4 ms·

I agree wholeheartedly, spite is an extremely significant but hard to see and often unmentioned motivating force behind people's actions. Significant enough th

I agree wholeheartedly, spite is an extremely significant but hard to see and often unmentioned motivating force behind people's actions. Significant enough that I believe something should be done about it. But first: - what might be the underlying causes of this spite? - what might we do to decrease it? The parent comment to yours says (somewhat spitefully, by my judgement): >> Yeah we can't even get people to wear a mask in public when it literally saves lives today. It's true that we can't currently do this, but saying that we can't do it at all is speculative and defeatist, in my opinion. There have been all sorts of things throughout history that we "couldn't" do...until we could, because some people chose to roll up their sleeves and figure out how to do it, rather than indulging in petty (but oh so enjoyable!) criticism of their outgroup, which makes the spite problem even worse. What can we do to improve upon the current state of affairs?

pjc50 7y ago
I genuinely don't know. It's very difficult to discuss. We could do ideological epidemiology to find out, but in some cases it seems extremely plain. The study of ideology as a threat leads us to read Arendt, Altermeyer or Adorno. Fair enough. But then the people pleading for a return for sensible norms get steamrollered by those seizing power directly. Spite is an effective wedge issue, so it's going to get amplified or created out of nothing. I'm reminded of how trans people in the UK have gone from a tiny minority whose treatment was gradually improving as part of the general process of queer liberation, to heavily attacked by high-publicity astroturf organisations, for no readily apparent reason. Is it really the case that mild criticism of a joke in Father Ted caused the writer to burn down all his public credibility and his marriage in a spite-driven counter-campaign against all trans people? It sounds extraordinary, but seems like the only reasonable explanation of what happened there. Step 1 is undoubtedly: organize. Although organize what, exactly? Conventional political parties no longer seem the right vehicles for this kind of thing. Perhaps a paraparty organisation, like the environmentalist version of the Tea Party? But greens have been doing this for decades with limited effect. The main failing of Green parties tends to be un-pragmatism. The big barrier is not so much "dark green" vs "bright green" vs "redgreen/watermelon", as scientific versus mystical. And the mystical people have more energy .. it just needs to be better directed.
- mistermann 7y ago
  > I'm reminded of how trans people in the UK have gone from a tiny minority whose treatment was gradually improving as part of the general process of queer liberation, to heavily attacked by high-publicity astroturf organisations, for no readily apparent reason. Is it really the case that mild criticism of a joke in Father Ted caused the writer to burn down all his public credibility and his marriage in a spite-driven counter-campaign against all trans people? It sounds extraordinary, but seems like the only reasonable explanation of what happened there. Interesting, I had never heard that story before. https://gcn.ie/graham-linehan-campaigns-against-trans-people-work/ https://gcn.ie/graham-linehan-campaigns-against-trans-people... https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7982837/How-hated-man-internet-writes-Graham-Linehan.html https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7982837/How-hated-m... I don't doubt that there was some spite involved in this case, but "seems like the only reasonable explanation of what happened there." seems like a fairly hasty conclusion to me. Not sure why you seem to have been downvoted (speaking of spite LOL...I upvoted you, FWIW), I wonder if it was that comment? I wish HN would consider whether it might be beneficial to the planet to introduce a new "mode" of some sort for certain topics, so we could start to get some insight into why people behave the way they do....in this case, it would be informative to have some insight into why people downvote your comment. As far as I know, there is not a single website on the internet that does this, and yet: a) the internet is where a lot of this polarized behavior takes place b) we constantly wring our hands about the consequences of polarization (politics, climate change, etc) in thread after thread, often with implicit or explicit accusations of "why doesn't <some person or organization> dooooooooooo something, this is super duper important, why can't people be intelligent and mature like us!!!???". If it wasn't like watching a preventable tragedy unfolding in front of your eyes, one that our children will have to live through, it would be downright hilarious.
  - pjc50 7y ago
    Slashdot used to have "flavoured" up/downvotes, and you could set the multipliers in your preferences! So you could turn everyone else's +1funny vote into a -2 in your view if you didn't like the site's sense of humor. That was 29 years ago. I expect my single downvote was factional. Polarisation is a fight. "Doing something" is likely to get increasingly ugly before it gets better. But for most websites and news organizations, polarisation is profit. Oddly not for HN, which is aggressively moderated instead.
loopz 7y ago
1. Masks may be the wrong fight, since there's no evidence public usage offers protection. It might, but maybe the wrong fight? 2. Find the right solution!
- mistermann 7y ago
  > Masks may be the wrong fight, since there's no evidence public usage offers protection. Really? No evidence whatsoever? > Find the right solution! Kind of like "don't be poor" is a solution to poverty?

pjc50 7y ago

I genuinely don't know. It's very difficult to discuss. We could do ideological epidemiology to find out, but in some cases it seems extremely plain. The study of ideology as a threat leads us to read Arendt, Altermeyer or Adorno. Fair enough. But then the people pleading for a return for sensible norms get steamrollered by those seizing power directly. Spite is an effective wedge issue, so it's going to get amplified or created out of nothing. I'm reminded of how trans people in the UK have gone from a tiny minority whose treatment was gradually improving as part of the general process of queer liberation, to heavily attacked by high-publicity astroturf organisations, for no readily apparent reason. Is it really the case that mild criticism of a joke in Father Ted caused the writer to burn down all his public credibility and his marriage in a spite-driven counter-campaign against all trans people? It sounds extraordinary, but seems like the only reasonable explanation of what happened there. Step 1 is undoubtedly: organize. Although organize what, exactly? Conventional political parties no longer seem the right vehicles for this kind of thing. Perhaps a paraparty organisation, like the environmentalist version of the Tea Party? But greens have been doing this for decades with limited effect. The main failing of Green parties tends to be un-pragmatism. The big barrier is not so much "dark green" vs "bright green" vs "redgreen/watermelon", as scientific versus mystical. And the mystical people have more energy .. it just needs to be better directed.

mistermann 7y ago
> I'm reminded of how trans people in the UK have gone from a tiny minority whose treatment was gradually improving as part of the general process of queer liberation, to heavily attacked by high-publicity astroturf organisations, for no readily apparent reason. Is it really the case that mild criticism of a joke in Father Ted caused the writer to burn down all his public credibility and his marriage in a spite-driven counter-campaign against all trans people? It sounds extraordinary, but seems like the only reasonable explanation of what happened there. Interesting, I had never heard that story before. https://gcn.ie/graham-linehan-campaigns-against-trans-people-work/ https://gcn.ie/graham-linehan-campaigns-against-trans-people... https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7982837/How-hated-man-internet-writes-Graham-Linehan.html https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7982837/How-hated-m... I don't doubt that there was some spite involved in this case, but "seems like the only reasonable explanation of what happened there." seems like a fairly hasty conclusion to me. Not sure why you seem to have been downvoted (speaking of spite LOL...I upvoted you, FWIW), I wonder if it was that comment? I wish HN would consider whether it might be beneficial to the planet to introduce a new "mode" of some sort for certain topics, so we could start to get some insight into why people behave the way they do....in this case, it would be informative to have some insight into why people downvote your comment. As far as I know, there is not a single website on the internet that does this, and yet: a) the internet is where a lot of this polarized behavior takes place b) we constantly wring our hands about the consequences of polarization (politics, climate change, etc) in thread after thread, often with implicit or explicit accusations of "why doesn't <some person or organization> dooooooooooo something, this is super duper important, why can't people be intelligent and mature like us!!!???". If it wasn't like watching a preventable tragedy unfolding in front of your eyes, one that our children will have to live through, it would be downright hilarious.
- pjc50 7y ago
  Slashdot used to have "flavoured" up/downvotes, and you could set the multipliers in your preferences! So you could turn everyone else's +1funny vote into a -2 in your view if you didn't like the site's sense of humor. That was 29 years ago. I expect my single downvote was factional. Polarisation is a fight. "Doing something" is likely to get increasingly ugly before it gets better. But for most websites and news organizations, polarisation is profit. Oddly not for HN, which is aggressively moderated instead.

loopz 7y ago

1. Masks may be the wrong fight, since there's no evidence public usage offers protection. It might, but maybe the wrong fight? 2. Find the right solution!

mistermann 7y ago
> Masks may be the wrong fight, since there's no evidence public usage offers protection. Really? No evidence whatsoever? > Find the right solution! Kind of like "don't be poor" is a solution to poverty?