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They Died from Covid. Then the Online Attacks Started
- Reuzel 5y agoGood to highlight this. I became aware of the evils of the "alt-right" when they started trolling suicide memorial pages. This is a similar attack coming from the polar side of the political spectrum. You cannot claim the moral high-ground after this. If the pro-vaccine left does not distance itself from this ugly evil within their midsts, it should go a similar route as the alt-right did, in the eyes of the public: a terrorist and fascist organization. Should really make you pause the next time someone on Twitter points to a target and says: do your thing.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- krageon 5y agoThis exact rhetoric is something you often hear whenever any sort of left leaning person does anything remotely incriminating. It's really hard to separate the reasonable criticism from the neonazi trolling, which usually leaves one to search for embedded dog whistles. Of which this post has a few. I will leave it up to you if that is something you wish to address.
- Reuzel 5y agoNo, it is time we see this evil for what it is. You are the marxist troll here, unable to view criticism. But following my observation, that would be like expecting an alt-right neonazi to see the errors of their views. You don't get the benefit of "good intentions" and "moral high-ground" anymore. Stop claiming it. Left up to you it will degenerate into evil like this. You can shove your dog whistle up your loose asshole, listen if it still makes a sound when you type. Should make it easier to locate.
- krageon 5y ago> you are the Marxist troll here I pointed out ways in which your post could be misconstrued by your audience, and from this you have extrapolated some surprising and far-reaching facts about my political views. You are wrong, so much so I must admit it made me laugh.
- Reuzel 5y agoYou are not my audience. I consider you a lost cause after you calling me a neonazi troll. It is time the general public sees this evil inhumane activism without being obscured by anti-racism or anti-fascism. When the general public sees you equating trolling a memorial page (a digital mourning service) as: > anything remotely incriminating And others write about "maybe public shaming helps" to stop the spread of fake news, then that should make them pause and question how this movement and its targets have devolved. Your audience is left-progressive centrists. Just by standing still, they have moved closer to the far-right. You could find ways to improve that. For instance, by vastly distancing yourself from this evil. But you are not able to see it as more than something remotely incriminating, defending it, and then charge the centrists with racism.
- happytoexplain 5y agoThe parent may not have been your subject, but they are your audience, as anybody reading this is. Their original reply made a thoughtful point, and did not label you, personally, a Neo-Nazi. I think you're projecting a hated image of a composite political enemy onto individuals to rationalize a bitterness.
- dang 5y agoPosting like this is obviously a bannable offense on HN. You posted egregious flamewar comments to this thread, noticeably worse than the bad things the other accounts did. This is not allowed on HN because it destroys what the site is supposed to be for, and we ban accounts that do it. If you'd please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to the rules when posting here, we'd appreciate it.
- eertami 5y agoI'm always suspicious about who is actually making these posts. Surely it is obvious to them that nobody would ever fall for it or treat it in good faith. The only conclusion that seems to make any sense is that the authors are being paid to write these comments.
- krageon 5y agoI think most posts are made by real people that believe they are doing the right thing. Sometimes tragically
- Reuzel 5y ago> Surely it is obvious to them that nobody would ever fall for it or treat it in good faith. This says a lot about you, and makes me suspicious about your posts. You either assume that someone with a different view is lying, that they don't even believe in their own views, because these are obviously wrong. Or you are unable to treat posts in good faith, suspecting a commercial incentive. So, you can not contribute anything to this community. If you disagree, it is because you disagree with liars. And who treats something in good faith, when they suspect the other person is not acting in good faith? Your suspicion should make you conclude that you have nothing of value to contribute and should look for a community where everybody agrees or promises to act in good faith.
- krageon 5y ago> Your suspicion should make you conclude that you have nothing of value to contribute It is quite rude to tell someone that they have absolutely nothing to add just because they confess they have trouble seeing a benign motivation behind your post. Clearly they have something to contribute: a viewpoint that is their own, that they are willing to talk about without undue animosity.
- dang 5y agoPlease don't take HN threads further into ideological flamewar. It's exactly the opposite of what we're trying for here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- krageon 5y agoI'll try to be better. This was ill-advised.
- Zigurd 5y agoYou are trying for a false equivalence. What is the "pro-vaccine left?" Is there a "pro JFK Jr. is dead left?" What does that even mean?
- happytoexplain 5y ago>You cannot claim the moral high-ground after this. Who is "you"? An individual decrying the trolling of suicide victims while themselves trolling COVID victims? Then yes, you're right. But "the alt-right" is not a single person, nor is whatever their polar opposite is. This fallacy is at the heart of virtually all political bitterness. I do believe when something horrible happens and is highly correlated with a political group, leaders of that group should denounce it, but when something horrible happens in group A and a similar horrible thing happens in group B, that doesn't inherently mean that anybody is a hypocrite. It just means that horrible people are members of both groups.
- FooBarBizBazz 5y agoI'm generally sympathetic to arguments using parts of this framework ("be careful with this shit, Left"), but "the pro-vaccine left [should be seen as] a terrorist and fascist organization" is insane. Vaccines are mostly advocated by the technocratic center. There are things to be annoyed at this faction about, but they're not extreme and they're not bad. Arguably, they're not even especially "left". And the tribal Democrats who gloat about COVID, while shitty, are not even the dangerous/radical part of that party. They're just the stupid ones, the "football fans". Yes, they should be told not to act like this. But in the long run they can be ignored.
- dang 5y agoPlease don't take HN threads into ideological flamewar. It's exactly the opposite of what we're trying for here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- blamazon 5y agoSee for yourself the Reddit forum that NYT alludes to: https://old.reddit.com/r/HermanCainAward/ https://old.reddit.com/r/HermanCainAward/ Notable rule on that subreddit: > Posts about non-public figures must redact the entire name(s) of everyone in every image. Block it out completely. Don't scribble and allow redacted names to leak through. Profile pictures are not allowed and must be blocked out.
- azth 5y agoReddit has a similar subreddit for the opposite, people who didn't take the vaccine and died, and it's also so filthy. Seems hypocritical of NY times not to report on it.
- ZeroCool2u 5y ago> Reddit has a similar subreddit for the opposite, people who didn't take the vaccine and died /r/HermanCainAward is the subreddit you're referring to here.
- missedthecue 5y agoWhat's the difference in subscriber numbers? Probably one or more orders of magnitude. I've never even heard of the one you're alluding to.
- unpopularopp 5y agoReddit is famously okay with hate if you hate the right group of people see /r/FuckYouKaren, /r/COVIDAteMyFace/ and of course aforementioned sub.
- corinroyal 5y agoAnd thank God for it. Entitled people harassing retail workers deserve our hate. Idiots who endanger those around them by ridiculing anti-pandemic measures deserve our hate. You act like hate is a bad thing where criminals and plague-spreaders are the targets.
- loudtieblahblah 5y agothis is one of the many reason the left has left me. things like /r/covidatemyface and /r/HermanCainAward/ - full of so-called progressives and their endless pseudo-empathy, not seeing this as opportunity to increase understanding about this situation and more as an tribalistic moment to "score points" and have a good laugh at the ignorance and death of others and the pain their families have to endure in the wake of their loss.
- meepmorp 5y agoConsider your virtue signaled, my brother!
- makotech222 5y agothese are liberals, not leftists
- toomuchtodo 5y agoYou can be progressive and not have any compassion left for ignorance. Don’t confuse policy positions with being a doormat for those who equate beliefs and opinions with facts (which is troubling frequent in a post truth world). My apologies to Meta, “data wins arguments.” All of this loss (r/HCA) was mostly avoidable (based on all available information) with a free vaccine, and the subreddit raised over $56k [1] for vaccine donations to those who were not so lucky to have it freely available. (Posted while waiting for my child’s COVID vaccination to be administered) [1] https://gogiveone.org/coalition/ https://gogiveone.org/coalition/
- RankingMember 5y agoAnd, to be fair, it's flagrant "thumbing their nose at you as they're being rolled into intensive care", top-level ignorance. The HCA subreddit made me uneasy, but the rules and goal do seem to be at least semi-compassionate in a "save the flock being led off the hill by showing them the dead shepherd" kind of way.
- toomuchtodo 5y ago
- brightball 5y agoOne of the most disturbing things I’ve watched during the last 2 years is the number of people: 1. Celebrating the deaths of people who didn’t get vaccinated because they were pro. 2. Mocking the deaths of anyone who died from Covid under the assumption that it’s being politically over-labeled. There’s a sign in a funeral home in my hometown with a quote that leaves me very disturbed about our future. “Show me the manner in which a nation or a community cares for its dead and I will measure with mathematical exactness the tender sympathies of its people, their respect for the laws of the land and their loyalty to high ideals.” - William E. Gladstone
- RankingMember 5y agoI think the overarching disturbing thing that leads to other disturbing things like that is a basic disregard for common decency in dialog, or, more simply, an enormous partisan divide.
- kmos17 5y agoWhen you have one side arguing they don’t want to get vaccinated because only old or unhealthy people are at risk, where is their empathy? Where is their care for not just the dead but the living and vulnerable? All this because medicine has been politicized by hucksters and opportunists. The public shaming of figures like Herman Cain who contributed to the anti-vaccination discourse that is leading to thousands of preventable deaths is arguably justifiable when the person who died contributed via public statements to the spread of deadly misinformation.
- notreallyserio 5y agoI don't "celebrate" their deaths, but when someone uses a position of authority to endanger others by discouraging basic measures like getting vaccines and staying 6+ feet apart, or by claiming the disease is a librul plot, and then dies of the disease, I can't help but feel some schadenfreude. I still feel bad for their families. Not only did they lose a loved one, they learned the relative value their loved one placed on their lives. That is tragic.
- raxxorrax 5y ago
- giantg2 5y agoIs this really news? I don't think this is a new phenomenon. I think most of us have witnessed comments like this in one topic or another - 'people who didn't get vaccinated deserved to die' (or the old gay people and AIDS stuff), 'anti-gun Baldwin killed more people than all of my guns' (other old Ted Kennedy car saying), etc.
- jordanpg 5y agoPutting aside any special reverence we might have for the dead, I guess the abstract question is: is there any social value to publicly shaming those who uncritically call into question settled scientific claims, putting others at risk? I would say there is some value. Our society will not survive if it is socially acceptable to do this. COVID is exhibit A. Climate science is exhibit B. Settled scientific matters, like the usefulness of safe vaccines, is not on the same playing field as politics or religion. If there is a belief among some that settled scientific questions are a matter of non-expert public debate, then that needs to be corrected. Public shaming might help.
- giantg2 5y agoI guess that depends on who gets to decide value and in what manner. Settled scientific facts are not the same as politics and policy. They can be useful in determining policy, but are not a default policy. It also depends on how those facts get linked together. You need to question the n-order impacts to devise good policy. "If there is a belief among some that settled scientific questions are a matter of non-expert public debate, then that needs to be corrected." Policy should be debated by the people. You need an informed citizenry for democracy to function. Sure, we can publicly shame people for just about anything (1st Ammendment). What is acceptable depends on what the group or society decides. For example, should we fat shame people to reduce healthcare costs on aggregate? We also need to weigh societal benefit of shaming against any societal detriment like a reduction in civility.
- mindslight 5y ago> Settled scientific facts are not the same as politics and policy Except that we are talking about scientific facts here, and not policy. If the political movement accepted that vaccines are seemingly safe and effective, but still rejected getting them based on some other critique, that would be a political topic. Or if say the "anti-mask" movement were solely against mask mandates, while encouraging everyone to be personally responsible and wear a mask, that would be political (I myself would have been in this camp if more people had worn respirators). But rather than making a defensible political point in the wider context of scientific reality, these movements have backstopped their positions with blatantly false scientific-seeming disinformation. And so the overall situation really is a matter of scientific facts having been politicized, and not science being used to dictate policy.
- lifefeed 5y agoIt's ghoulish, but it's also just a very political version of the Darwin Awards and Florida Man, which the internet has collectively decided is acceptable.
- tzs 5y agoThere's not much use in reading the comments on /r/HermanCainAward, but the submissions themselves can be quite enlightening (the ones tagged "awarded" or "nominated"). These follow the same general format: assorted social media posts from the subject over the course of the pandemic to the point they are hospitalized or killed by COVID, often followed by social media posts asking for help with medical bills or funeral expenses. The social media posts are often reposting memes and agreeing with them. People are using these memes to help make medical decisions. Many seem convinced that by taking advice from memes instead their doctor, local or state departments of health, and similar that they are "doing their own research". The first thing that surprised me was how weak many of these memes were. For example I've seen several were people seemed to be taking seriously as an anti-mask argument a meme about how underpants and pants can't stop people nearby from smelling your fart so why would you expect a mask to stop a virus? I don't expect everyone to remember enough from their school days to remember that we sense odor by sensing individual molecules emitted by the source of odor, that these are often quite small (one of the major fart smell molecules just has 3 atoms), and that viruses are much larger (the smallest virus has almost 30k atoms, and the COVID-19 virus has about 6700x as many as that). But I'd expect everyone, before deciding that a meme is a better info source than the doctor, health departments, etc., to do at least a little checking like Googling what causes farts to smell and Googling the COVID virus and then seeing that the former is a lot smaller, and so yes you should expect some difference in what it takes to filter them. Furthermore, a lot of these people seem to have quite a few social media friends. So even if they fail to do all of the above I'd expect them to have at least one friend who either remembers how odors and viruses work or who looks it up and warns them that the meme is giving bad advice. I knew social media exposes you to a lot more misinformation than you would normally get, but I had thought that for people with many social media friends that large friend group would somewhat counter that but that doesn't seem to be the case. For some reason it seems people's friend groups on social media are too homogenous, and so the same weak meme gets them all. It's similar for most of the other memes common on these posts. Most are as flawed as the fart one, I would have expected a fair number of people to see the flaws immediately just from general knowledge from middle school or high school, and if not I'd have expected many to do the small amount of research to check it out, and for those who do neither I'd have expected some of the friends to do so and post. Seeing how far off my expectations were has been an eye opener.
- fdhfdjkfhdkj 5y agoThe left gets called snowflakes when we care about other people. When we get frustrated and stop caring we are called monsters...Empathetic people when mocked for their empathy switch to Schadenfreude mode eventually.