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I would hope that all agree a violent crime is worse than a racist tweet. However, there is a sentiment of sympathy afforded to murderers (that they're somehow

I would hope that all agree a violent crime is worse than a racist tweet. However, there is a sentiment of sympathy afforded to murderers (that they're somehow deserving of rehabilitation) which is not always extended to those who have tweeted racist things. Perhaps this comes because a murder can be seen as a sad result of circumstances. Perhaps the criminal only had to murder because they had a bad upbringing and needed the cash and it was a horrible mistake. On the other hand, people perceived as racist are permanently marked as being ideologically dangerous. Mainly, I think this comes because racist tweeters can be seen as more directly responsible for their actions than a murderer. Of course, this line of reasoning is nonsense, but it appears to be quite common. Jon Ronson has a great TED talk about this, titled "How one tweet can ruin your life": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wAIP6fI0NAI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wAIP6fI0NAI. I would recommend that the grandparent post watch this.

staticassertion 6y ago
I'm perfectly willing to: a) Understand violent criminals have made amends and are rehabilitated b) Believe that people who were once racist are no longer racist Both issues are, to me, a 'sad result of circumstances'. So all of that seems fine.
- sebmellen 6y ago
  As am I. The point I was trying to make was that there isn't really a "path to rehabilitation" for people who have made very minor missteps online. In the case of the linked TED talk, the persecuted woman made a mistake, and was not a "career-racist". I think even accusing her of racism is a distortion of the word — she made a bad joke in bad taste. Meanwhile, there is an established, albeit broken path to rehabilitation for ex-convicts. There is also a certain faction of the left which seems to be more willing to accept prison reform than "tweet-reform". I think it should be far more easy to rehabilitate oneself from a bad tweet than a murder, and that they are entirely different classes of offences.
  - staticassertion 6y ago
    Oh I agree entirely that we lack paths to rehabilitation for both the (a) and (b) cases, couldn't agree more - it makes the judgment call to hire that much more difficult.
    - sebmellen 6y ago
      I'm glad we can agree on that.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
- hnracer 6y ago
  While that's true, there's no comparison between (a) and (b) in terms of how bad the original offense is. One is murder and the other is a thought crime.
  - staticassertion 6y ago
    I can compare anything I like, actually. That's my right and my responsibility as the one who determines who comes to work with me and my colleagues. You can say that all "though crimes" are incomparable to legal indictments, and when you are hiring people that is your right as well.
    - hnracer 6y ago
      I didn't mean that there's no way you can make a comparison in a literal sense. I mean that it takes a particularly screwed up and deranged individual to think that murder and racist thoughts are somehow equivalent on the moral scale. Also, I'm not claiming that this is the position you are taking, only that it would be deranged if it is the one you are in fact taking.
      - sebmellen 6y ago
        Thanks for making this point. This is what I was trying to get at. Racist thoughts, to some, are seen as offences in the same way murder is, while they're not. Murder is a very clearly defined criminal act, to tweet something racist is an expression of free speech. Racism is inexcusable, but in an entirely different way than murder.
      - staticassertion 6y ago
        This whole conversation started off with "any crime" vs "a definitively racist tweet", not "murder" vs "thought crime". Trying to consider any of these things in isolation is worthless and not really something that makes sense to discuss, it's just a sillier version of the trolley problem. Context is going to be everything. Could someone convicted of murder be worth hiring? Yeah, sure, I'm not willing to say that that's not the case - what if they had an untreated medical condition, just as one potential contextual element? It's not worth discussing because it will end up with a "but what if but what if but what if". The point I will definitely make is the original point I made - that if I determine someone to be a racist that is important to me, and if I find that someone is a criminal I will need more context before I determine that it is important to me.
geofft 6y ago
> On the other hand, people perceived as racist are permanently marked as being ideologically dangerous. This is pretty demonstrably untrue. Cenk Uygur comes to mind, off the top of my head - he's lost out on opportunities from things he said in the past that were perceived as racist, but nobody in good faith / nobody who matters considers him to continue to espouse those views. It helps that he quite vocally criticizes those views. What is probably actually true is that, statistically, many people who were racist in the past are still racist, and many people who murdered in the past and went to prison commit no further violent crimes (for many reasons).
Klinky 6y ago
Ugh, seems you're just trying to come up with ways to apologize and gain sympathy for racists. No, it's not universal or common that people feel more empathy for murderers or criminals. People might feel empathy with more context, when remorse is expressed and time has passed, this applies to both murderers and racists. The examples in the TED talk are poor. If you're in public relations, don't make an offensive joke about not being able to get get AIDS in Africa because you're white. If you're in journalism, don't plagiarize and make shit up. These people failed at the fundamentals of their job description. Should the world just ignore racist tweets and the damage that racists/racism causes? Should racists get the same cushy "rehab" murderers do, by putting them in prison?
- sebmellen 6y ago
  I never said it was universal to feel more sympathy for criminals, nor am I trying to apologize and/or gain sympathy for racists. How did what I wrote imply that? The TED talk, now 5 years old, encapsulated what has now grown into "cancel culture" in a poignant anecdote. There's nothing generative or useful about this concept of prosecution (or persecution?) for making a misstep online. I am fully in favor of implementing the Portugal drug model, implementing prison reform, and offering prisoners chances at rehabilitation. But to equivocate a racist tweet with a crime is ridiculous and, in my opinion, dangerous. This line of reasoning is barely different from the concept that speech can be violence, which is absurd. The foundation of every liberal democracy is the separation of free speech from criminality. That principle assumes that a person's ideas can be reformed, which is what we should all hope is possible. Half of the time, alienating people for their views will only further radicalize and polarize them. Now, to argue that a rehabilitated ex-convict is a better hire than someone actively tweeting racist things is a fine argument, but in an entirely different scope than the aforementioned comment, unless I misinterpreted it.
  - Klinky 6y ago
    You said it was common. I said "it was not universal or common". Social media is often used to amplify a message, do not act shocked when it amplifies the response as well. I am not sure what the Portugal drug model has to do with this topic or why you're pivoting away from murderers and to drug users. You specifically noted murderers(effectively the most heinous of crimes), as gaining more sympathy than racist tweeters. This "sympathy" being provided to these murderers is them rotting in a prison for the rest of their lives or being executed. Social media and "cancel culture" is not on the same level as being stuffed in a prison for the rest of your life or getting a lethal injection. That was my point, not that racist speech on twitter is an automatic crime(though keep in mind that free speech laws do not actually cover all forms of speech). How do you rehabilitate a racist tweeter in a thoughtful and caring manner that doesn't alienate their sensibilities? For all the talk of toxic "cancel culture", ingrained racism is also extremely toxic, and should not simply be ignored.
205guy 6y ago
> people perceived as racist are permanently marked as being ideologically dangerous. I don't think this is necessarily true. We just haven't seen many racist people make amends and ask for forgiveness. I believe people can change and if they do, they should be reintegrated into the workplace. I hadn't given it much thought before, but I asked myself if I would hire or work with a former criminal qualified for the job. It's a touchy subject, but I decided I would if they are rehabilitated: shown remorse, served a sentence, and working to integrate society. And I realized the same goes for a racist statement (or sexist or anti-LGBTQ). Racism get tried in the court of public opinion, and then there is a sentence of being shunned in the form of unemployability. But if the formerly racist person shows remorse and publicly states they have changed, I would be willing to hire/work with them.
- dragonwriter 6y ago
  > Racism get tried in the court of public opinion, and then there is a sentence of being Placed in high government office?
- sebmellen 6y ago
  My point is mainly that the two "offences" (if we are to class racism as an offence), are vastly different, and in entirely differently classes. To rehabilitate someone who made a joke in bad taste should be far, far easier than to rehabilitate a murderer. The two just cannot be equivocated. One is a criminal act, the other is expressing an opinion, albeit a very bad one.
  - 205guy 6y ago
    Obviously, they are different, and the length of sentences reflect that. A murderer is in prison for 10-20 years and a really bad racist joke makes you unemployable for a year or 2. There's also a problem with the verb "to rehabilitate" because much of the rehabilitation comes from the subject themselves and can't be imposed by society. The murderer who serves time, shows remorse, and studies programming to reintegrate society is different from the racist who doesn't apologize sincerely or believably for the bad joke and complains that nobody will hire them. Finally, look at the environment that the rehabilitated person gets put into. Someone who got into drugs and gangs as a teen, went to prison, and then turned their life around is not a threat in an office environment. A racist or sexist may still cause disruption in a diverse and gender-equal work environment. The ex-gang member can't go back to the 'hood, but the racist or sexist has made it much more difficult to work in any office--or with people so that's pretty much any job. Though like I said, if they apologize and repent, I think the racist should be given a second chance as well.
dfxm12 6y ago
This talk is about Justine Sacco. Within 7-8 months of being fired, she got a new job and has continued to work her way up the corporate ladder ever since [0]. You're right. Your line of reasoning is nonsense. 0 - https://www.linkedin.com/in/justinesacco https://www.linkedin.com/in/justinesacco
- sebmellen 6y ago
  Yes, a joke in bad taste is richly deserving of mass public humiliation, getting fired, and not having work for 8 months. I love our brave new world!

staticassertion 6y ago

I'm perfectly willing to: a) Understand violent criminals have made amends and are rehabilitated b) Believe that people who were once racist are no longer racist Both issues are, to me, a 'sad result of circumstances'. So all of that seems fine.

sebmellen 6y ago
As am I. The point I was trying to make was that there isn't really a "path to rehabilitation" for people who have made very minor missteps online. In the case of the linked TED talk, the persecuted woman made a mistake, and was not a "career-racist". I think even accusing her of racism is a distortion of the word — she made a bad joke in bad taste. Meanwhile, there is an established, albeit broken path to rehabilitation for ex-convicts. There is also a certain faction of the left which seems to be more willing to accept prison reform than "tweet-reform". I think it should be far more easy to rehabilitate oneself from a bad tweet than a murder, and that they are entirely different classes of offences.
- staticassertion 6y ago
  Oh I agree entirely that we lack paths to rehabilitation for both the (a) and (b) cases, couldn't agree more - it makes the judgment call to hire that much more difficult.
  - sebmellen 6y ago
    I'm glad we can agree on that.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
hnracer 6y ago
While that's true, there's no comparison between (a) and (b) in terms of how bad the original offense is. One is murder and the other is a thought crime.
- staticassertion 6y ago
  I can compare anything I like, actually. That's my right and my responsibility as the one who determines who comes to work with me and my colleagues. You can say that all "though crimes" are incomparable to legal indictments, and when you are hiring people that is your right as well.
  - hnracer 6y ago
    I didn't mean that there's no way you can make a comparison in a literal sense. I mean that it takes a particularly screwed up and deranged individual to think that murder and racist thoughts are somehow equivalent on the moral scale. Also, I'm not claiming that this is the position you are taking, only that it would be deranged if it is the one you are in fact taking.
    - sebmellen 6y ago
      Thanks for making this point. This is what I was trying to get at. Racist thoughts, to some, are seen as offences in the same way murder is, while they're not. Murder is a very clearly defined criminal act, to tweet something racist is an expression of free speech. Racism is inexcusable, but in an entirely different way than murder.
    - staticassertion 6y ago
      This whole conversation started off with "any crime" vs "a definitively racist tweet", not "murder" vs "thought crime". Trying to consider any of these things in isolation is worthless and not really something that makes sense to discuss, it's just a sillier version of the trolley problem. Context is going to be everything. Could someone convicted of murder be worth hiring? Yeah, sure, I'm not willing to say that that's not the case - what if they had an untreated medical condition, just as one potential contextual element? It's not worth discussing because it will end up with a "but what if but what if but what if". The point I will definitely make is the original point I made - that if I determine someone to be a racist that is important to me, and if I find that someone is a criminal I will need more context before I determine that it is important to me.

geofft 6y ago

> On the other hand, people perceived as racist are permanently marked as being ideologically dangerous. This is pretty demonstrably untrue. Cenk Uygur comes to mind, off the top of my head - he's lost out on opportunities from things he said in the past that were perceived as racist, but nobody in good faith / nobody who matters considers him to continue to espouse those views. It helps that he quite vocally criticizes those views. What is probably actually true is that, statistically, many people who were racist in the past are still racist, and many people who murdered in the past and went to prison commit no further violent crimes (for many reasons).

Klinky 6y ago

Ugh, seems you're just trying to come up with ways to apologize and gain sympathy for racists. No, it's not universal or common that people feel more empathy for murderers or criminals. People might feel empathy with more context, when remorse is expressed and time has passed, this applies to both murderers and racists. The examples in the TED talk are poor. If you're in public relations, don't make an offensive joke about not being able to get get AIDS in Africa because you're white. If you're in journalism, don't plagiarize and make shit up. These people failed at the fundamentals of their job description. Should the world just ignore racist tweets and the damage that racists/racism causes? Should racists get the same cushy "rehab" murderers do, by putting them in prison?

sebmellen 6y ago
I never said it was universal to feel more sympathy for criminals, nor am I trying to apologize and/or gain sympathy for racists. How did what I wrote imply that? The TED talk, now 5 years old, encapsulated what has now grown into "cancel culture" in a poignant anecdote. There's nothing generative or useful about this concept of prosecution (or persecution?) for making a misstep online. I am fully in favor of implementing the Portugal drug model, implementing prison reform, and offering prisoners chances at rehabilitation. But to equivocate a racist tweet with a crime is ridiculous and, in my opinion, dangerous. This line of reasoning is barely different from the concept that speech can be violence, which is absurd. The foundation of every liberal democracy is the separation of free speech from criminality. That principle assumes that a person's ideas can be reformed, which is what we should all hope is possible. Half of the time, alienating people for their views will only further radicalize and polarize them. Now, to argue that a rehabilitated ex-convict is a better hire than someone actively tweeting racist things is a fine argument, but in an entirely different scope than the aforementioned comment, unless I misinterpreted it.
- Klinky 6y ago
  You said it was common. I said "it was not universal or common". Social media is often used to amplify a message, do not act shocked when it amplifies the response as well. I am not sure what the Portugal drug model has to do with this topic or why you're pivoting away from murderers and to drug users. You specifically noted murderers(effectively the most heinous of crimes), as gaining more sympathy than racist tweeters. This "sympathy" being provided to these murderers is them rotting in a prison for the rest of their lives or being executed. Social media and "cancel culture" is not on the same level as being stuffed in a prison for the rest of your life or getting a lethal injection. That was my point, not that racist speech on twitter is an automatic crime(though keep in mind that free speech laws do not actually cover all forms of speech). How do you rehabilitate a racist tweeter in a thoughtful and caring manner that doesn't alienate their sensibilities? For all the talk of toxic "cancel culture", ingrained racism is also extremely toxic, and should not simply be ignored.

205guy 6y ago

> people perceived as racist are permanently marked as being ideologically dangerous. I don't think this is necessarily true. We just haven't seen many racist people make amends and ask for forgiveness. I believe people can change and if they do, they should be reintegrated into the workplace. I hadn't given it much thought before, but I asked myself if I would hire or work with a former criminal qualified for the job. It's a touchy subject, but I decided I would if they are rehabilitated: shown remorse, served a sentence, and working to integrate society. And I realized the same goes for a racist statement (or sexist or anti-LGBTQ). Racism get tried in the court of public opinion, and then there is a sentence of being shunned in the form of unemployability. But if the formerly racist person shows remorse and publicly states they have changed, I would be willing to hire/work with them.

dragonwriter 6y ago
> Racism get tried in the court of public opinion, and then there is a sentence of being Placed in high government office?
sebmellen 6y ago
My point is mainly that the two "offences" (if we are to class racism as an offence), are vastly different, and in entirely differently classes. To rehabilitate someone who made a joke in bad taste should be far, far easier than to rehabilitate a murderer. The two just cannot be equivocated. One is a criminal act, the other is expressing an opinion, albeit a very bad one.
- 205guy 6y ago
  Obviously, they are different, and the length of sentences reflect that. A murderer is in prison for 10-20 years and a really bad racist joke makes you unemployable for a year or 2. There's also a problem with the verb "to rehabilitate" because much of the rehabilitation comes from the subject themselves and can't be imposed by society. The murderer who serves time, shows remorse, and studies programming to reintegrate society is different from the racist who doesn't apologize sincerely or believably for the bad joke and complains that nobody will hire them. Finally, look at the environment that the rehabilitated person gets put into. Someone who got into drugs and gangs as a teen, went to prison, and then turned their life around is not a threat in an office environment. A racist or sexist may still cause disruption in a diverse and gender-equal work environment. The ex-gang member can't go back to the 'hood, but the racist or sexist has made it much more difficult to work in any office--or with people so that's pretty much any job. Though like I said, if they apologize and repent, I think the racist should be given a second chance as well.

dfxm12 6y ago

This talk is about Justine Sacco. Within 7-8 months of being fired, she got a new job and has continued to work her way up the corporate ladder ever since [0]. You're right. Your line of reasoning is nonsense. 0 - https://www.linkedin.com/in/justinesacco https://www.linkedin.com/in/justinesacco

sebmellen 6y ago
Yes, a joke in bad taste is richly deserving of mass public humiliation, getting fired, and not having work for 8 months. I love our brave new world!