made in good faith.
olefoo 8y ago
If you think your government carrying out ethnic cleansing operations is just a minor thing but that comparing those ethnic cleansing operations to earlier ones by other governments that you were taught were bad is rude... You are not a good person. Shaming is thoroughly justified here. What the US government has been doing to the most vulnerable, brought here by their parents, fleeing persecution and coming to what was once a beacon of hope for a better life; is shameful. Shaming those who support shameful policies is one of the few effective ways we can arrest the slide into catastrophe. When the .gov is looking at ways to strip naturalized citizens of their citizenship; you should be alarmed because it will not stop there. Look around, do you have coworkers, family, loved ones who are not in the groups favored by this administration? They are at risk. We are all at risk. If the price of putting a stop to this is to slightly reduce the social standing of someone who I only ever hear of when he does something gross. ( Porn slides at a conference, this. ) I am OK with that.
- DanielBMarkham 8y ago
  I'm an open borders guy. I have been for years. I have no problem with vastly liberalizing immigration policy. I also have direct experience in immigration, having worked at ICE for a couple of years. I know how it works on the inside. I've worked with immigrants and have done my best to help them my entire career. I've been very fortunate to have worked with great people from all over. Finally, I know a lot of people on both sides of this issue. If you are willing to accept new information, I'd like to share with you that the U.S. is not carrying out ethnic cleansing operations. To me that appears a very dramatic and unsupported claim, geared toward getting people upset (and keeping yourself upset) more than understanding the issues involved. I have a dozen things to be angry about when it comes to U.S. policy on immigration and travel. Almost weekly I am either angry or ashamed. But the world does not exist to conform to my emotional state. I have been angry about many of these things for a long, long time. None of that has anything to do with Bob. Picking out a new victim every week and publicly shaming them isn't going to bring people together to solve problems. This behavior is creating a world in which problems and conflict are just going to get worse, not reach resolution. These folks are not helping the very causes they claim to support -- one of another half-dozen things that drives me nuts about watching this idiocy. Want to fix this? Me too. Stop trying to keep exacerbating it.
jdlshore 8y ago
Taken out of context, my "shaming" tweet looks like a horrible overreaction. And I agree! Shaming someone for a mild tweet about a historical analogy is just weird. Look at the context and it makes more sense. Unfortunately, TFA left that context out. The context was: a) Bob's attempt to deflect criticism of a child-separation policy, which is going to cause lasting harm to thousands of children, mostly by repeating right-wing pundits that were outright defending the policy. b) Five hours of tweets before mine, most of which were people trying to engage in good faith with Bob and being ignored. c) Bob's history of engaging in bad faith mockery of people who criticized his attitude towards women. All that led to a situation where a) I wanted to tell Bob I agreed with people saying he was in the wrong; b) I felt every point I wanted to make had already been made by other people replying to Bob, who he had largely ignored; and c) I didn't want to engage in further discussion with Bob. Finally: I'm not far-left, politically speaking. I'm registered independent and fairly centrist in terms of the historical American political spectrum. (That puts me on the right-wing/conservative side by European standards.) I believe in market-based solutions, personal freedom, and minimal regulation sufficient to counterbalance the wealthy and powerful. I am also someone who sees racists, holocaust deniers, and overt Nazis coming out of the woodwork. In my home town of Portland, a very left-wing city, the Proud Boys (a white supremacist group) are inciting violence and beating people up [1]. Holocaust deniers and self-proclaimed Nazis are running for GOP office [2]. Lifelong Republican voices are abandoning the party [3]. I don't know what the best response to this is. I'm just somebody who's never gotten involved in politics before. To me, it seems like a situation where social norms [4] are breaking down--where, previously, racist views were something you hesitated to share in mixed company, now more and more people think it's okay. In my mind, our country needs to reset social norms. Making it socially uncomfortable to deflect criticism of a cruel and unjust policy is one small step. [1] https://www.politico.com/story/2018/07/04/rauner-cruz-nazi-arthur-jones-chicago-694768 https://www.politico.com/story/2018/07/04/rauner-cruz-nazi-a... [2] http://www.wweek.com/news/2018/06/30/portland-police-declare-a-riot-after-right-wing-marchers-begin-beating-antifascists-with-flag-poles/ http://www.wweek.com/news/2018/06/30/portland-police-declare... [3] https://www.politico.com/story/2016/06/george-will-leaves-gop-224801 https://www.politico.com/story/2016/06/george-will-leaves-go... [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_norm https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_norm PS: I'm leaving for a vacation today, so I may not respond to replies.
bluesnowmonkey 8y ago
It breaks my heart when I hear the stories about these kids. That said, Bob is right. Is it even controversial to say there's a massive amount of shameful political rhetoric going around out there? I mean, that's usually the case, whatever is happening in the world. Each side is always watching for any kind of misstep by the other that can be exploited for political gain. Remember when the whole country spent a long time taking about nothing but Clinton's affair? All over the news. We even impeached him! Shameful political maneuvering. Am I defending his affair by saying this? Obviously not. But the reason the country got worked up about it was not that it really mattered so much what he did, but that someone powerful had something to gain by igniting a political firestorm. So yeah it plays really well to audiences, babies being torn from their mothers bosoms. And it's really good for Trump's opponents if you hear a lot about it. So you're going to hear a LOT about it.
jstewartmobile 8y ago
We should, because one day we will all be old, and we will all have snot nosed kids react to our current "liberal" ideas in exactly the same way.
anothergoogler 8y ago
Why do intelligent people think it's wise to take a stand on a medium as crippled and incendiary as Twitter? Regardless of the merits of your views or where they lie on the political spectrum, you're basically putting on a seal suit and diving into a tank of hungry sharks.
- DanielBMarkham 8y ago
  I've been thinking about your comment for the last couple of days. It was quite piercing. I don't have a good reply. The best I have is that Twitter seems to do something that other forms of communication do not. When it works is when I throw out some technical issue I'm struggling with and people chime in and help. When it doesn't work is when I try to provoke or lash out emotionally because nobody listens to me. I wish there was much more of the first and much less of the second.
RickJWagner 8y ago
I'm with Uncle Bob on this one. For the record, he tweets things that lean both right and left. It's true Trump broke up families. It's equally true that Obama handed immigrant children off to sex traffickers. Neither should be compared to Nazis. Those who use such hyperbole will be completely ashamed of themselves in years ahead. Count on it.
mcphage 8y ago
> Can social pressure work on positions that make up large portions of the country? Not in my experience. I’ve only seen polarization come from “social pressure” on conservatives. It worked very well on drunk driving. Previously seen as a minor problem, a very public campaign to shame the act—and drunk drivers—has reduced the incidence of drunk driving considerably—fatalities down 50% since 1980.

19 points by kmdupree 8y ago

In general, it seems that we easily decry public shaming or mass pile-ons when we have no dog in the fight, but when we feel we have the moral high ground, it's all too easy to fall into mob-thinking. History is full of dangerous mobs who felt morally justified in their actions only to be judged as immoral at a later time, which is perhaps reason enough to avoid mob-thinking. This is clearly one of humanity's blindspots.

DanielBMarkham 8y ago
I keep getting back to one word, whether it's hiring good teams or public displays of purity: humility. On HN, we try to assume positive intent. Many times I fail. But it's that effort, that humility, that makes productive conversations happen. I'm okay with being correct and moral and having strong convictions -- and the world not agreeing with me. That's because who knows? I might be wrong. Been wrong a lot before. But once I drop that humility, then it's only natural to go out seeking wrongs to right. After all, I have the high ground!

walterstucco 8y ago

Hillary Clinton cannot be a socialist under any definition of socialist Trump and white suprematism are the same thing not because a lack of understanding, but because he used their rethoric to convince them to vote him (I'm the first white president) If there's something that leftists don't save on it's analysis (on the analysis of the analysis and so on...) We should go easy on Uncle Bob because he's older than us, not because something else

DanielBMarkham 8y ago

Watching the uproar, I am ashamed of the tech community I've called home for many decades. Bob's always been the kind of person that would take a position, popular or not, and ask people to reason with him so that either he's wrong or the other person is. There's no hate here, just open inquiry. Sometimes Bob has good ideas, sometimes he has bad ideas. Like the rest of us. Sometimes he states his ideas poorly. My mission is to make technology developer's lives happier and more productive. To do that I meet people where they are and openly and honestly try to help. I find when I get my focus on to other things, I tend to do a really poor job. When I see this kind of herd-like mobbing and shunning, supposedly by professionals, I wonder what it's like to work with some of these people. Would I want to bring somebody in to an emotionally-charged situation that publicly shames and shuts down conversation they're uncomfortable with? At some point you're either humble and your mission comes first -- or you're sitting on the sidelines throwing rocks at people. If I ran a brothel and it caught on fire, I would want some people in a red truck to show up and put the fire out. I wouldn't want a lecture on evils of the business I was in. Save the lectures for your church group. I apologize for the rant. I personally know people on both sides of this. It is disturbing. I feel like what happened to Bob can happen to anybody. As one person IMed a week or so "Having an opinion like Bob's or supporting him is a good way to lose your job!" It is. And that's fucked up.

regularfry 8y ago

There comes a point when all the arguments are well known, the direction of travel is obvious, and there's no real grounds for disagreement given the facts. At that point one can easily assume that the disagreement is not in good faith, and therefore not worth engaging with.

steve_g 8y ago
I think there can be good faith disagreement even when all the items you mentioned are agreed upon. The basis for the disagreements may be presuppositions, values, and priorities - people may differ here, in good faith. To use a controversial (and simplified) example, the abortion debate may result from conflicts between a women's right to autonomy over her body vs. a child's right to life. I think both sides would agree these two values are positive; the difference is which takes priority. Now it may also be true that it's not worth arguing about values, because they are not likely to change based on argument. But I still think many of these arguments are made in good faith.

olefoo 8y ago

If you think your government carrying out ethnic cleansing operations is just a minor thing but that comparing those ethnic cleansing operations to earlier ones by other governments that you were taught were bad is rude... You are not a good person. Shaming is thoroughly justified here. What the US government has been doing to the most vulnerable, brought here by their parents, fleeing persecution and coming to what was once a beacon of hope for a better life; is shameful. Shaming those who support shameful policies is one of the few effective ways we can arrest the slide into catastrophe. When the .gov is looking at ways to strip naturalized citizens of their citizenship; you should be alarmed because it will not stop there. Look around, do you have coworkers, family, loved ones who are not in the groups favored by this administration? They are at risk. We are all at risk. If the price of putting a stop to this is to slightly reduce the social standing of someone who I only ever hear of when he does something gross. ( Porn slides at a conference, this. ) I am OK with that.

DanielBMarkham 8y ago
I'm an open borders guy. I have been for years. I have no problem with vastly liberalizing immigration policy. I also have direct experience in immigration, having worked at ICE for a couple of years. I know how it works on the inside. I've worked with immigrants and have done my best to help them my entire career. I've been very fortunate to have worked with great people from all over. Finally, I know a lot of people on both sides of this issue. If you are willing to accept new information, I'd like to share with you that the U.S. is not carrying out ethnic cleansing operations. To me that appears a very dramatic and unsupported claim, geared toward getting people upset (and keeping yourself upset) more than understanding the issues involved. I have a dozen things to be angry about when it comes to U.S. policy on immigration and travel. Almost weekly I am either angry or ashamed. But the world does not exist to conform to my emotional state. I have been angry about many of these things for a long, long time. None of that has anything to do with Bob. Picking out a new victim every week and publicly shaming them isn't going to bring people together to solve problems. This behavior is creating a world in which problems and conflict are just going to get worse, not reach resolution. These folks are not helping the very causes they claim to support -- one of another half-dozen things that drives me nuts about watching this idiocy. Want to fix this? Me too. Stop trying to keep exacerbating it.

jdlshore 8y ago

Taken out of context, my "shaming" tweet looks like a horrible overreaction. And I agree! Shaming someone for a mild tweet about a historical analogy is just weird. Look at the context and it makes more sense. Unfortunately, TFA left that context out. The context was: a) Bob's attempt to deflect criticism of a child-separation policy, which is going to cause lasting harm to thousands of children, mostly by repeating right-wing pundits that were outright defending the policy. b) Five hours of tweets before mine, most of which were people trying to engage in good faith with Bob and being ignored. c) Bob's history of engaging in bad faith mockery of people who criticized his attitude towards women. All that led to a situation where a) I wanted to tell Bob I agreed with people saying he was in the wrong; b) I felt every point I wanted to make had already been made by other people replying to Bob, who he had largely ignored; and c) I didn't want to engage in further discussion with Bob. Finally: I'm not far-left, politically speaking. I'm registered independent and fairly centrist in terms of the historical American political spectrum. (That puts me on the right-wing/conservative side by European standards.) I believe in market-based solutions, personal freedom, and minimal regulation sufficient to counterbalance the wealthy and powerful. I am also someone who sees racists, holocaust deniers, and overt Nazis coming out of the woodwork. In my home town of Portland, a very left-wing city, the Proud Boys (a white supremacist group) are inciting violence and beating people up [1]. Holocaust deniers and self-proclaimed Nazis are running for GOP office [2]. Lifelong Republican voices are abandoning the party [3]. I don't know what the best response to this is. I'm just somebody who's never gotten involved in politics before. To me, it seems like a situation where social norms [4] are breaking down--where, previously, racist views were something you hesitated to share in mixed company, now more and more people think it's okay. In my mind, our country needs to reset social norms. Making it socially uncomfortable to deflect criticism of a cruel and unjust policy is one small step. [1] https://www.politico.com/story/2018/07/04/rauner-cruz-nazi-arthur-jones-chicago-694768 https://www.politico.com/story/2018/07/04/rauner-cruz-nazi-a... [2] http://www.wweek.com/news/2018/06/30/portland-police-declare-a-riot-after-right-wing-marchers-begin-beating-antifascists-with-flag-poles/ http://www.wweek.com/news/2018/06/30/portland-police-declare... [3] https://www.politico.com/story/2016/06/george-will-leaves-gop-224801 https://www.politico.com/story/2016/06/george-will-leaves-go... [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_norm https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_norm PS: I'm leaving for a vacation today, so I may not respond to replies.

bluesnowmonkey 8y ago

It breaks my heart when I hear the stories about these kids. That said, Bob is right. Is it even controversial to say there's a massive amount of shameful political rhetoric going around out there? I mean, that's usually the case, whatever is happening in the world. Each side is always watching for any kind of misstep by the other that can be exploited for political gain. Remember when the whole country spent a long time taking about nothing but Clinton's affair? All over the news. We even impeached him! Shameful political maneuvering. Am I defending his affair by saying this? Obviously not. But the reason the country got worked up about it was not that it really mattered so much what he did, but that someone powerful had something to gain by igniting a political firestorm. So yeah it plays really well to audiences, babies being torn from their mothers bosoms. And it's really good for Trump's opponents if you hear a lot about it. So you're going to hear a LOT about it.

jstewartmobile 8y ago

We should, because one day we will all be old, and we will all have snot nosed kids react to our current "liberal" ideas in exactly the same way.

anothergoogler 8y ago

Why do intelligent people think it's wise to take a stand on a medium as crippled and incendiary as Twitter? Regardless of the merits of your views or where they lie on the political spectrum, you're basically putting on a seal suit and diving into a tank of hungry sharks.

DanielBMarkham 8y ago
I've been thinking about your comment for the last couple of days. It was quite piercing. I don't have a good reply. The best I have is that Twitter seems to do something that other forms of communication do not. When it works is when I throw out some technical issue I'm struggling with and people chime in and help. When it doesn't work is when I try to provoke or lash out emotionally because nobody listens to me. I wish there was much more of the first and much less of the second.

RickJWagner 8y ago

I'm with Uncle Bob on this one. For the record, he tweets things that lean both right and left. It's true Trump broke up families. It's equally true that Obama handed immigrant children off to sex traffickers. Neither should be compared to Nazis. Those who use such hyperbole will be completely ashamed of themselves in years ahead. Count on it.

mcphage 8y ago

> Can social pressure work on positions that make up large portions of the country? Not in my experience. I’ve only seen polarization come from “social pressure” on conservatives. It worked very well on drunk driving. Previously seen as a minor problem, a very public campaign to shame the act—and drunk drivers—has reduced the incidence of drunk driving considerably—fatalities down 50% since 1980.