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He passed away earlier today, which is I guess why this is here. He's got a point, too. To be a victim is to be helpless, and if you can choose to not see your

He passed away earlier today, which is I guess why this is here. He's got a point, too. To be a victim is to be helpless, and if you can choose to not see yourself that way, you can at least have some power back.

kmeisthax 3y ago
This only applies to a very small subset of victims who have the means to individually recover what has been taken from them. If you don't actually have the ability to do so, then pretending that you aren't a victim is just refusing to acknowledge reality. Awfully convenient for the person who put you in this situation. The reason why people 'choose' to be victims is that it allows collective organization against the thing that has victimized them. This is not helplessness, this is taking power back.
watwut 3y ago
You are victim when somebody else harmed you. To be victim means that somebody else harmed you. And when people in that situation blame themselves, it is great for abusers but bad for them.
makeitdouble 3y ago
Trying to convince yourself you're not a victim also leads to weird mental twists, like concluding you're where you are by choice and reframe your situation as some success to not look like a loser. Accepting you're being fucked is the first step to get out of it.
- codegeek 3y ago
  Munger didn't say that you should deny being a victim. You should just not use that situation as an excuse for your future actions. Anyone can be victim of anything. But what you choose to do after that experience is the key.
  - KittenInABox 3y ago
    The quote is... "If you just take the attitude that, however bad it is in anyway, it’s always your fault and you just fix it as best you can – the so-called ‘iron prescription’ – I think that really works." ...does not work for e.g. victims of child abuse. Child abuse is never the fault of the child.
    - codegeek 3y ago
      Of course, any abuse inflicted on you is not your fault. I wouldn't take that phrase "always your fault" literally. It is about how you react to it afterwards and what you do to get back up. As he also said "you just fix it as best you can". I would focus on that phrase more.
      - KittenInABox 3y ago
        So the child is expected to solve their own sexual assault instead? You must understand how ridiculous this sounds to look at a child being assaulted and expected the child to fix their own abuse.
    - xboxnolifes 3y ago
      hackernews really will look for a counter example to any advice, metaphor, or simile in the pursuit of being technically correct.
      - makeitdouble 3y ago
        To me the crux of it is it's not an advice or metaphor. Telling people to stop feeling the way they feel is good for motivational posters, but not something to tell people expecting them to think long and deep about it.
KittenInABox 3y ago
Note that not being able to acknowledge that you've been harmed while you're vulnerable is actually not recommended for certain situations. For example, it's usually very important that people who experience sexual abuse as a child acknowledge that they were innocent people who did not do anything to deserve harm and that they were harmed. Otherwise we get stuff like people who experience sexual abuse as children either believing its normal to abuse children sexually or that they were uniquely responsible as a child for their own abuse.
tech_ken 3y ago
> To be a victim is to be helpless This seems overly strong? To me "victimhood" just implies that you are the recipient of the negative consequences of someone else's actions, it has nothing to do with your response to those actions. You can be a helpless victim and you can be a resistant victim. You can recognize that something is not your fault, and still act to fix it. But simply eating the blame for everything that happens to you will just make you miserable. Healthy self-regard comes from understanding both what is and is not your fault, and what is and is not within your control.
- kelseyfrog 3y ago
  Deciding who can and can't be a victim is more about other people than it is for the person harmed. Specifically it's a reality building mechanism where systems that enable harm to occur are shielded from critique in the sense that it renders action against them impotent. Generally, the mechanism is one of individuation of harms. This is most understandable in that victimhood itself is a collective state of being for victims ie: a shared common experience. Share common experiences naturally lead towards systemic-thinking - something we wish to avoid. What anti-victimhood advocates are doing, whether they know or not, is participating in the creating of a reality where systems which create victims[1] are shielded from systems-level thinking. ie: every case which results in a victim is between individuals. As a side note: it's incredible weird to participate in a community that advocates for and understands the importance of systems-level thinking but then only applies this to machines rather than social systems. 1. remember that a systems purposes is its consequences
  - tech_ken 3y ago
    Okay I mean yeah but I’m trying to meet this comment thread where it’s at hahaha

kmeisthax 3y ago

This only applies to a very small subset of victims who have the means to individually recover what has been taken from them. If you don't actually have the ability to do so, then pretending that you aren't a victim is just refusing to acknowledge reality. Awfully convenient for the person who put you in this situation. The reason why people 'choose' to be victims is that it allows collective organization against the thing that has victimized them. This is not helplessness, this is taking power back.

watwut 3y ago

You are victim when somebody else harmed you. To be victim means that somebody else harmed you. And when people in that situation blame themselves, it is great for abusers but bad for them.

makeitdouble 3y ago

Trying to convince yourself you're not a victim also leads to weird mental twists, like concluding you're where you are by choice and reframe your situation as some success to not look like a loser. Accepting you're being fucked is the first step to get out of it.

codegeek 3y ago
Munger didn't say that you should deny being a victim. You should just not use that situation as an excuse for your future actions. Anyone can be victim of anything. But what you choose to do after that experience is the key.
- KittenInABox 3y ago
  The quote is... "If you just take the attitude that, however bad it is in anyway, it’s always your fault and you just fix it as best you can – the so-called ‘iron prescription’ – I think that really works." ...does not work for e.g. victims of child abuse. Child abuse is never the fault of the child.
  - codegeek 3y ago
    Of course, any abuse inflicted on you is not your fault. I wouldn't take that phrase "always your fault" literally. It is about how you react to it afterwards and what you do to get back up. As he also said "you just fix it as best you can". I would focus on that phrase more.
    - KittenInABox 3y ago
      So the child is expected to solve their own sexual assault instead? You must understand how ridiculous this sounds to look at a child being assaulted and expected the child to fix their own abuse.
  - xboxnolifes 3y ago
    hackernews really will look for a counter example to any advice, metaphor, or simile in the pursuit of being technically correct.
    - makeitdouble 3y ago
      To me the crux of it is it's not an advice or metaphor. Telling people to stop feeling the way they feel is good for motivational posters, but not something to tell people expecting them to think long and deep about it.

KittenInABox 3y ago

Note that not being able to acknowledge that you've been harmed while you're vulnerable is actually not recommended for certain situations. For example, it's usually very important that people who experience sexual abuse as a child acknowledge that they were innocent people who did not do anything to deserve harm and that they were harmed. Otherwise we get stuff like people who experience sexual abuse as children either believing its normal to abuse children sexually or that they were uniquely responsible as a child for their own abuse.

tech_ken 3y ago

> To be a victim is to be helpless This seems overly strong? To me "victimhood" just implies that you are the recipient of the negative consequences of someone else's actions, it has nothing to do with your response to those actions. You can be a helpless victim and you can be a resistant victim. You can recognize that something is not your fault, and still act to fix it. But simply eating the blame for everything that happens to you will just make you miserable. Healthy self-regard comes from understanding both what is and is not your fault, and what is and is not within your control.

kelseyfrog 3y ago
Deciding who can and can't be a victim is more about other people than it is for the person harmed. Specifically it's a reality building mechanism where systems that enable harm to occur are shielded from critique in the sense that it renders action against them impotent. Generally, the mechanism is one of individuation of harms. This is most understandable in that victimhood itself is a collective state of being for victims ie: a shared common experience. Share common experiences naturally lead towards systemic-thinking - something we wish to avoid. What anti-victimhood advocates are doing, whether they know or not, is participating in the creating of a reality where systems which create victims[1] are shielded from systems-level thinking. ie: every case which results in a victim is between individuals. As a side note: it's incredible weird to participate in a community that advocates for and understands the importance of systems-level thinking but then only applies this to machines rather than social systems. 1. remember that a systems purposes is its consequences
- tech_ken 3y ago
  Okay I mean yeah but I’m trying to meet this comment thread where it’s at hahaha