5 ms·

Seems like the only benefit to admitting guilt is for ones own conscience, but clearly that’s not enough for many.

bryanrasmussen 5y ago
our society is also not structured anymore to allowing one to admit guilt, and be absolved by some sort of community process after which you can return to a normal life; if you are guilty now you are forever cursed.
- chaorace 5y ago
  I think that's because, thanks to the internet, "now" never truly ends. You're often just one Google search away from reanimating any significant event in someone else's life.
  - bryanrasmussen 5y ago
    right, hence right to be forgotten laws in some places.
- smogcutter 5y ago
  When was it structured that way? Serious question - I generally believe the same thing, but looking at it from the outside I’m finding it hard to reach a worthwhile example.
  - bryanrasmussen 5y ago
    As chaorace above you suggested, it was so structured by the arrival of the technology to keep track of everything you ever did that was bad and put it online for future reference. The tendency to do it was already in place, it is likely that you see someone from high school that was a jerk and you think that jerk once did this, even if it was 15 years ago. That's a sort of normal human tendency. Some people are so notorious for rather innocuous things that they are outcast - Monica Lewinsky is an obvious example - I believe she was ostracized for a little more than a decade. Legally there is already the habit of judging people unfit for crimes, even if they have served their time. American society is structured to make people with felony convictions harder to employ. Now add in technology and imagine being able to treat anyone you have never met like that jerk in High School forever. The final step of structuring is then provided by people who can see ways to profit off of the fact that people who have done non felonious things might still have done things that society will find objectionable, and that the technology exists to keep this in people's eyes.
    - smogcutter 5y ago
      I agree with you, but that’s a subtly different claim than that we used to have a community process (or ritual, but that’s adding some baggage) for forgiveness/reintegration that has since been lost. Not having the technology that creates a social record is different than actively forgiving and forgetting.
      - bryanrasmussen 5y ago
        well the community process thing is sort of a more complicated thing - some argue that the old process of putting people in the stocks / public humiliation was a more humane way of treating people because they then paid their debt and could be reintegrated. Not saying I agree but the argument at any rate is there was a community process. I am at any rate open to the possibility that this was a good aspect of a system that in many other ways was bad. If so that community process was destroyed and replaced with a system that would never forgive you for your transgressions. However the system was imperfect and thus people could move, reinvent themselves and reintegrate themselves by exploiting the imperfections. Technology is now working to remove this capability. So it was not that the community process was removed by the arrival of technology, it was removed and later the technology arrived to strengthen what had been put in its place - creating a system in which transgressions and punishments are eternal.
        SAI_Peregrinus 5y ago
        Yep. Even before technology made checking easy it was common for employers to ask about criminal convictions. Felons have had difficulty getting jobs since long before the Internet came around. In theory they'd paid their debt to society, but in practice society kept punishing them indefinitely. The internet (and background check databases, etc) just makes this cheaper for employers to do, but didn't cause the problem.
branko_d 5y ago
There are great benefits for the society, and dare I say species. Conscience, after all, is not an accident. Its a product of our evolution. We lived in small groups for most of our existence, and the very survival of the group was tied pretty directly to how well the group members worked together. Lying had consequences for a group that would not make lying have consequences for an individual. The problems is that we now live in groups much larger than anything we experienced before.
- coddle-hark 5y ago
  > Conscience, after all, is not an accident. Its a product of our evolution. We lived in small groups for most of our existence, and the very survival of the group was tied pretty directly to how well the group members worked together. Lying had consequences for a group that would not make lying have consequences for an individual. Be careful making assumptions like this. I mean, you're right, having a conscience is a product of our evolution... but so is the ability to lie. You make it sound like disadvantageous qualities would be filtered out by evolution but that is clearly not the case.
  - branko_d 5y ago
    It's a balance between the (evolutionary) advantage for of the group vs the advantage for the individual. Some lying may be beneficial for the individual as long as it doesn't harm the group too much. Lie too much though, and the group gets less likely to survive as a whole, meaning individuals within the group are less likely to survive as well.

our society is also not structured anymore to allowing one to admit guilt, and be absolved by some sort of community process after which you can return to a normal life; if you are guilty now you are forever cursed.

chaorace 5y ago
I think that's because, thanks to the internet, "now" never truly ends. You're often just one Google search away from reanimating any significant event in someone else's life.
- bryanrasmussen 5y ago
  right, hence right to be forgotten laws in some places.
smogcutter 5y ago
When was it structured that way? Serious question - I generally believe the same thing, but looking at it from the outside I’m finding it hard to reach a worthwhile example.
- bryanrasmussen 5y ago
  As chaorace above you suggested, it was so structured by the arrival of the technology to keep track of everything you ever did that was bad and put it online for future reference. The tendency to do it was already in place, it is likely that you see someone from high school that was a jerk and you think that jerk once did this, even if it was 15 years ago. That's a sort of normal human tendency. Some people are so notorious for rather innocuous things that they are outcast - Monica Lewinsky is an obvious example - I believe she was ostracized for a little more than a decade. Legally there is already the habit of judging people unfit for crimes, even if they have served their time. American society is structured to make people with felony convictions harder to employ. Now add in technology and imagine being able to treat anyone you have never met like that jerk in High School forever. The final step of structuring is then provided by people who can see ways to profit off of the fact that people who have done non felonious things might still have done things that society will find objectionable, and that the technology exists to keep this in people's eyes.
  - smogcutter 5y ago
    I agree with you, but that’s a subtly different claim than that we used to have a community process (or ritual, but that’s adding some baggage) for forgiveness/reintegration that has since been lost. Not having the technology that creates a social record is different than actively forgiving and forgetting.
    - bryanrasmussen 5y ago
      well the community process thing is sort of a more complicated thing - some argue that the old process of putting people in the stocks / public humiliation was a more humane way of treating people because they then paid their debt and could be reintegrated. Not saying I agree but the argument at any rate is there was a community process. I am at any rate open to the possibility that this was a good aspect of a system that in many other ways was bad. If so that community process was destroyed and replaced with a system that would never forgive you for your transgressions. However the system was imperfect and thus people could move, reinvent themselves and reintegrate themselves by exploiting the imperfections. Technology is now working to remove this capability. So it was not that the community process was removed by the arrival of technology, it was removed and later the technology arrived to strengthen what had been put in its place - creating a system in which transgressions and punishments are eternal.
      - SAI_Peregrinus 5y ago
        Yep. Even before technology made checking easy it was common for employers to ask about criminal convictions. Felons have had difficulty getting jobs since long before the Internet came around. In theory they'd paid their debt to society, but in practice society kept punishing them indefinitely. The internet (and background check databases, etc) just makes this cheaper for employers to do, but didn't cause the problem.

branko_d 5y ago

There are great benefits for the society, and dare I say species. Conscience, after all, is not an accident. Its a product of our evolution. We lived in small groups for most of our existence, and the very survival of the group was tied pretty directly to how well the group members worked together. Lying had consequences for a group that would not make lying have consequences for an individual. The problems is that we now live in groups much larger than anything we experienced before.

coddle-hark 5y ago
> Conscience, after all, is not an accident. Its a product of our evolution. We lived in small groups for most of our existence, and the very survival of the group was tied pretty directly to how well the group members worked together. Lying had consequences for a group that would not make lying have consequences for an individual. Be careful making assumptions like this. I mean, you're right, having a conscience is a product of our evolution... but so is the ability to lie. You make it sound like disadvantageous qualities would be filtered out by evolution but that is clearly not the case.
- branko_d 5y ago
  It's a balance between the (evolutionary) advantage for of the group vs the advantage for the individual. Some lying may be beneficial for the individual as long as it doesn't harm the group too much. Lie too much though, and the group gets less likely to survive as a whole, meaning individuals within the group are less likely to survive as well.