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The only way we'll ever be able to combat cancel culture is through online anonymity. I fear that we're drifting in the other direction, though - specifically

The only way we'll ever be able to combat cancel culture is through online anonymity. I fear that we're drifting in the other direction, though - specifically to make cancellation easier.

inglor_cz 6y ago
I think the real answer is resilience. Enough people, especially those in positions of power (who decide whether to fire someone), must stop giving a shit. There will be some evolutionary pressure there. I don't think Elon Musk would fire his engineer over a doubtful tweet, given that his own Twitter feed is pretty wild. Once some places establish themselves as safe, they will attract "mouthy talent".
- LegitShady 6y ago
  You will be declared alt right. You will be declared a nazi even if you are jewish. Your employer will get phone calls, tweets, emails, constant harassment until they agree to fire you. They will use other people harassing you as a reason to fire you. Being fired is controversial, and they will use the firing as another weapon against you. "the former x company engineer let go because..." etc They will talk about you in a million places a thousand times a day. People who never knew you existed will only know you as that guy who they said was evil. If you work for Elon Musk, great. If you don't, you might be well and truly screwed. When enough people stopped giving a shit they got lumped in with other enemies. That's the way orthodoxy works.
prawn 6y ago
Problem with that is that anonymous content is generally text and that's the easiest to have bots spurt out with little effort. Sometimes reading a basic forum, I wonder whether the future forums will be some percentage bot-generated. Much of it is hardly high-level discourse. Meanwhile, more engaging content is personal - faces, travel, personal action, being physically in a place. That's harder to do anonymously. Obviously there are exceptions in both cases.

The only way we'll ever be able to combat cancel culture is through online anonymity. I fear that we're drifting in the other direction, though - specifically to make cancellation easier.

inglor_cz 6y ago

I think the real answer is resilience. Enough people, especially those in positions of power (who decide whether to fire someone), must stop giving a shit. There will be some evolutionary pressure there. I don't think Elon Musk would fire his engineer over a doubtful tweet, given that his own Twitter feed is pretty wild. Once some places establish themselves as safe, they will attract "mouthy talent".

LegitShady 6y ago
You will be declared alt right. You will be declared a nazi even if you are jewish. Your employer will get phone calls, tweets, emails, constant harassment until they agree to fire you. They will use other people harassing you as a reason to fire you. Being fired is controversial, and they will use the firing as another weapon against you. "the former x company engineer let go because..." etc They will talk about you in a million places a thousand times a day. People who never knew you existed will only know you as that guy who they said was evil. If you work for Elon Musk, great. If you don't, you might be well and truly screwed. When enough people stopped giving a shit they got lumped in with other enemies. That's the way orthodoxy works.

prawn 6y ago

Problem with that is that anonymous content is generally text and that's the easiest to have bots spurt out with little effort. Sometimes reading a basic forum, I wonder whether the future forums will be some percentage bot-generated. Much of it is hardly high-level discourse. Meanwhile, more engaging content is personal - faces, travel, personal action, being physically in a place. That's harder to do anonymously. Obviously there are exceptions in both cases.