11 ms·

Denying that you have made a mistake is likely to piss off the people who would otherwise be willing to move on. As the "mob", which may or may not exist in any

Denying that you have made a mistake is likely to piss off the people who would otherwise be willing to move on. As the "mob", which may or may not exist in any given situation, is not going to be swayed by protests of innocence, the former are the only people you should care about.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
jmartrican 6y ago
Agreed. Apologizing may keep the mob size small and insignificant.
- draw_down 6y ago
  macspoofing is right. This stuff works opposite to how you and GP are describing.
- smsm42 6y ago
  Did it ever happen? Did anybody actually get out of being cancelled by mobs by apologizing?
  - IfOnlyYouKnew 6y ago
    The point of apologising isn't to avoid consequences. It's intended to mitigate three sorts of damages: that inflicted on whoever suffered because of you, the damage society experiences any time its rules are broken, and the damage you have done to yourself by breaking some moral standard you believe in. To that end, an apology that allows s/o to "get out" as in "saw no further consequences" isn't necessarily what's being claimed, because it still needs to come with (some) costs, even if they are mostly symbolic. And, yes, of course there are people apologising for all sorts of behaviour that's being criticised every day. A Google News search has about five dozen examples from just the last day or two[1]. If apologies are never beneficial, I doubt they would be used that often. Apologies are also a central factor in the most formalised system of "being cancelled" we have, the criminal justice system. As to "getting out" of "being cancelled" by "mobs" I wouldn't know since I already have trouble identifying what that's supposed to mean. [1]: https://www.google.com/search?q=apologized&client=safari&rls=en&tbm=nws&sxsrf=ALeKk015YH3KfbTXXzdxGIp7ude9dVVZ9Q:1605312453030&ei=xR-vX9mWAYKMrwSH5LegAw&start=50&sa=N&ved=0ahUKEwiZjZD03oDtAhUCxosKHQfyDTQQ8NMDCM0D&biw=1415&bih=739&dpr=1 https://www.google.com/search?q=apologized&client=safari&rls...
    - smsm42 6y ago
      > As to "getting out" of "being cancelled" by "mobs" I wouldn't know since I already have trouble identifying what that's supposed to mean. I have a strong suspicion that you know what I mean, you just don't want to recognize that. If you indeed know nothing about cancel culture, I envy whatever bubble you reside in, and I wish I could organize my life to never encounter it too, however it is not so for me. If you pretend not to know about it because you don't want to engage in discussion about it, well, I certainly can't force you. > And, yes, of course there are people apologising for all sorts of behaviour that's being criticised every day. You may find it hard to believe, but I actually know people do such thing as "apologizing". I do it myself once in a while. My question was in specific context of the comment "Agreed. Apologizing may keep the mob size small and insignificant." and related to this context, not to general act of apologizing and whether or not it is practiced in human society. I think you have missed this context and from that follows your trouble to identify what I supposed to mean. I think I made it cleared now, or at least did as much as I could to make it clear.
      - IfOnlyYouKnew 6y ago
        Oh, your first hunch was correct. I sort-of know that it means the phenomenon where Harvey Weinstein rapes a dozen women and everybody on the internet pretends that's the reason they don't want to have women on their team. Because apparently "showing up at their colleagues' hotel room doors, naked and at night" is somehow just bound to happen in the course of standard operating procedures. Also the related phenomenon where people walk through cities being casually and formally anti-semitic, deliberately crashing cars into groups of people, but call the other side "mob", because they complain about that on Twitter.
        smsm42 6y ago
        > I sort-of know that it means the phenomenon where Harvey Weinstein I think you are confusing your imagination with reality. Nobody - and by that I mean literally, without exaggeration, no single person who lives or ever lived - ever pretended that Harvey Weinstein raping women is the reason they don't want women on their team. Not "everybody", not somebody - literally no single person is pretending or ever pretended that. Moreover, you know that as well as I do, I am certain of that (because you don't know any such person, by virtue of such person not existing). So why are you writing these obviously false words? > Because apparently "showing up at their colleagues' hotel room doors, naked and at night" is somehow just bound to happen in the course of standard operating procedures. I do not know who told you that (I suspect you imagined it just as you did the above) but it certainly is not the course of any operating procedures at all. None of them. > Also the related phenomenon where people walk through cities being casually and formally anti-semitic, deliberately crashing cars into groups of people, but call the other side "mob", because they complain about that on Twitter. People who walk through cities being anti-semitic and people who complain about cancel culture are distinct sets of people whose intersection is minuscule. And you also know it. Also, cancel culture is not complaining on Twitter about somebody marching somewhere, and you also know it too. Again, you are writing words which both you and everybody reading them knows are false. What for?
  - d2v 6y ago
    Dan Harmon https://www.thisamericanlife.org/674/transcript https://www.thisamericanlife.org/674/transcript
    - smsm42 6y ago
      But did he? https://www.ccn.com/dan-harmon-and-rick-morty-are-canceled-because-2020-has-no-sense-of-humor/ https://www.ccn.com/dan-harmon-and-rick-morty-are-canceled-b... https://www.indiewire.com/2020/08/rick-morty-dan-harmon-cancel-qanon-save-the-children-1234579993/ https://www.indiewire.com/2020/08/rick-morty-dan-harmon-canc... https://uproxx.com/tv/cancel-rick-and-morty-dan-harmon-video-apology/ https://uproxx.com/tv/cancel-rick-and-morty-dan-harmon-video...
core-questions 6y ago
> Denying that you have made a mistake is likely to piss off the people who would otherwise be willing to move on. Which is why you don't deny it either; you move on, avoiding the Streisand Effect as best as possible by not engaging. It's passive denial vs. active denial. I'm not saying this is moral or good - I'm only saying that it seems to work for people. It's a question of game theory. We can get better apologies if we start to accept apologies and move on with our lives, but the mob wants blood and these days the public apology only serves as an admission of guilt, absolving the mob of any evil when they pull the person apart limb from limb.
- mcguire 6y ago
  There will always be people who disagree with you, and who will continue to make public attacks on you. They're not the ones you are apologizing to, or for. Pretending you did not make an error will eventually catch up to you, in the opinions of those who would view an apology to your credit and in the fact that it leads to you making more mistakes and not correcting them. "...absolving the mob of any evil when they pull the person apart limb from limb." That's a little excessively dramatic, don't you think?
  - core-questions 6y ago
    > That's a little excessively dramatic, don't you think? It's 2020, everything's a little excessively dramatic
- mannykannot 6y ago
  Then you risk being considered as though you explicitly denied it anyway - and the choice as to when and whether we move on is not so often yours to make alone. Do this sort of thing too often with the same people, and you are likely to get a reputation as untrustworthy - someone who might cover up a problem until it is discovered by others.
aidenn0 6y ago
In the current "us vs them" of politics, apologizing does nothing to appease "them" while making you seem weaker to "us" and denying it means you will be given the benefit of the doubt by "us." If e.g. Kavanaugh had admitted assaulting Ms. Ford and apologized, do you think enough Democrats would have said "Apology accepted" and voted to confirm to make up for the Republicans who would be unwilling to vote to confirm someone who has admitted to sexual assault? As long as Kavanaugh denies it, everyone who votes for him can just publicly say that they believed his denial, whether or not they actually did believe it.
- smsm42 6y ago
  I think we are considering the situation where a mistake was made. I don't think the Kavanaugh situation applies - depending on your views on it, it is either situation of cynical rapist and hardcore liar, thoroughly corrupt evil man, denying his crimes, or an innocent man being falsely accused in a vile crime. In both situations, apology wouldn't solve anything.
  - aidenn0 6y ago
    Item #0 from TFA is "that there is no point in pretending you have not made a mistake." Both the GP comment and myself are disputing this fact. I think it's odious to do so, but there absolutely is a point in doing so. As far as Kavanaugh, obviously none of this applies if he is not-guilty, because few advocate apologizing for things you didn't do. However: There are a lot of middle-aged adults who did terrible things when they were teenagers. Among those, the ones who own up and apologized are excluded from many positions of power, while those that deny it are included. So for this particular subset of the population, we punish the best, reward the worst, and incentivize any fence-sitters to lie. Perhaps it's a bit OT, but something is clearly broken here.
    - smsm42 6y ago
      > Among those, the ones who own up and apologized are excluded from many positions of power, while those that deny it are included. That depends on the level of power the said adult has accumulated. We've witnessed people who were persecuted for most minor transgressions, and people who were forgiven for very major things (e.g. credible rape accusations, being an officer in the KKK, being a member of a terrorist organization, being in prison for murder while being a member of a terrorist organization, etc. etc.). That, of course, needs very powerful position and very powerful friends - which none of us likely has.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

jmartrican 6y ago

Agreed. Apologizing may keep the mob size small and insignificant.

draw_down 6y ago
macspoofing is right. This stuff works opposite to how you and GP are describing.
smsm42 6y ago
Did it ever happen? Did anybody actually get out of being cancelled by mobs by apologizing?
- IfOnlyYouKnew 6y ago
  The point of apologising isn't to avoid consequences. It's intended to mitigate three sorts of damages: that inflicted on whoever suffered because of you, the damage society experiences any time its rules are broken, and the damage you have done to yourself by breaking some moral standard you believe in. To that end, an apology that allows s/o to "get out" as in "saw no further consequences" isn't necessarily what's being claimed, because it still needs to come with (some) costs, even if they are mostly symbolic. And, yes, of course there are people apologising for all sorts of behaviour that's being criticised every day. A Google News search has about five dozen examples from just the last day or two[1]. If apologies are never beneficial, I doubt they would be used that often. Apologies are also a central factor in the most formalised system of "being cancelled" we have, the criminal justice system. As to "getting out" of "being cancelled" by "mobs" I wouldn't know since I already have trouble identifying what that's supposed to mean. [1]: https://www.google.com/search?q=apologized&client=safari&rls=en&tbm=nws&sxsrf=ALeKk015YH3KfbTXXzdxGIp7ude9dVVZ9Q:1605312453030&ei=xR-vX9mWAYKMrwSH5LegAw&start=50&sa=N&ved=0ahUKEwiZjZD03oDtAhUCxosKHQfyDTQQ8NMDCM0D&biw=1415&bih=739&dpr=1 https://www.google.com/search?q=apologized&client=safari&rls...
  - smsm42 6y ago
    > As to "getting out" of "being cancelled" by "mobs" I wouldn't know since I already have trouble identifying what that's supposed to mean. I have a strong suspicion that you know what I mean, you just don't want to recognize that. If you indeed know nothing about cancel culture, I envy whatever bubble you reside in, and I wish I could organize my life to never encounter it too, however it is not so for me. If you pretend not to know about it because you don't want to engage in discussion about it, well, I certainly can't force you. > And, yes, of course there are people apologising for all sorts of behaviour that's being criticised every day. You may find it hard to believe, but I actually know people do such thing as "apologizing". I do it myself once in a while. My question was in specific context of the comment "Agreed. Apologizing may keep the mob size small and insignificant." and related to this context, not to general act of apologizing and whether or not it is practiced in human society. I think you have missed this context and from that follows your trouble to identify what I supposed to mean. I think I made it cleared now, or at least did as much as I could to make it clear.
    - IfOnlyYouKnew 6y ago
      Oh, your first hunch was correct. I sort-of know that it means the phenomenon where Harvey Weinstein rapes a dozen women and everybody on the internet pretends that's the reason they don't want to have women on their team. Because apparently "showing up at their colleagues' hotel room doors, naked and at night" is somehow just bound to happen in the course of standard operating procedures. Also the related phenomenon where people walk through cities being casually and formally anti-semitic, deliberately crashing cars into groups of people, but call the other side "mob", because they complain about that on Twitter.
      - smsm42 6y ago
        > I sort-of know that it means the phenomenon where Harvey Weinstein I think you are confusing your imagination with reality. Nobody - and by that I mean literally, without exaggeration, no single person who lives or ever lived - ever pretended that Harvey Weinstein raping women is the reason they don't want women on their team. Not "everybody", not somebody - literally no single person is pretending or ever pretended that. Moreover, you know that as well as I do, I am certain of that (because you don't know any such person, by virtue of such person not existing). So why are you writing these obviously false words? > Because apparently "showing up at their colleagues' hotel room doors, naked and at night" is somehow just bound to happen in the course of standard operating procedures. I do not know who told you that (I suspect you imagined it just as you did the above) but it certainly is not the course of any operating procedures at all. None of them. > Also the related phenomenon where people walk through cities being casually and formally anti-semitic, deliberately crashing cars into groups of people, but call the other side "mob", because they complain about that on Twitter. People who walk through cities being anti-semitic and people who complain about cancel culture are distinct sets of people whose intersection is minuscule. And you also know it. Also, cancel culture is not complaining on Twitter about somebody marching somewhere, and you also know it too. Again, you are writing words which both you and everybody reading them knows are false. What for?
- d2v 6y ago
  Dan Harmon https://www.thisamericanlife.org/674/transcript https://www.thisamericanlife.org/674/transcript
  - smsm42 6y ago
    But did he? https://www.ccn.com/dan-harmon-and-rick-morty-are-canceled-because-2020-has-no-sense-of-humor/ https://www.ccn.com/dan-harmon-and-rick-morty-are-canceled-b... https://www.indiewire.com/2020/08/rick-morty-dan-harmon-cancel-qanon-save-the-children-1234579993/ https://www.indiewire.com/2020/08/rick-morty-dan-harmon-canc... https://uproxx.com/tv/cancel-rick-and-morty-dan-harmon-video-apology/ https://uproxx.com/tv/cancel-rick-and-morty-dan-harmon-video...

core-questions 6y ago

> Denying that you have made a mistake is likely to piss off the people who would otherwise be willing to move on. Which is why you don't deny it either; you move on, avoiding the Streisand Effect as best as possible by not engaging. It's passive denial vs. active denial. I'm not saying this is moral or good - I'm only saying that it seems to work for people. It's a question of game theory. We can get better apologies if we start to accept apologies and move on with our lives, but the mob wants blood and these days the public apology only serves as an admission of guilt, absolving the mob of any evil when they pull the person apart limb from limb.

mcguire 6y ago
There will always be people who disagree with you, and who will continue to make public attacks on you. They're not the ones you are apologizing to, or for. Pretending you did not make an error will eventually catch up to you, in the opinions of those who would view an apology to your credit and in the fact that it leads to you making more mistakes and not correcting them. "...absolving the mob of any evil when they pull the person apart limb from limb." That's a little excessively dramatic, don't you think?
- core-questions 6y ago
  > That's a little excessively dramatic, don't you think? It's 2020, everything's a little excessively dramatic
mannykannot 6y ago
Then you risk being considered as though you explicitly denied it anyway - and the choice as to when and whether we move on is not so often yours to make alone. Do this sort of thing too often with the same people, and you are likely to get a reputation as untrustworthy - someone who might cover up a problem until it is discovered by others.

aidenn0 6y ago

In the current "us vs them" of politics, apologizing does nothing to appease "them" while making you seem weaker to "us" and denying it means you will be given the benefit of the doubt by "us." If e.g. Kavanaugh had admitted assaulting Ms. Ford and apologized, do you think enough Democrats would have said "Apology accepted" and voted to confirm to make up for the Republicans who would be unwilling to vote to confirm someone who has admitted to sexual assault? As long as Kavanaugh denies it, everyone who votes for him can just publicly say that they believed his denial, whether or not they actually did believe it.

smsm42 6y ago
I think we are considering the situation where a mistake was made. I don't think the Kavanaugh situation applies - depending on your views on it, it is either situation of cynical rapist and hardcore liar, thoroughly corrupt evil man, denying his crimes, or an innocent man being falsely accused in a vile crime. In both situations, apology wouldn't solve anything.
- aidenn0 6y ago
  Item #0 from TFA is "that there is no point in pretending you have not made a mistake." Both the GP comment and myself are disputing this fact. I think it's odious to do so, but there absolutely is a point in doing so. As far as Kavanaugh, obviously none of this applies if he is not-guilty, because few advocate apologizing for things you didn't do. However: There are a lot of middle-aged adults who did terrible things when they were teenagers. Among those, the ones who own up and apologized are excluded from many positions of power, while those that deny it are included. So for this particular subset of the population, we punish the best, reward the worst, and incentivize any fence-sitters to lie. Perhaps it's a bit OT, but something is clearly broken here.
  - smsm42 6y ago
    > Among those, the ones who own up and apologized are excluded from many positions of power, while those that deny it are included. That depends on the level of power the said adult has accumulated. We've witnessed people who were persecuted for most minor transgressions, and people who were forgiven for very major things (e.g. credible rape accusations, being an officer in the KKK, being a member of a terrorist organization, being in prison for murder while being a member of a terrorist organization, etc. etc.). That, of course, needs very powerful position and very powerful friends - which none of us likely has.