4 ms·

Here's my extremely hot take. Almost all cancellation is of net benefit. It doesn't matter if you're cancelled over a lie or a disallowed opinion, all that matt

by ouid 4y ago

Here's my extremely hot take. Almost all cancellation is of net benefit. It doesn't matter if you're cancelled over a lie or a disallowed opinion, all that matters is that you have stopped being a famous person with a platform. Almost no one famous is worth listening to about things that matter, and cancellation is the penalty that famouos people incur for talking about things that matter. I draw an exception for comedians, who are famous for how worth listening to they are.

Miner49er 4y ago
Yeah, exactly. It's a good thing that power can be taken away with extreme ease in some situations. We need more of that. We should expect more of people we put in positions of power, not less.
psychphysic 4y ago
I disagree, cancellation usually means no work for ~2 years before a gentle restart with less work that's less well paid. How well would you survive that? Not purely financially but emotionally. Added to this is that cancellation usually includes criticism from friends. I can not imagine publically criticizing a friend. I've cut people off before, I've criticized friends within social circles even. Criticizing someone for the purposes of strangers I find quite disgusting, akin to tribal excile likely one of the worst traditional punishments of humans probably historically a death sentence. It hits people hard. My hot take, the power of social isolation is why older male suicide is horrifically high following divorce. People on HN collapse if Google shuts their accounts down unexpectedly lol let alone every service and business you've worked with and your friends and family dropping you.
secondcoming 4y ago
Cancellation doesn't just apply to 'famous' people though. It will apply to everyone. I can't tell if your post is sarcasm or not.
- ouid 4y ago
  how on earth would it manage to apply to everyone?
  - paganel 4y ago
    Since we're on HN, search for computer programmers/IT people who got cancelled in the last, I don't know, 4-5 years for saying things that they shouldn't have said. We're not talking about "famous" IT people, just regular persons who, some of them, lost their employment status because of said cancelation. Later edit: From here [1], I was too optimistic of the 4-5 year estimation, this shit started 10 years ago. I guess we, programmers/IT people, were just the canaries in the coal-mine: > Hi, I'm the guy who made a comment about big dongles. (...) > My second comment is this, Adria has an audience and is a successful person of the media. Just check out her web page linked in her twitter account, her hard work and social activism speaks for itself. With that great power and reach comes responsibility. As a result of the picture she took I was let go from my job today. Which sucks because I have 3 kids and I really liked that job. Later later edit: Also, that Adria Richards lady got canceled and fired by her employer in return [2]. That reddit thread I linked to is a good example of how fast (relatively speaking) things change, nowadays there's no way in hell for a person to include a pr0n-related remark in a conference talk that is not related to the pr0n industry, but back in 2013 saying that that was not ok (and it wasn't and it isn't) was reason enough for ridicule. All this to say that cancelling someone for his/her opinions, as long as they're not inciting to violence, is not ok. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5391667 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5391667 [2] https://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/1aqyc7/adria_richards_terminated_from_sendgrid/ https://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/1aqyc7/adria_ri...
  - secondcoming 4y ago
    For example, some randomer expresses a disallowed opinion on FB or whatever, and so a witchhunt ensues.

by ouid 4y ago

Miner49er 4y ago

Yeah, exactly. It's a good thing that power can be taken away with extreme ease in some situations. We need more of that. We should expect more of people we put in positions of power, not less.

psychphysic 4y ago

I disagree, cancellation usually means no work for ~2 years before a gentle restart with less work that's less well paid. How well would you survive that? Not purely financially but emotionally. Added to this is that cancellation usually includes criticism from friends. I can not imagine publically criticizing a friend. I've cut people off before, I've criticized friends within social circles even. Criticizing someone for the purposes of strangers I find quite disgusting, akin to tribal excile likely one of the worst traditional punishments of humans probably historically a death sentence. It hits people hard. My hot take, the power of social isolation is why older male suicide is horrifically high following divorce. People on HN collapse if Google shuts their accounts down unexpectedly lol let alone every service and business you've worked with and your friends and family dropping you.

secondcoming 4y ago

Cancellation doesn't just apply to 'famous' people though. It will apply to everyone. I can't tell if your post is sarcasm or not.

ouid 4y ago
how on earth would it manage to apply to everyone?
- paganel 4y ago
  Since we're on HN, search for computer programmers/IT people who got cancelled in the last, I don't know, 4-5 years for saying things that they shouldn't have said. We're not talking about "famous" IT people, just regular persons who, some of them, lost their employment status because of said cancelation. Later edit: From here [1], I was too optimistic of the 4-5 year estimation, this shit started 10 years ago. I guess we, programmers/IT people, were just the canaries in the coal-mine: > Hi, I'm the guy who made a comment about big dongles. (...) > My second comment is this, Adria has an audience and is a successful person of the media. Just check out her web page linked in her twitter account, her hard work and social activism speaks for itself. With that great power and reach comes responsibility. As a result of the picture she took I was let go from my job today. Which sucks because I have 3 kids and I really liked that job. Later later edit: Also, that Adria Richards lady got canceled and fired by her employer in return [2]. That reddit thread I linked to is a good example of how fast (relatively speaking) things change, nowadays there's no way in hell for a person to include a pr0n-related remark in a conference talk that is not related to the pr0n industry, but back in 2013 saying that that was not ok (and it wasn't and it isn't) was reason enough for ridicule. All this to say that cancelling someone for his/her opinions, as long as they're not inciting to violence, is not ok. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5391667 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5391667 [2] https://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/1aqyc7/adria_richards_terminated_from_sendgrid/ https://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/1aqyc7/adria_ri...
- secondcoming 4y ago
  For example, some randomer expresses a disallowed opinion on FB or whatever, and so a witchhunt ensues.