4 ms·

What would you have us say instead? The story in the article describes behavior that's nothing short of reprehensible, with a tragic, absolutely unnecessary out

What would you have us say instead? The story in the article describes behavior that's nothing short of reprehensible, with a tragic, absolutely unnecessary outcome. A man was literally hounded to death for politically slanted clickbait. Anything other than denunciation isn't really called for, here. Is commiseration really so wrong?

dang 8y ago
I'd say denunciation doesn't really go with commiseration. Denunciation shuts down the heart and commiseration comes from it. Since you asked what to do instead, here's my take. When a hot, provocative topic flares up, most of us experience rapid reflexive reactions. Those are determined by how we already feel about the topic, i.e. which side we identify with. Discussion at this stage can't be anything new, because there isn't enough time for anything new to develop. All we can do is lash out, or ward off a perceived attack. This is predictable because fight-or-flight isn't about learning anything, it's about quickly dealing with threats. Any creativity at this stage goes into devising ways to hurt or block the other side. What you can do instead is track those reflexive reactions in yourself and wait until they subside. Once they've subsided, it becomes possible to reflect, i.e. to take in new information, process it, and generate new responses. This is necessary for discussion that isn't predictable. It doesn't mean that you abandon your position, but it puts you in a more flexible place, better able to respond to the specifics of a story—i.e. things you haven't heard before—and better able to take in other views. If you wait out the reflexive phase and get to the reflective phase, I think you'll find that your feelings get softer and your thoughts subtler. That's better for community. One can still disagree, but in a richer way and without feeling surrounded by enemies. When we do this, we exchange a lot more information, making discussion more interesting. I've written a bunch about this in the past if anyone wants more: https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comment&storyText=false&prefix=false&page=0&query=by:dang%20reflexive%20reflective https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme...
- masonic 8y ago
  Speaking of pausing a beat, rereading, and reflecting before posting... That comment is not denunciation. It's some sarcasm followed by me saying this drive-by denunciative journalism makes me sick. I see this as different from "they should be silenced!" or even "boycott all of their advertisers!", let alone "break out the torches and pitchforks!". I enumerated these, uh, "content providers" because not everyone will read the article in depth and recognize the breadth of sites who jumped on this bandwagon. I also wanted to make sure that people recognized that BuzzFeedNews, not BuzzFeed, was the offender in this case (you have to examine the quoted link to see that, as they are just referred to as "BuzzFeed" in the text). The distinction is important given the routine HN brigading in defense of the former in contrast to the latter.
  - dang 8y ago
    I'm sorry that the word denunciation didn't accurately reflect what you were intending. I was referring to the angry sarcasm in your comment. That's enough to worsen the issues we're talking about.
- s_m_t 8y ago
  Have you considered that what this essentially leads to is the only acceptable emotional response being either classic nerd commiseration or over-intellectualizing yourself out of any position that risks any sort of conflict. Essentially, a website of mostly socially stunted nerds with a set of rules to reinforce their unfit social behavior.
  - dang 8y ago
    You bet—I've considered that, or similar objections to that. The thing is, it doesn't work out that way in practice. The opposite is true as well. That is, while one might think that full-out conflict would lead to more honest, explicit communication, in practice it doesn't work that way. What happens is that people's range becomes narrower. There's a lot of energy in it, and a lot of anger, but not much information. That makes such discussions repetitive: mostly people repeat the same hostile points in ever more intense ways. Repetitive discussions can be agitating, but they're not intellectually interesting, so they're the thing we're trying to avoid here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
    - s_m_t 8y ago
      Cool, thanks for the consideration
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

dang 8y ago

I'd say denunciation doesn't really go with commiseration. Denunciation shuts down the heart and commiseration comes from it. Since you asked what to do instead, here's my take. When a hot, provocative topic flares up, most of us experience rapid reflexive reactions. Those are determined by how we already feel about the topic, i.e. which side we identify with. Discussion at this stage can't be anything new, because there isn't enough time for anything new to develop. All we can do is lash out, or ward off a perceived attack. This is predictable because fight-or-flight isn't about learning anything, it's about quickly dealing with threats. Any creativity at this stage goes into devising ways to hurt or block the other side. What you can do instead is track those reflexive reactions in yourself and wait until they subside. Once they've subsided, it becomes possible to reflect, i.e. to take in new information, process it, and generate new responses. This is necessary for discussion that isn't predictable. It doesn't mean that you abandon your position, but it puts you in a more flexible place, better able to respond to the specifics of a story—i.e. things you haven't heard before—and better able to take in other views. If you wait out the reflexive phase and get to the reflective phase, I think you'll find that your feelings get softer and your thoughts subtler. That's better for community. One can still disagree, but in a richer way and without feeling surrounded by enemies. When we do this, we exchange a lot more information, making discussion more interesting. I've written a bunch about this in the past if anyone wants more: https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comment&storyText=false&prefix=false&page=0&query=by:dang%20reflexive%20reflective https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme...

masonic 8y ago
Speaking of pausing a beat, rereading, and reflecting before posting... That comment is not denunciation. It's some sarcasm followed by me saying this drive-by denunciative journalism makes me sick. I see this as different from "they should be silenced!" or even "boycott all of their advertisers!", let alone "break out the torches and pitchforks!". I enumerated these, uh, "content providers" because not everyone will read the article in depth and recognize the breadth of sites who jumped on this bandwagon. I also wanted to make sure that people recognized that BuzzFeedNews, not BuzzFeed, was the offender in this case (you have to examine the quoted link to see that, as they are just referred to as "BuzzFeed" in the text). The distinction is important given the routine HN brigading in defense of the former in contrast to the latter.
- dang 8y ago
  I'm sorry that the word denunciation didn't accurately reflect what you were intending. I was referring to the angry sarcasm in your comment. That's enough to worsen the issues we're talking about.
s_m_t 8y ago
Have you considered that what this essentially leads to is the only acceptable emotional response being either classic nerd commiseration or over-intellectualizing yourself out of any position that risks any sort of conflict. Essentially, a website of mostly socially stunted nerds with a set of rules to reinforce their unfit social behavior.
- dang 8y ago
  You bet—I've considered that, or similar objections to that. The thing is, it doesn't work out that way in practice. The opposite is true as well. That is, while one might think that full-out conflict would lead to more honest, explicit communication, in practice it doesn't work that way. What happens is that people's range becomes narrower. There's a lot of energy in it, and a lot of anger, but not much information. That makes such discussions repetitive: mostly people repeat the same hostile points in ever more intense ways. Repetitive discussions can be agitating, but they're not intellectually interesting, so they're the thing we're trying to avoid here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
  - s_m_t 8y ago
    Cool, thanks for the consideration

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]