45 ms·

I’m feeling like a lot of this is more hypothetical than common scenarios that recur.

commandersaki 7y ago
Donglegate.
jlokier 7y ago
It's less common than a straightforwardly legitimate complaint, but it happens often enough to care about if you care about harm from punishment of innocents. If you're willing to treat injustice as a numbers game where, say, only 10% of accused are innocent and punished anyway, I would really want to know what is the severity of the punishment. But it's a bit worse than that: There's a dynamic response if it becomes known that you systematically act on the words of the first accuser. There are people who will start using that knowledge to cause misery for others. In fact, socially I believe it is extremely common for people to cause misery for others in this way, except rather than using an explicit complaint and punishment process, it is done by insinuation and social influence.
- SpicyLemonZest 7y ago
  And it's not even always fair to blame the people causing misery. Some of them are bad actors, sure, but others are scared that they have to get in first or get in trouble themselves. (This isn't always relevant to allegedly creepy interactions, which tend to capture the imagination, but in most hobby groups I think nasty arguments are the more common scenario.)
  - jlokier 7y ago
    Good point. I think of the others in that scenario as a sort of "halo" effect, around the central drivers. They tend to calm down or go away when the central drivers stop. In that scenario, it doesn't take much for even one or two mean-spirited people and their halo people to make life relentlessly miserable and difficult for anyone that is targetted, deliberately or accidentally. The size of the halo can be enormous, hundreds or even millions of people in severe cases (social media storm), but even say 5-10 people is enough to induce great misery, because of social effects. I do blame the halo people for not being more self-aware of the consequences of their actions towards others or caring about it; when I've seen it, most of them seem to not care. "Don't blame me, all I did was...". (The ones who do care when they realise are wonderful though.) I think being scared they have to get in first to avoid trouble is rational but low on an ethical scale. I don't think there's much point in action against the halo people because they each don't tend to have done much except contribute a little to the wave, and "punishments" backfire if there is no clear bad action that is widely recognised. Serious psychological trauma, PTSD etc, which can take years to recover from (if ever), are quite likely for the targets if it persists, especially if it has knock-on effects on the rest of their life. It is not a small thing, but people often don't realise that, or will minimise it unless it's happened to them. Because of the severity of harm that can happen, and especially when it is happening, sometimes I think it is important to recognise and "pick off" the core driving people - or if possible just the problem behaviour - decisively, and the halo will tend to dissipate afterwards. Of course there are countless problems in the details with this, and it may be somewhat unjust, but what else can we do? It isn't justice to let it continue. So if it looks necessary, I start to see a "picking off" intervention as ethically-necessary harm management, rather than platonic justice for all. That makes me sad, but seeing waves of relief in someone kind of makes up for it, and I have a lot of empathy.

Donglegate.

It's less common than a straightforwardly legitimate complaint, but it happens often enough to care about if you care about harm from punishment of innocents. If you're willing to treat injustice as a numbers game where, say, only 10% of accused are innocent and punished anyway, I would really want to know what is the severity of the punishment. But it's a bit worse than that: There's a dynamic response if it becomes known that you systematically act on the words of the first accuser. There are people who will start using that knowledge to cause misery for others. In fact, socially I believe it is extremely common for people to cause misery for others in this way, except rather than using an explicit complaint and punishment process, it is done by insinuation and social influence.

SpicyLemonZest 7y ago
And it's not even always fair to blame the people causing misery. Some of them are bad actors, sure, but others are scared that they have to get in first or get in trouble themselves. (This isn't always relevant to allegedly creepy interactions, which tend to capture the imagination, but in most hobby groups I think nasty arguments are the more common scenario.)
- jlokier 7y ago
  Good point. I think of the others in that scenario as a sort of "halo" effect, around the central drivers. They tend to calm down or go away when the central drivers stop. In that scenario, it doesn't take much for even one or two mean-spirited people and their halo people to make life relentlessly miserable and difficult for anyone that is targetted, deliberately or accidentally. The size of the halo can be enormous, hundreds or even millions of people in severe cases (social media storm), but even say 5-10 people is enough to induce great misery, because of social effects. I do blame the halo people for not being more self-aware of the consequences of their actions towards others or caring about it; when I've seen it, most of them seem to not care. "Don't blame me, all I did was...". (The ones who do care when they realise are wonderful though.) I think being scared they have to get in first to avoid trouble is rational but low on an ethical scale. I don't think there's much point in action against the halo people because they each don't tend to have done much except contribute a little to the wave, and "punishments" backfire if there is no clear bad action that is widely recognised. Serious psychological trauma, PTSD etc, which can take years to recover from (if ever), are quite likely for the targets if it persists, especially if it has knock-on effects on the rest of their life. It is not a small thing, but people often don't realise that, or will minimise it unless it's happened to them. Because of the severity of harm that can happen, and especially when it is happening, sometimes I think it is important to recognise and "pick off" the core driving people - or if possible just the problem behaviour - decisively, and the halo will tend to dissipate afterwards. Of course there are countless problems in the details with this, and it may be somewhat unjust, but what else can we do? It isn't justice to let it continue. So if it looks necessary, I start to see a "picking off" intervention as ethically-necessary harm management, rather than platonic justice for all. That makes me sad, but seeing waves of relief in someone kind of makes up for it, and I have a lot of empathy.