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Not really. Like a recent cancel attempt was Scott Cawthon, creator of the game series Five Nights at Freddy's. His crime? Voting for trump.

No really, that's it. His games weren't political, and while he was open about who he was, he pretty much seemed to be inoffensive in practice. But since his fanbase has a lot of LGBT, they felt betrayed because he did so, and as far as i know he was definitely not trolling them or being any form of negative person apart from supporting people they disliked.

https://www.reddit.com/r/fivenightsatfreddys/comments/nybyo1...

I can understand not wanting to support legit offensive personalities, but increasingly it will be used as a weapon to enforce proper thought.

You can't really get used to siccing the tiger of cancel culture on people, because it gets really tempting to sic it on anyone. Homophobia for example is a useful concept to make people think about why they disagree with legalizing gay marriage, or their attitudes about alternative sexualities. But it also can and has been used as a club to silence enemies or any disagreement whatsoever.

You have to keep things civil and restrained because once unrestrained, like the tiger, it can be used on and go after anyone.




> But since his fanbase has a lot of LGBT, they felt betrayed because he did so

The LGBT community was [1] and still are violently attacked for the mere act of existing. The idea that people's political beliefs, what, don't affect other people who live in that country? Is insane.

Voting is a political act which affects others. If someone votes for a politician who gives cover and support to a group which - as an example - believes atheists are unfit to have the right to vote - then they are voting to strip the right to vote from me and I do not and will not support them or their personal enterprises.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stonewall_riots


Reading about Trump on this, he seems to flipflop more than be hateful or anything; in one breath he supports same sex marriage, in another he restricts certain federal aspects like gender dysphoric individuals being allowed in the military. The actual content of what he did for LGBT seems to be a minor negative mostly surrounding limiting federal power over employment; he refused to put up any fight against same sex marriage and there's a lot of "well it could LEAD to this" going on.

I don't think this is a cancellable offense. I think if you are going to sanction someone for voting, it has to be real and clear danger of present harm, not "they are republicans, you know they hate us."

Like, if that's the case, why not just sanction everyone who voted for him?


> in one breath he supports same sex marriage, in another he restricts certain federal aspects like gender dysphoric individuals being allowed in the military

These are incredibly different issues. For me personally, given that we ought to only have a small peace time army and we currently have lots of volunteers I support only accepting the strongest, buffets, most agile soldiers which 99/100 times will be a mostly male force.

When we have a war, then we can talk about adding more people, but fighting a war or being in the army is not a right and frankly the army is too big.

Now whether those men are homosexual or not is immaterial, but trans soldiers would require higher costs and more lifetime healthcare costs.


It's irrelevant whether this is a Trump thing, a Biden thing or a Bernie Sanders thing. Politics effects people's lives. This attitude that you can vote for candidates or policies which would destroy other people's lives and not be criticized is some entitled privilege.

Being "cancelled" isn't some autonomous process, it's not a button that gets pushed it's people reading about an issue and making a personal decision they're entitled to make. What I do with my free time and money, and who I choose to support is my decision to make. Not yours.


> The idea that people's political beliefs, what, don't affect other people who live in that country? Is insane.

Yes, that is insane, but I don't think the person you're replying to or the FNAF guy believe that. It sounds like Mr. FNAF might actually be opposed to Trump to some extent on LGBT issues. However, he feels more strongly about other things (USA-China relations, abortion), and he, like all of us, only gets two choices. So he chose the mix of good and bad stuff that he thought was better than the other mix of good and bad stuff. I disagree with him so I voted the other way, but I'm not going to hold him accountable for everything Trump says or does, and I hope I am not held accountable for everything Biden says or does.

Presidents cause unnecessary death and suffering without exception. That's not to say that "everything's a gray area so nothing matters", rather it means that you can't just take one issue and be like "I can't imagine how you would vote for somebody who believes this". Maybe the other option was somebody who is ~3% more likely to start a bad war, for example. Or 3% more likely to lose an inevitable war. I might take a bible-thumping evangelical with a slightly higher chance of winning WWII over somebody with exactly my ethics in office with less strategic acumen. It depends on the actual degree of difference. I'd have to assign weights to things and sum them up, because it's democracy and that's what you do.


Running a gay bar in New York City wasn't illegal in 1969.

The Stonewall Inn was effectively a brothel with mafia protection, not a gay version of Cheers.


Homosexual behavior was branded disorderly conduct and liquor licenses were revoked as a consequence. So yes, it was effectively illegal if you didn’t bribe the cops. People were arrested because the police didn’t consider their genitals to match their clothes.

Drug deals and transactions for sex occurred at Stonewall just as they have occurred on Discord, but I’ve not seen any credible evidence that it was a primary function of the place.

It seems somewhat a habit of yours to find something bad about victims and then use that to dismiss any wrong done to them. Someone subjected to police abuse? Oh they had a criminal record, so it’s ok. Indigenous people being tortured, enslaved and slaughtered by Spain? Oh, it’s ok because some of them practiced human sacrifice. There’s no going the extra step and recognizing Spain was in the middle of the Inquisition and creating their own murderous horror, or that the Spanish allied with the Aztecs to eliminate groups that didn’t have human sacrifice, or that the Spanish cruelty was applied to the people in the Caribbean as sport from Columbus. It reads like intellectual laziness.


> Spanish allied with the Aztecs to eliminate groups that didn’t have human sacrifice

As far as I can recall the Spanish did not ally with the Aztecs but conquered the leading faction of the Aztecs through an alliance with rival factions and effects of smallpox.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aztec_Empire


You didn't like my comment, so you went through my post history?

Recasting criminals as innocent angels is a disinformation tactic. You don't get to accuse people of laziness when they correct the record.


Your habitual rhetoric is lazy, regardless of much you want it to be considered "correcting the record".


> His crime? Voting for trump.

> No really, that's it.

No, that's really not it. Cawthon contributed thousands of dollars to multiple Republican campaigns in 2020, including some noted hate magnets (e.g. Devin Nunes and Mitch McConnell). This naturally sparked discussion of boycotting his products, some of which was level-headed and some of which wasn't. As has happened countless times for many other vendors and issues across the political spectrum.


But what exactly is this "cancel" attempt? Is he legally prohibited from expressing his views somewhere? It seems more like his former fans deciding they don't want to support him and "voting with their feet".

This guy can still produce whatever games he wants, say whatever he wants in a public forum, make his own websites declaring whatever he wants to declare, probably get on TV and talk about it, get licensure to establish a talk radio station and talk about it all day, ... He isn't legally muzzled, and he's hardly reached a point where he has no audience in society. This is the balance of free speech. You are allowed to hold and express an opinion and everyone else is too.


> But what exactly is this "cancel" attempt?

Basically it’s just like calling for a boycott and removal of apps and removal from social media platforms.

It’s not calling for execution, just for reducing the person’s ability to communicate and/or make a living.

This seems like a basic understanding of what “cancelling” is although it gets spun up quite a bit because lots of people like arguing about it.

But I think it’s a “bad thing” TM to call for boycott and removal from social media. Not that it’s illegal or shouldn’t be allowed, just that it’s dumb and people who do it are dumb.

Similar to how Tipper Gore was dumb in the 80s/90s for calling for the “cancelling” of rappers and whatnot.


Regardless of one’s personal beliefs, it’s indisputable that President Trump is the single most polarizing figure in American politics at the moment. He is radioactive for a large proportion of our fellow citizens.


Trump’s positions included his belief that people should be able to be fired solely for being LGBT+. You know, like cancelled.

So, people who are or care about LGBT+ share the information that Cawthon voted in a way that could harm them. That’s not ‘siccing a tiger’ for any disagreement whatsoever.


Trump was cancelled by the election, so that makes sense. People vote for lots of reasons so assuming that a voter supports every single issue is simplistic.


Imagine people not being impressed with arguments like “I don’t agree with his attempted oppression of a vulnerable group of citizens, but I sure do like his position on immigration/tariffs/capital gains tax.”


I’m not sure your point as that’s exactly what people do. I have a neighbor who is gay and voted for Trump because of gun rights. People are really diverse and it takes lots of particulars to find out why people do stuff.

It’s not a good idea to “cancel” people based on a single characteristic.


If that characteristic were bad enough (a genocidaire as an extreme example) and your potential survival and wellbeing hinged upon it, I think you'd change your mind about how good of an idea it was.


> Trump was cancelled by the election

Only if you believe mainstream media sources, if you step out of your bubble you will see that trump will be reinstated this August


I guess I should've added /s


Ballots are secret in the Unites States. Therefore this person must have vocally supported Trump. Therefore you are being misleading about what incited his former fans.


yeah, well he gave money to him rather. My mistake. About the same difference imo, contributions are limited to the point that at best you can say its a vote +1.


My point remains. You are deliberately minimizing his support for Trump, his support for other anti-gay politicians and his political statements to make it seem like people were against him over his quiet political preferences. If you try to influence politics and use your platform/money to do so then you absolutely should expect some sort of response, if only from your partisan opposition.




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