5 ms·

I wouldn't criticize them so roundly. 1) People want to be slow to accuse 2) People want to believe that most people are good -- that Epstein is a huge outlier

by paggle 7y ago

I wouldn't criticize them so roundly. 1) People want to be slow to accuse 2) People want to believe that most people are good -- that Epstein is a huge outlier and not that he had lots of willing accomplices, co-conspirators, and legitimizers, and 3) People want to believe that MIT, which is held in very high regard in most places, does not harbor such filth.

watwut 7y ago
I think that being slow to accuse is a good thing. But it also should not involve making unverified assumptions that those who complain don't know what they talk about and are surely out of their minds.
keiru 7y ago
It's a good learning opportunity then, and it should be pointed out
paulcole 7y ago
Compare this to any article posted here on Theranos (even years before the truth started to come out). Quick to accuse, believed Holmes was evil from the start, etc. Hmmm, wonder what the difference is?
- mchanson 7y ago
  The same unconscious (and conscious in some folks) misogyny that caused that also causes folks to down vote you.
  - hprotagonist 7y ago
    or, perhaps, a junior year level of education in medical device design. and a healthy skepticism of anything that thinks henry kissinger is a great person to appoint to their board, if we’re all aboard the tu quoque train today.
    - paulcole 7y ago
      Yet somehow the healthy skepticism doesn’t extend to pals of pedophiles and sex traffickers?
- dang 7y ago
  I think this is sample bias. Plenty of people were accusing/defending in both cases. How people remember such discussions is basically a plaster mask of their own views on the topic.
  - paulcole 7y ago
    Don’t you think your own recollection is a sample bias and a “plaster mask” (whatever that is supposed to mean) of your own?
    - dang 7y ago
      Plaster takes on the shape of what it surrounds and hardens into an inverse image of it. This is how people's memories of HN discussions work. You're more likely to notice the comments that seem wrong, unpleasant or offensive, and these make a deeper impression than the ones you agree with, so your image of HN hardens into the inverse image of your own views. People with the opposite views end up with the opposite image of HN. This explains why the claims they make are so contradictory, and why everyone with strong views ends up concluding that HN is on the side of what they dislike. It also explains the intensity aspect of the phenomenon: the intensity of how wrong people think HN is about X is predictable from how intensely they feel about X itself. That's weird if you think about it, but not so weird if you understand how this mechanism works. Do I think it applies to me too? Yes. The mechanism is so consistent that I believe it's universal. I'm sure it applies to many more things than HN too. What makes the moderator's position different is not that we aren't subject to those impressions, but that we're also subject to additional impressions. This happens when, every day for years, it's your job to read and reply to thousands (probably over a million by now) of posts users are making on the site, and evaluate them against a set of hopefully neutral guidelines. That view of the site, pounded in often enough, forces a different perspective over time. In other words, we have the same agree/disagree impulses that everyone else has, but there's also an additional set of "is it good for HN" impulses in how we react to these things. It's just the mechanical effect of doing anything a million times.
heymijo 7y ago
> that Epstein is a huge outlier and not that he had lots of willing accomplices, co-conspirators, and legitimizers I hear you on this and it is basically what I'd like to believe. What I value so much about Anand is that he is pulling back the curtain for people like me to see just how much the people in positions of power enable people like Epstein. This isn't the first "wow, the wizard isn't real moment for me", but it may be a tipping point to casting off my old naive and hopeful assumptions that this sort of thing is an outlier.

by paggle 7y ago

watwut 7y ago

I think that being slow to accuse is a good thing. But it also should not involve making unverified assumptions that those who complain don't know what they talk about and are surely out of their minds.

keiru 7y ago

It's a good learning opportunity then, and it should be pointed out

paulcole 7y ago

Compare this to any article posted here on Theranos (even years before the truth started to come out). Quick to accuse, believed Holmes was evil from the start, etc. Hmmm, wonder what the difference is?

mchanson 7y ago
The same unconscious (and conscious in some folks) misogyny that caused that also causes folks to down vote you.
- hprotagonist 7y ago
  or, perhaps, a junior year level of education in medical device design. and a healthy skepticism of anything that thinks henry kissinger is a great person to appoint to their board, if we’re all aboard the tu quoque train today.
  - paulcole 7y ago
    Yet somehow the healthy skepticism doesn’t extend to pals of pedophiles and sex traffickers?
dang 7y ago
I think this is sample bias. Plenty of people were accusing/defending in both cases. How people remember such discussions is basically a plaster mask of their own views on the topic.
- paulcole 7y ago
  Don’t you think your own recollection is a sample bias and a “plaster mask” (whatever that is supposed to mean) of your own?
  - dang 7y ago
    Plaster takes on the shape of what it surrounds and hardens into an inverse image of it. This is how people's memories of HN discussions work. You're more likely to notice the comments that seem wrong, unpleasant or offensive, and these make a deeper impression than the ones you agree with, so your image of HN hardens into the inverse image of your own views. People with the opposite views end up with the opposite image of HN. This explains why the claims they make are so contradictory, and why everyone with strong views ends up concluding that HN is on the side of what they dislike. It also explains the intensity aspect of the phenomenon: the intensity of how wrong people think HN is about X is predictable from how intensely they feel about X itself. That's weird if you think about it, but not so weird if you understand how this mechanism works. Do I think it applies to me too? Yes. The mechanism is so consistent that I believe it's universal. I'm sure it applies to many more things than HN too. What makes the moderator's position different is not that we aren't subject to those impressions, but that we're also subject to additional impressions. This happens when, every day for years, it's your job to read and reply to thousands (probably over a million by now) of posts users are making on the site, and evaluate them against a set of hopefully neutral guidelines. That view of the site, pounded in often enough, forces a different perspective over time. In other words, we have the same agree/disagree impulses that everyone else has, but there's also an additional set of "is it good for HN" impulses in how we react to these things. It's just the mechanical effect of doing anything a million times.

heymijo 7y ago

> that Epstein is a huge outlier and not that he had lots of willing accomplices, co-conspirators, and legitimizers I hear you on this and it is basically what I'd like to believe. What I value so much about Anand is that he is pulling back the curtain for people like me to see just how much the people in positions of power enable people like Epstein. This isn't the first "wow, the wizard isn't real moment for me", but it may be a tipping point to casting off my old naive and hopeful assumptions that this sort of thing is an outlier.