8 ms·

The United States (and perhaps other countries?) decent into mob "justice" has been breathtaking. Many people I've known for over half my life and known to be f

by Exmoor 6y ago

The United States (and perhaps other countries?) decent into mob "justice" has been breathtaking. Many people I've known for over half my life and known to be fairly reasonable people now routinely repost "make this person famous" posts pointing out a variety of behaviors deemed unacceptable without any evidence other than what's posted in an image. If you question the evidence or whether shaming someone as punishment is an appropriate response you're instantly vilified. I have little doubt that I could pick a stranger at random, create a social media post with some baseless accusations and fabricated screenshots and get it shared extensively. I really hope our society can find a way out of this, but I honestly don't see it.

rectang 6y ago
It's been mob justice all along — just institutionalized and directed at minorities. I agree that we are unlikely to find our way out of it any time soon, because the dominant majority is entirely unwilling to give up its institutionalized advantages.
- ethanbond 6y ago
  If this is your position, shouldn't we be focusing on fixing the institutions?
  - CydeWeys 6y ago
    Why do you think crowds have been taking to the streets these past weeks?
    - ethanbond 6y ago
      That's obvious, but we were discussing the deployment of mob justice, especially against innocent people. Surely you agree those are different things.
  - zwkrt 6y ago
    The only reasonable way to fix an institution is to get the majority of its members to want change.
    - ethanbond 6y ago
      And the strategy is to do that by... outing and destroying people who are demonstrably not racist? Those of us who want real change here should have a strong interest in preventing the stories described in the article. You're right that we need people to want to change, and I'm afraid that these incidents give more ammunition to racists than they galvanize anti-racists. They certainly don't help to convince anyone in the middle to join our side.
      - rectang 6y ago
        Majority backlash, grievance and resentment is inevitable. Encouraging that sense of grievance by weighting one majority life over countless minority lives is counterproductive. Instead, keep perspective by maintaining a sense of proportion of the aggregate injustice. One guy getting fired is a drop in the bucket.
        ethanbond 6y ago
        As a sort of “net suffering absolutist,” I find that to be somewhat ethically compelling (though many won’t). As someone who wants to see these problems fixed - permanently - I’m just not sure that this approach gets us closer. If it’s a drop in the bucket that discourages a large number of people from throwing their weight behind the solutions offered, then it’s no longer a drop in the bucket.
        isoskeles 6y ago
        > One guy getting fired is a drop in the bucket. Sure, until it's you.
        btilly 6y ago
        The attitude that "the wrongs done to me justify wrongs done to someone else" is exactly how every war and racial conflict has gone in the past. Even though momentum is currently on the side that you think is right, the precedent that is being set WILL come back to haunt you. The way to resolve and defuse conflicts is to treat others better than they deserve to be treated. This is also more effective politically. See the second example in the article where research indicated that peaceful protests promoted by MLK were more effective than race riots later. This result should not be a surprise. MLK promoted peaceful protests exactly on the theory that they would be more effective, based among other things on the experience of Ghandhi in India. Those lessons were copied a generation later and played a critical part in bringing down the Iron Curtain. Violence begets violence. Forgiveness begets peace. Going out of your way to treat people with fairness is not just the right thing to do, it is also more effective.
refurb 6y ago
Reminds me of the cultural revolution in China. Get the people whipped up and it’s pretty self-sustaining when people think they’re doing the right thing.
- hintymad 6y ago
  This time is different. At least cultural revolution was a bottom-up movement backed by only a few elites in power. The movement was terminated quickly by moderates after Mao died. The whole nation has ever since been reflecting on the movement and on how to prevent it from happening. This time in US is different. This time the elites, the scholars and especially the scholars, the media... They collectively endorsed and encouraged the mob justice and the cancel culture. I'm pretty pessimistic this time. I think this is the future of the US since people who do have a platform do not speak out and will not speak out.
  - bmn__ 6y ago
    > The whole nation has ever since been reflecting on the movement and on how to prevent it from happening. That's false. In fact, attempting 反思历史 is the quickest way to get into serious trouble with the party, and one will find oneself soon be "drinking tea" with the authorities, or have one's livelihood taken away, or worse.
    - stepstop 6y ago
      Could you translate 反思历史 for all of us?
      - kofejnik 6y ago
        google gives "reflecting on history", which seems in line with the parent comment
      - deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
CydeWeys 6y ago
The "mob justice" we have now isn't remotely as bad as it used to be, so it's not accurate to characterize it as a "descent". We really are on a long steady upslope (still with more room for improvement). Hell, it wasn't even that many decades ago that lynchings were commonplace. And that's a much worse form of mob justice than outraged tweet brigades that occasionally get someone fired.
- mellosouls 6y ago
  There have been plenty of videos circling showing mobs during the recent riots beating people half and fully to death. Mob justice needs to be condemned wherever it comes from. That it is more a problem coming from the left at the moment does not mean its ok to let it pass.
  - RickS 6y ago
    > and tbh your argument reads a little bit like "well now its our turn" I'm not sure who "our" is, here, but I don't read it with that tone regardless. > There have been plenty of videos circling showing mobs during the recent riots beating people half and fully to death. Unless you're talking about police officers doing the beating, which doesn't seem the case given your "left" remark, can you substantiate this claim? If so, how? I believe your comment is out of sync with reality, but sincerely welcome quantitative data to adjust my views.
    - mellosouls 6y ago
      You really should make an attempt to reply to comments as they are, rather than insisting on quoting sentences removed. Here is some video evidence to assist in adjusting your views as requested. Personally, I advise you (and other readers) not to watch them; this sort of thing isn't psychologically healthy. But it exists and its as appalling as the police brutality - but you don't seem to see so much of this in the mainstream media for some reason. https://twitter.com/MattWalshBlog/status/1275104256643792901 https://twitter.com/MattWalshBlog/status/1275104256643792901 https://twitter.com/SamParkerSenate/status/1273444656047513601 https://twitter.com/SamParkerSenate/status/12734446560475136...
dependenttypes 6y ago
> If you question the evidence or whether shaming someone as punishment is an appropriate response you're instantly vilified. I can kinda understand the rest but I never understood this one. It feels like an attack against critical thinking and reason.
- kofejnik 6y ago
  exactly, dogma cannot be questioned
hpcjoe 6y ago
This article calls out the dangers of corporate virtue signalling. I have many friends and acquaintances that do the personal version of this, and are part of the problem. Honestly, I think the only way to combat this is to make taking these actions expensive for those who do that. The twitter rage/grievance machine is running on all cylinders. That and making sure that companies that succumb to the mob, are roundly and publicly held to account for that. If they can't be bothered to make rational choices, then find alternatives to patronize.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- fortran77 6y ago
  > I have many friends and acquaintances that do the personal version of this, and are part of the problem. Why are they still your friends?
  - hpcjoe 6y ago
    Simple. Friendship transcends posturing and virtue signalling, at least for me. Dropping someone as a friend because we disagree, at a deep and fundamental level over something important, doesn't preclude us from having other common ground we can enjoy together. I disagree, sometimes deeply, with some of my friends. I also don't like echo chambers, as no original thought occurs there. Just an attempt to negate the "other". Which is completely counterproductive to having a rational dialog.
0x00000000 6y ago
Something else very disturbing is that Twitter lets people do it with selective enforcement of their rules. Report someone for doxxing (full address, phone number etc.) and then a week later they get a 12 hour suspension. I have reported dozens of posts and maybe half of them even get punished at all
hintymad 6y ago
It's even more than that. I always thought we should fight for justice to make a better world for us to live in, and we should not hurt any group of ordinary people in the name of justice. Then, how is it right for a professor to tweet that "white lives don't matter"? I mean, the lives of hundreds of millions of people don't matter? They are all privileged? They are all sinned? They are all evil? They should all perish? They should all suffer injustice? Their skin color, which they can't change, makes them so despicable that their lives don't matter? Isn't this the very definition of racism? Yet the professor is lauded as a true hero. Something is horribly wrong.
- zozbot234 6y ago
  > Then, how is it right for a professor to tweet that "white lives don't matter"? This sort of stuff used to be called "flame bait" back in the day. Don't take the bait. It's just not worth caring about, no matter if it's a professor doing it or a basement dweller.
  - WesolyKubeczek 6y ago
    I mean, shouldn’t the professor in question spend some time behind the bars, or whatever your anti-racist laws say the consequences should be?
bryanlarsen 6y ago
It's not new. "If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him." - Cardinal Richelieu
blub 6y ago
I don't think your society will find a way out of this, because the root causes are systemic and have been developing for decades: lack of a social safety net, weak worker's rights, incredibly large difference in wealth between social classes, overpowered companies and corporations, etc. Adding to the above, the current administration has proved time and again that they're not up to the job. And finally, the wave of (out)rage currently unfolding in the US, celebrated by many as a good thing is in reality a terrible thing - the problem of racism in the US is so complex that it is impossible to solve it by using force (condemnations, firings, banishment, verbal and physical violence). This also applies to sexism and other -isms: it takes brains and willingness to spend the time (years to decades). Those events are yet another social flare-up that will take its course and then fizzle out.
- dang 6y ago
  Please don't turn what is already a flamewar into a nationalistic flamewar ("your society") on top of this. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
_bxg1 6y ago
I've seen some corners of twitter start to slowly realize and acknowledge that cancel culture is bad. I think when the number of people caught in the maelstrom gets high enough, general awareness will increase. The danger is when there's an ingroup/outgroup filter where nobody in the ingroup ever gets ousted, so it always feels like it's still just "those bad people over there". But it's getting to a point where even those boundaries are breaking down, which is probably for the best in the long run.
qbaqbaqba 6y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-Dimensional_Man https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-Dimensional_Man
- jgwil2 6y ago
  Could you please elaborate?

by Exmoor 6y ago

rectang 6y ago

It's been mob justice all along — just institutionalized and directed at minorities. I agree that we are unlikely to find our way out of it any time soon, because the dominant majority is entirely unwilling to give up its institutionalized advantages.

ethanbond 6y ago
If this is your position, shouldn't we be focusing on fixing the institutions?
- CydeWeys 6y ago
  Why do you think crowds have been taking to the streets these past weeks?
  - ethanbond 6y ago
    That's obvious, but we were discussing the deployment of mob justice, especially against innocent people. Surely you agree those are different things.
- zwkrt 6y ago
  The only reasonable way to fix an institution is to get the majority of its members to want change.
  - ethanbond 6y ago
    And the strategy is to do that by... outing and destroying people who are demonstrably not racist? Those of us who want real change here should have a strong interest in preventing the stories described in the article. You're right that we need people to want to change, and I'm afraid that these incidents give more ammunition to racists than they galvanize anti-racists. They certainly don't help to convince anyone in the middle to join our side.
    - rectang 6y ago
      Majority backlash, grievance and resentment is inevitable. Encouraging that sense of grievance by weighting one majority life over countless minority lives is counterproductive. Instead, keep perspective by maintaining a sense of proportion of the aggregate injustice. One guy getting fired is a drop in the bucket.
      - ethanbond 6y ago
        As a sort of “net suffering absolutist,” I find that to be somewhat ethically compelling (though many won’t). As someone who wants to see these problems fixed - permanently - I’m just not sure that this approach gets us closer. If it’s a drop in the bucket that discourages a large number of people from throwing their weight behind the solutions offered, then it’s no longer a drop in the bucket.
      - isoskeles 6y ago
        > One guy getting fired is a drop in the bucket. Sure, until it's you.
      - btilly 6y ago
        The attitude that "the wrongs done to me justify wrongs done to someone else" is exactly how every war and racial conflict has gone in the past. Even though momentum is currently on the side that you think is right, the precedent that is being set WILL come back to haunt you. The way to resolve and defuse conflicts is to treat others better than they deserve to be treated. This is also more effective politically. See the second example in the article where research indicated that peaceful protests promoted by MLK were more effective than race riots later. This result should not be a surprise. MLK promoted peaceful protests exactly on the theory that they would be more effective, based among other things on the experience of Ghandhi in India. Those lessons were copied a generation later and played a critical part in bringing down the Iron Curtain. Violence begets violence. Forgiveness begets peace. Going out of your way to treat people with fairness is not just the right thing to do, it is also more effective.

refurb 6y ago

Reminds me of the cultural revolution in China. Get the people whipped up and it’s pretty self-sustaining when people think they’re doing the right thing.

hintymad 6y ago
This time is different. At least cultural revolution was a bottom-up movement backed by only a few elites in power. The movement was terminated quickly by moderates after Mao died. The whole nation has ever since been reflecting on the movement and on how to prevent it from happening. This time in US is different. This time the elites, the scholars and especially the scholars, the media... They collectively endorsed and encouraged the mob justice and the cancel culture. I'm pretty pessimistic this time. I think this is the future of the US since people who do have a platform do not speak out and will not speak out.
- bmn__ 6y ago
  > The whole nation has ever since been reflecting on the movement and on how to prevent it from happening. That's false. In fact, attempting 反思历史 is the quickest way to get into serious trouble with the party, and one will find oneself soon be "drinking tea" with the authorities, or have one's livelihood taken away, or worse.
  - stepstop 6y ago
    Could you translate 反思历史 for all of us?
    - kofejnik 6y ago
      google gives "reflecting on history", which seems in line with the parent comment
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]

CydeWeys 6y ago

The "mob justice" we have now isn't remotely as bad as it used to be, so it's not accurate to characterize it as a "descent". We really are on a long steady upslope (still with more room for improvement). Hell, it wasn't even that many decades ago that lynchings were commonplace. And that's a much worse form of mob justice than outraged tweet brigades that occasionally get someone fired.

mellosouls 6y ago
There have been plenty of videos circling showing mobs during the recent riots beating people half and fully to death. Mob justice needs to be condemned wherever it comes from. That it is more a problem coming from the left at the moment does not mean its ok to let it pass.
- RickS 6y ago
  > and tbh your argument reads a little bit like "well now its our turn" I'm not sure who "our" is, here, but I don't read it with that tone regardless. > There have been plenty of videos circling showing mobs during the recent riots beating people half and fully to death. Unless you're talking about police officers doing the beating, which doesn't seem the case given your "left" remark, can you substantiate this claim? If so, how? I believe your comment is out of sync with reality, but sincerely welcome quantitative data to adjust my views.
  - mellosouls 6y ago
    You really should make an attempt to reply to comments as they are, rather than insisting on quoting sentences removed. Here is some video evidence to assist in adjusting your views as requested. Personally, I advise you (and other readers) not to watch them; this sort of thing isn't psychologically healthy. But it exists and its as appalling as the police brutality - but you don't seem to see so much of this in the mainstream media for some reason. https://twitter.com/MattWalshBlog/status/1275104256643792901 https://twitter.com/MattWalshBlog/status/1275104256643792901 https://twitter.com/SamParkerSenate/status/1273444656047513601 https://twitter.com/SamParkerSenate/status/12734446560475136...

dependenttypes 6y ago

> If you question the evidence or whether shaming someone as punishment is an appropriate response you're instantly vilified. I can kinda understand the rest but I never understood this one. It feels like an attack against critical thinking and reason.

kofejnik 6y ago
exactly, dogma cannot be questioned

hpcjoe 6y ago

This article calls out the dangers of corporate virtue signalling. I have many friends and acquaintances that do the personal version of this, and are part of the problem. Honestly, I think the only way to combat this is to make taking these actions expensive for those who do that. The twitter rage/grievance machine is running on all cylinders. That and making sure that companies that succumb to the mob, are roundly and publicly held to account for that. If they can't be bothered to make rational choices, then find alternatives to patronize.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
fortran77 6y ago
> I have many friends and acquaintances that do the personal version of this, and are part of the problem. Why are they still your friends?
- hpcjoe 6y ago
  Simple. Friendship transcends posturing and virtue signalling, at least for me. Dropping someone as a friend because we disagree, at a deep and fundamental level over something important, doesn't preclude us from having other common ground we can enjoy together. I disagree, sometimes deeply, with some of my friends. I also don't like echo chambers, as no original thought occurs there. Just an attempt to negate the "other". Which is completely counterproductive to having a rational dialog.

0x00000000 6y ago

Something else very disturbing is that Twitter lets people do it with selective enforcement of their rules. Report someone for doxxing (full address, phone number etc.) and then a week later they get a 12 hour suspension. I have reported dozens of posts and maybe half of them even get punished at all

hintymad 6y ago

It's even more than that. I always thought we should fight for justice to make a better world for us to live in, and we should not hurt any group of ordinary people in the name of justice. Then, how is it right for a professor to tweet that "white lives don't matter"? I mean, the lives of hundreds of millions of people don't matter? They are all privileged? They are all sinned? They are all evil? They should all perish? They should all suffer injustice? Their skin color, which they can't change, makes them so despicable that their lives don't matter? Isn't this the very definition of racism? Yet the professor is lauded as a true hero. Something is horribly wrong.

zozbot234 6y ago
> Then, how is it right for a professor to tweet that "white lives don't matter"? This sort of stuff used to be called "flame bait" back in the day. Don't take the bait. It's just not worth caring about, no matter if it's a professor doing it or a basement dweller.
- WesolyKubeczek 6y ago
  I mean, shouldn’t the professor in question spend some time behind the bars, or whatever your anti-racist laws say the consequences should be?

bryanlarsen 6y ago

It's not new. "If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him." - Cardinal Richelieu

blub 6y ago

I don't think your society will find a way out of this, because the root causes are systemic and have been developing for decades: lack of a social safety net, weak worker's rights, incredibly large difference in wealth between social classes, overpowered companies and corporations, etc. Adding to the above, the current administration has proved time and again that they're not up to the job. And finally, the wave of (out)rage currently unfolding in the US, celebrated by many as a good thing is in reality a terrible thing - the problem of racism in the US is so complex that it is impossible to solve it by using force (condemnations, firings, banishment, verbal and physical violence). This also applies to sexism and other -isms: it takes brains and willingness to spend the time (years to decades). Those events are yet another social flare-up that will take its course and then fizzle out.

dang 6y ago
Please don't turn what is already a flamewar into a nationalistic flamewar ("your society") on top of this. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

_bxg1 6y ago

I've seen some corners of twitter start to slowly realize and acknowledge that cancel culture is bad. I think when the number of people caught in the maelstrom gets high enough, general awareness will increase. The danger is when there's an ingroup/outgroup filter where nobody in the ingroup ever gets ousted, so it always feels like it's still just "those bad people over there". But it's getting to a point where even those boundaries are breaking down, which is probably for the best in the long run.

qbaqbaqba 6y ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-Dimensional_Man https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-Dimensional_Man

jgwil2 6y ago
Could you please elaborate?