(this comment got a bit long. tl;dr, the internet is full of insensitive pricks that don't get confronted with their own behaviour)
A large percentage of the internet populace is running on autopilot: browse hundreds of random images a day for quick fixes of entertainment, and post the odd impulsive, thoughtless and, most importantly, internet-badassity-enhancing comment.
It's much more common to be scathing and hurtful on the internet, simply because there is less of, or none of, a 'society filter' out there. If one were to stand on a soapbox in public and make the kind of remarks people make unashamedly and unfilteredly on the internet, they wouldn't be standing there for long and would in all likelihood get called out on their behavior.
Not (directly) so on the internet. I can identify two major reasons for that: One, peer groups. Internet douchebags is a major internet peer group, who will e-high-five each other for remarks outlined in the article. Two: Nobody cares. Scathing remarks are made by anonymous people all over the internet, so a lot of people have been desensitised or simply feel powerless, on behalf of not actually knowing the person making the remarks.
The difference for that last point lies in community. A lot of these image sharing sites have a loosely-tied, unloyal random userbase, where most commenters will not or never know or recognise each other from other 'threads'. This in contrast to, say, HN, where people can gain fame and notoriety over time. In the latter category, where comments and the overall mood is much less random and much more focussed at a certain audience, scathing and offensive and plain dumb comments (which is about 99% of youtube comments, for example) will not only be (anonymously, disconnecedly) downvoted, but outright confronted, countered, and the people behind them approached and have their unwanted behaviour pointed out to them.
[faux-psychologist]Freud assigned people's behavior as a result of the id, ego, and super-ego; on the internet, shielded by anonymity and a high abstraction and reduction of communication to quickly typed, short messages, the super-ego has little power in the big, anonymous communities; there is little to no society that tells people "No, this behavior is unwanted". This in turn dulls the ego (one's rational mind, conscience, etc), allowing the id (the impulsive mind that screams LOL FAT PEOPLE KILL UR SELF LOL) to write a similar blurb onto the internet. Communities like HN have a much stronger super-ego, and unwanted behavior is put down. When the poster approached the commenters, she acted as the super-ego, and the commenters suddenly snapped out of their autopilot, impulsive state of mind, having their conscience suddenly kick in when they realised there was a living person with real feelings behind the 2D image of a random woman dressing up as a character with a different physique.[/faux-psychologist]
> Communities like HN have a much stronger super-ego, and unwanted behavior is put down
Before we sprain something with collective back-patting, have you seen what happens when anyone suggests that HN might have issues with gender or privilege? That class of unwanted behaviour has a bimodal response: some forms are slapped down but others are dismissed or even encouraged.
Yes I have. A while ago I expressed shock and outrage on HN at the systemic sexism (of the "geek community") evident in the PAX business, and in other similar incidents. I was then given a lesson in logic (because this wasn't precisely sexism, but merely an individual behaving badly in this particular case). I was appalled.
No one here would write such things? I doubt it. And at the very least, I find it unbelievable that "cooler heads" are so quick to say that "panty shot" and "tit viewer" or "brogrammer" or whatever have nothing to do with the culture of IT.
I've spent most of my career trying to teach college-age women (coming mainly from humanities programs) how to program. When I suggest to my most promising engineers they they go into computer science, they almost invariably end up not being able to do it. Not because the professor isn't supportive, certainly not because they find the material too hard, but because of the "culture." They can't always find that term, but that's clearly what it is.
Ask any woman who tried and failed to make it through a CS program, and you'll here the same thing: they were sick of being ogled, they were sick of the porn jokes, they were the sick of the "cowboy up or go home" shit.
This is my culture; I'm part of it. And if you read this board a lot, it's probably your culture as well. We absolutely need to own this one and not pin it every time on errant individuals. We need to actually admit that in subtle ways we have created an environment hostile to women.
HN members are great at superficially coming across as intelligent and rational while managing to make all the same childish comments that we see elsewhere.
Want proof? Scroll down this very page. No different.
>Want proof? Scroll down this very page. No different.
But won't you agree that its good that you have to scroll _down_ for them. Showing that they have been downvoted, or at least not been upvoted. Speaks about the average behavior here, in my opinion.
Not to mention a number of incredibly nasty + negative posts I've seen on here on many occasions. I have spent time away from hacker news on 2 occasions just because I found the non-constructive negativity too much.
Hacker News might not suffer from the crude childish nastiness, but don't for a second think it's free of the passive-aggressive 'adult' kind.
I no longer show any particular respect or pity towards fat people. I've been fat most of my life, but no more.
It all started when a friend, well into the 400lb ~ 180kg, started losing weight like magic. Constant, steady weight loss. He was a fat guy in a family of fat people, the typical case of genetic blamery. I asked how he did it, he said he just counted calories and never broke the limit.
I did the same. I changed my food habits. It was hard in the sense that I've been "trained" otherwise; it's evident to me now that my mother transmitted me her fears of famine in the war. I always had to finish the plate, eat all I was given, and eat a bit more on my own whenever possible.
And the conclusion the very first day I started the control is that I just ate too much. Checked the calories, yeah, it's well added up. WTF, it's lunch and I'm already more than done! After a while I noticed things started expiring and get moldy since with my new diet couldn't keep up with my grocery list habits.
I lost weight mathematically. Kept doing exercise and bumped proteins not to lose muscle, and the average caloric deficit approached frighteningly my weight loss rate following the famous 9kcal/g of fat. Ate 20000kcal less this month? Weigh in and poof, 2.2kg gone.
From then I started analyzing other people's habits. And fat people just eat too much, very, very, very few of them are exceptions.
At this point I just don't understand why I should feel pity and display consideration to fat people while smokers (or meth addicts, or gamblers, or other sorts of compulsive behavior) are almost the worst thing in the world after the Third Reich. Saving some distances, it's the same league.
It's just an unhealthy habit, and the only difference is that it can be seen from outside. It's not a lost limb from an accident, something random that could happen to anyone and deserves pity instead of mockery. 99% of fat people just eat too much, they're just choosing to be, play the victim card too often and lack of education in regards to nutrition just perpetuates this. It's essentially the same as white trash, you can blame the environment but in the end it's you making the choice, but I have yet to see as many people defending juggalos as people defending fat people.
Because, you know, sometimes it's more complicated than what you eat, like when you have, you know, medical conditions like the one stated in, you know, the article.
But congratulations on your weight loss and newfound abilities to generalize a condition that endocrinologists and geneticists have been researching for decades.
I've noticed this general tendency to focus on the edge cases to make the rules. This is how we end up with crazy security theatre instead of real security and pointlessly drifting away from the topic.
He is sharing his experience which probably applies to the majority of the people but no, use edge cases to justify your stance and feel good about having the moral high ground.
Congratulations on your ability to focus on the edge cases and not the majority of the bell curve.
EDIT - Guys, no don't get me wrong. I'm not talking about THIS specific article or about being fat or anything. It's just that for the past year or so I've been in any online community (even the other one) I've noticed this. Sure, I get it - Innocent until proven guilty and all, but sometimes, things really are as simple as they appear to be.
[Oh, and dear parent poster, I'm a bit sorry for the "Congratulations on your ability to ..." but that was just me getting upset that people aren't looking at the bigger picture.]
I can turn around and say that treating 99% of fat people as lazy slobs is the same kind of generalization that leads to security theater when we assume everyone is a threat to our national security.
What's the difference between your and my asinine analogies? Yours pushes to look at people in a more judgmental and critical way because you're almost certain they sit towards the meaty middle of the "bell curve" (bell curve of what exactly?). Mine pushes to treat everyone with a higher level of empathy and acceptance. Could an overweight person just be lazy? Sure! Could it be due to more than that? Certainly!
In fact, the type of shitty and ignorant comments this article talks about are most certainly fueled by the idea that most fat people are lazy victim-card playing slobs. Turns out it was a little more complicated for her.
I think I didn't make myself clear in my previous comment (which I've edited btw). It's not about THIS article or THAT article or anything. It's just that I've found when you (not you you, but the general you) focus on edge cases you lose sight of the bigger picture. Sure it may help you win an internet argument by appealing to emotion ("Terrorists will come again", or "She's not lazy, she has a real problem"). I don't disagree with those points but sometimes those are just too small in the probability field that we need to ignore them.
For instance, each iteration of the Rabin Miller test reduces the probability that a number is composite by 10^-4. So sure, you might argue "Well, you never know if the 16384-bit number is prime or not merely on running the rabin miller test 10 times because there's still a 1 in 10^-40 chance it's not prime so you method is invalid." I find this kinds of arguments infuriating.
The question I have is - what good does it do anyone to be cruel and judgmental? Sure, the mean case may be "lazy slob", but so what?
Besides letting anonymous Internet People guffaw in armchair superiority, what does this judgment accomplish?
As a former fatty myself (well, okay, I'm not exactly thin, but no longer huge), I can say without even an ounce of doubt that no amount of ridicule contributed to my turnaround. Support and the complete internalization that the ship can be turned around was what did the trick for me - no amount of haranguing (thanks, parents) nor ridicule (thanks, high school) over years did squat except drive me further away from success.
So we assume that a random fattie is the mean case, and is fat because she's a lazy slob. Then we are justified in saying cruel things behind the mask of anonymity. She feels worse about herself and wallows in another pint of ice cream, and the Internet People tip their fedoras at one another.
Is there any positive to this? Isn't this just entirely negative for all involved except for some people who got a 0.5 second endorphin injection?
I don't know about you, but "things that are damaging to some and provide no good to anyone except ego boosts" counts as a Bad Thing in my book.
I agree that it is bad to be cruel because it does not gain us anything other than bad karma here. I do not think we should call a fattie as a fattie because it's better to not say anything at all if you can't say anything nice. Of course, ridicule is pretty bad. Some people's problems are visible (physical appearances) while others are not (mental problems), and obviously shaming isn't a good idea.
Btw this isn't a debate/argument but just a casual discussion. I was just observing that how quickly a person pulled an extreme card.
Sure, but leaping at "lazy slob" vs. leaping at "medical problem" are both dumb ideas, except one is considerably meaner than the other.
This may be a shitty analogy, but I can't come up with something better:
I give you two boxes. Box A has a 50% chance of being a pizza, and a 50% chance of being $1000. Box B has a 90% chance of being a dog turd, and a 10% chance of being $1,000,000.
Which box do you pick?
It's a trick question of course. The answer is: open the boxes up and take what you want (presumably the million dollars).
It doesn't matter what the bell curve looks like on the causes of obesity - because we're not dealing with aggregates, we're dealing with a specific individual. If you want to know where on the bell curve she lies, ask someone. Leaping to any conclusion because of probabilities is idiotic, because you're not dealing with a probabilistic unknown.
So it doesn't really matter if the majority of obesity is caused by poor lifestyle choices, or if it isn't. It doesn't at all matter how many people are fat due to hormones or due to Big Macs - because in the case of an individual we can directly ascertain it for ourselves. Probabilistic decision making when you can simply observe the individual is nonsensical, and frequently simply represents an attempt to deliberately paint an individual as a generic member of their class.
The part you're missing is the assumptino that your pre-judgements are the bigger picture.
I know you think you are being eminently reasonable, but it's really just another way of saying you intend to keep to those prejudices and not be distracted by treating individuals as individuals. That would be edge case thinking.
You're saying that my assumption is "Majority of the fat people are fat because of intake of food and not because of actual health problems." In this context, yes, that is exactly what my Bayesian priors (so to say) assume but it's not relevant to the point I'm trying to make. I've read things that seem to support this many times over the years so obviously that is what I would assume. If I am wrong, would you kindly care to educate me.
Actually no, don't. Because that is not the point. The point is (like I said in other comments) my gut feeling suggests that we as a society are moving towards optimizing for edge cases and that's not a good thing. (Immediate examples that come to mind are parent fearing children going out and playing, security theatre, crime television, crazy safety labels etc.)
You lost weight and now you're spewing judgmental advice. Am I now supposed to look at a fat person with scorn and immediately assume that they're lazy slobs? Should I suppress feelings of empathy? What is the actual point of what you're saying?
You spent 99% of your comment talking about your success and how you've gained insight into the unsatisfactory habits of others, and all of 1% acknowledging that it may be more complicated. And within that 1% you literally state that only 1% of fat people are losing to more than a simple mathematical equation. I know you coders like your elegant algorithms, but life is bit more messy than that.
Why wouldn't someone be empathetic towards smokers? They got hooked on an addictive substance at some point in their life and are now stuck with an unhealthy compulsion.
I think the unstated assumption OP is making is that fat people got hooked on food, and can't be responsible and give up their addiction. And while it may be hard to do, you only owe your inability to stick with quitting for your continued problems. Born again skinny people are particularly severe in this regard, since they've likely overcome their own personal issues with food (for now, at least) and so see that experience in everyone else. Maybe they made physiological excuses before, and tend to discount those issues in others; maybe their own feelings of weakness don't allow them to be especially empathetic.
And, the analogy to smoking is fatally flawed. Nobody needs cigarettes, but everyone has to eat.
Seriously, I'd like you to back that statement with some hard data. Not because I necessarily disbelieve you (lifestyle is a HUGE cause of weight problems), but because I think you underestimate how many people suffer from medical disorders.
A few illnesses that are characterized by an imbalance or an abnormality in your endocrine glands can also affect your weight. These include hypothyroidism (an underactive thyroid), polycystic ovarian syndrome, and certain unusual tumors of the pituitary gland, adrenal glands, or the pancreas. However, in the vast majority of people, these illnesses are not responsible for weight gain. Most are extremely rare. Hypothyroidism, which is the most common, is seldom the main reason for overweight or obesity. Treatment with thyroid hormone, while medically necessary, does not usually cause a significant weight reduction.
Genetic disorders
Obesity is also a symptom of some rare and complex disorders caused by genetic defects. These obesity syndromes usually appear in early childhood and are tied to several additional medical problems. One such disorder is Prader-Willi syndrome, a form of obesity associated with mild mental retardation that occurs in about 1 in 25,000 people and has been traced to abnormalities in a group of genes on chromosome 15. People with this disorder are unusually short and have primarily upper-body obesity. A less common disorder, Bardet-Biedl syndrome, is similar to Prader-Willi syndrome, but is caused by abnormalities in different genes. Several other rare genetic syndromes cause obesity, but account for only a tiny fraction of all weight disorders.
Medical conditions (and often, medications taken to treat certain conditions) only make it more difficult to lose weight. They don't make it impossible.
I really don't like reading lines like "I eat right (most of the time) and I exercise (an inordinate amount), but it does little, thanks to a struggle with polycystic ovarian syndrome and a failing thyroid gland" because it suggests that weight loss is simply impossible for some people. And yet time and time again people with these and other weight-gaining diseases prove this wrong.
99.99% of the time people who struggle to lose weight are simply not following a successful weight loss plan to the letter. I would bet a pretty large sum of money, that if she got help (either online for free, or from a professional trainer/dietitian for not-so-free) and actually followed through with a proven action plan, the weight would come off. If she stuck to the plan, the weight would stay off.
It would probably be more difficult for her than for a healthy person, but to suggest that she has no choice but to be overweight is disingenuous.
The problem you have is that while there are definitely people who really need to modify their lifestyle, there are a not so insignificant number of people who cannot reduce their weight.
I think it's great you managed to lose weight (I fight a constant battle of the bulge myself with exercise and diet), but the author has an endocrine disorder called Polycystic Ovary Syndrome.
My point is that when you lump all "fatties" into the same bucket, you also unfairly judge those with medical conditions. Given many of the fat people you see will be strangers, you'll probably never know if it is lifestyle or a medical disorder causing their excess weight.
PCOS causes insulin resistance. If she counted calories, she would lose weight. She is eating too much, just like the parent comment suggests. Having a very common disorder does not mean it causes obesity, nor does it prevent one from maintaining a healthy weight. It simply makes it more challenging, as she will tend to be hungry more.
Because she is overweight. Contrary to popular belief, this is not actually complicated. There are no magic "get twice as much energy from your food" disorders. Disorders that make you more likely to overeat do not mean that you are not overeating.
While -- as several responses have pointed out -- it is trivially true that diet will help (in that a calorie deficit will always result in weight loss), the real issue with certain thyroid issues is that without a very carefully selected diet and exercise regime, attempting to achieve a calorie deficit in ways that would be easily manageable for a person without metabolic challenge will either leave you completely nonfunctional for life activities (an unacceptable result) or just drop your metabolic rate so that you don't have a calorie deficit.
Weight loss with thyroid issues (and, especially, with other complicating metabolic issues which often occur alongside thyroid issues) is not a simple thing.
People with metabolic issues do need diet/exercise balance to lose weight, but finding the right diet component that allows weight loss while maintaining health and the ability to function can require considerable expert assistance that wouldn't be necessary for a person without those issues.
"Maintain a calorie deficit" is easy to say, but can be very hard to do in a way which actually works.
Yes it does. Are you trying to tell me, for instance, if someone suffering from the same disease as the author, didn't eat a single calorie then they'd still gain weight? Because that is simply impossible (yes, yes.. the body would go into starvation mode).
As someone else has pointed out, suffering from the same problems as the author has, doesn't make it impossible to lose weight, it makes it more difficult. If you provide your body with less energy than it uses, you're going to lose weight. Simple.
She says she's eating healthily, but is she actually?
Question: if not partially caused by diet, does that mean weight gained by people with a thyroid problem is all water weight? Because otherwise you'd still need 9 kcal/g of fat gained?
I tried googling, but the results aren't very useful with regard to the exact mechanism how thyroid problems cause weight gain.
Edit: From more reading I now believe that it's still a diet problem, but the thyroid issues seem to make it harder to eat less.
From what I'd read, my understanding was that thyroid issues, such as hyperthyroidism (this is only one condition AFAIK), are very hard to control, at least via diet.
No, it does not cause weight gain. Excess energy consumption causes weight gain. Some thyroid disorders can make you more likely to consume excess energy. The solution is still to stop consuming excess energy.
I would also add that people who don't have a medical condition and who overeat cause the stigma people with medical conditions receive for being overweight. If most people who were overweight were so because of a medical condition you wouldn't see as much mockery of it.
This was kind of his point - that you can't possibly be fat, if you don't eat too much. The fat doesn't come out of the air - it comes out of the stuff that goes into your mouth.
So wire your jaw, get a backbone, do whatever it takes and you will absolutely NOT be fat. This is physics, not medicine nor psychology.
It was sarcasm. They were saying that society sees smokers as people who are "worse thing in the world after the Third Reich," not that they actually believe that. The point they were making is that people view smokers in a bad light but hypocritically it's taboo to view the obese in a bad light.
A lack of anonymity never stopped Penny Arcade from printing Dick Wolves t-shirts. Every time I see someone quote Penny Arcade, I think to myself "These are the guys who made a bad taste rape joke, then decided to print t-shirts celebrating rape jokes".
You clearly have never read the comic in question and have jumped on the band wagon. In no way was it a rape joke. Please show me how it was a joke about rape? I'm not a penny arcade fan but people who say that the original strip is a "rape joke" are the ones responsible for why the dickwolves saga will never be put behind us. You are perpetuating a myth that the original comic was a rape joke and in doing so are empowering rape culture.
After. The live drawing was before they removed the merch from the store back in 2011.
Krahulik repeated (he'd already made the sentiment clear back in 2011) that his main regret had been the merch being pulled at Prime 2013, early this september.
I don't know about that. The Dick Wolves debacle was the Penny Arcade guys reacting to those who hate rape jokes and not only continuing the joke, but making things hostile for those who spoke out against this sort of behaviour.
Both stories are about someone or some people who are marginalised by a larger group. I think it's very relevant.
The problem is people who equate rape jokes (which are ok, if tasteless) and rape culture (which is not okay, and must be stopped).
The dickwolves thing was well done specifically because it was a joke (not a rape joke, even) that happened to use the word rape that caused a massive freakout among those who don't understand the actual problem and instead wish to attack the symptoms.
Rape jokes are not a positive identifier for those who perpetuate rape culture.
> making things hostile for those who spoke out against this sort of behaviour.
Maybe that kind of knee-jerk reaction deserves a little hostility? I mean, I get that PA crossed the line and got carried away, but I can't really be offended by somebody mocking the social justice blogosphere. Because, quite frankly, they're jerks. They're generally right, but they're jerks.
> I don't see the relevance of this comment to the story at all.
“don't see” or “don't want to see”? This is highly relevant: the original discussion is about how people behave horribly when there are no consequences for doing so. As long as the Penny Arcade fan-base insulates them from criticism by dismissing it and attacking anyone who speaks up, they might not be anonymous but share the same basic ability to avoid significant consequences from their actions.
>These are the guys who made a bad taste rape joke
I like how people just keep gradually dragging that whole thing further and further away from the truth. A rape joke is a joke about rape. They made a joke about quests in MMOGs that happened to mention rape. It even mentioned rape in a "it is the most horrible thing imaginable" context.
Even the reaction wasn't about "yay, rape" - it was about PA butting heads with the internet feminist community. And the internet feminist community are, to put it bluntly, massive jackasses. They're right more often than not, but that doesn't mean they aren't huge dicks. It's a funny feeling to so thoroughly loathe people that I broadly agree with.
So Mike Krahulik picking a fight with them? The whole "Dickwolves" thing? I don't really blame him for it. The problem is that Krahulik didn't really pay attention to the collateral damage he was doing. While his actions were intending to mock the social-justice-warrior blogosphere (which, quite frankly, deserves mockery) some of his fans were using it to celebrate rape (not cool). In the end, he was far more stubborn than he should've been, and he did a lot of damage to his own reputation and crossed the line a fair bit. It was never about rape for him, it was about picking a fight. The problem is that he's a bit immature (like, quite frankly, most folks are) and didn't think about the larger context of his actions.
Your words were "These are the guys who made a bad taste rape joke". But now you admit that is not true, and you are upset at their response to the histrionic reaction to the comic. You said something false about someone you don't like, by accident? Did you slip and hit the keyboard and that particular combination of characters was produced by pure co-incidence?
I wasn't deliberately lying. I said "no", because IMO the joke was in bad taste. I wasn't particularly upset about it though, I could see the context for the initial strip however while I didn't think it was funny or particularly clever, I didn't really find it appalling or upsetting in any way.
You can say something is in poor taste and not get outraged you know. Go watch Meet the Feebles sometime. Or Clerks.
Hence my "Go away troll" comment.
Interesting though that my simple "No" got voted down. I put it down to cognitive dissonance.
This is one of the (probably positive) arguments for Google's "real-name" policy on G+. Perhaps another tactic we could use is to pick the most blatantly rude and obnoxious commenters on 4chan, etc and DOX them ... Once identified, we could comment on their pictures and let their family and friends know how they've been behaving.
The worst part is, I think we'd find many of the worst offenders are 14 or so ... they either haven't developed their humanity yet, or they'll be our worst nightmare as young adults.
Real-name policy doesn't really work. I've seen plenty of vile and horrible comments from people through the Facebook comment widget. And doxing is dangerous since it's in effect a call for vigilante justice. You don't even know if you're doxxing the right person. Extrajudicial punishment is extremely dodgy even in the cases where it is legal.
And Internet anonymity serves a purpose beyond how comfortable it is, which is to allow the discussion of subjects where few people want to have their real name and picture attached. Approximately 50% of the political opinions I debate online, I would not want a prospective employer to be able to look up.
I think this is a problem we have to live with. It sucks, but it's better than the alternatives.
doxing is dangerous since it's in effect a call for vigilante justice
Sure, doxxing (publishing someone's personal information), might be seen as "encouraging violence". But the people we're talking about doxxing are the people who make posts that are explicit calls to violence. If person A says "Heifers like her should be put down" (as in article), they are explicitly calling for murder, so why can they be upset when someone posts their personal information? It's not like doxxing calls for "putting the cow down", so it's not as bad.
How do you know that it's the right personal information you just published? That's what due process is for - giving the accused a chance to defend himself before justice is served. Anything else is by definition vigilante justice.
Someone who posts that a fat person is a "waste of space" and should kill themselves to "spare everyone's eyes" clearly already believes in vigilante justice without due process. If you think it's OK to limit someone's freedom of speech to ban doxxing due to it's negative affects, then it's obvious that speech that says a person "should be put down" should also be banned, since that's more harmful.
The fat person is not a "heifer" (a type of cow), we're already out of the bounds of "accurate information".
Yes, I think that hate speech should be prosecuted. I just don't think that the internet mob makes for a good prosecution and it's even a worse judge and jury.
> The fat person is not a "heifer" (a type of cow), we're already out of the bounds of "accurate information".
So in retaliation we accept that our act of doxxing might provide the details of a completely unrelated person that then suddenly has to deal with all the shit the internet mob throws at them? Or feed teenagers to the internet mob so that unto them be done what they did in a careless, stupid moment? Now that's classy.
Just because other people on the internet behave like careless, blundering idiots we don't have to.
"And doxing is dangerous since it's in effect a call for vigilante justice"
Is it really? Not by definition but I'll admit that people often use doxing along with a call for vigilante justice. I wasn't proposing violence of any kind ... just that some people should be shamed using their real identity.
Is there anything inherently wrong with intelligent objective "vigilante justice", especially in minor cases? Just because a judge won't look at a case doesn't mean it's inherently wrong to take action.
Yes, there is something inherently wrong with vigilante justice. Our law system is built on the pillar of due process, which means that we have prosecutor, judge and defendant and a process in which those three parties try to get as close to the truth as possible. Each party in that process has rights and obligations - and all those rights the defendant has get thrown out the window in vigilante justice because judge, juror and executor is one and the only party deciding what they deem "the truth" and "the correct punishment." There is no defense speaking, since the defendant doesn't get heard, there's no appeal, because the punishment has already been dealt. There is no 'intelligent objective "vigilante justice"' since there is no objective all-knowing human being, this is exactly the reason that due process was established: To prevent as many human failures as possible and to reduce the damage those failures cause.
Note that this does not mean "do not take action", please, do so: Call out false behavior, but keep it limited to the behavior. Collect evidence if you think that criminal charges should be filed. Support the victim. Doxxing, as appealing as it sounds is not the right action to take.
Vigilantism violates the rule of law. Just like censoring someone who says something really bad (but only if it's "really bad" and something you shouldn't say, of course), you can't just cancel the democratic principles because it seems like a good idea. That is the exact reason why we have these principles; because often it seems like a good idea but you will screw up if you make a habit out of it.
> I think this is a problem we have to live with. It sucks, but it's better than the alternatives.
I have more optimistic take: it's a social problem so technical hacks won't work but social methods do. Investing time reinforcing the desired community behaviour does work so part of the question is really figuring out how to make that as easy as possible.
I think the majority of them would never even think of saying something like that in person. It's to do with crowd behaviour and the fact that they literally have no consequences.
I've spoken to a few people that are super nice and then as soon as they lose their identity they just spew hate as a release for all the pent up anger built up throughout the day/year/life.
It's very similar to road rage. You can call people every name under the sun and throw up fingers left, right and center but I can bet most people wouldn't dare do such a thing if you accidentally walked in front of them on the street. There's no consequences really when you can just shut your window and drive off or if someone is going the opposite direction.
Real name policies hurt the most vulnerable people the most, and essentially cut off people who can't afford for whatever reason to tie their self-expression on the internet to a name through which or bullies or other abusive personalities can trace their real-life identity. As far as I can tell, they do nothing to curb harassment by people who are secure in spouting abuse because it is considered acceptable in their social environment.
>This is one of the (probably positive) arguments for Google's "real-name" policy on G+
The key is having a community with behavioral standards - a persistent identifier that a reputation can be attached to is a prerequisite for enforcing said standards, but without the community to set and enforce those standards? the identifier doesn't help.
Also note, communities often contribute to this 'problem' as much as they help. Nearly all communities consider certain types of bullying of certain types of people acceptable, and with that community backing? people seem to be much worse than they would be on their own. Most of the time? most of the truly terrible things people do are done in a context where that terrible behavior is normal, or even accepted.)
I think the real problem with a 'real name' policy is that I may wish to participate in different communities with conflicting standards for behavior. A good reasonable example that most of us face is our professional selves vs. our sexual selves. Behavior that is completely acceptable in a nightclub is going to be completely unacceptable in an office, and vis-a-vis.
Google tries to address this with privacy settings, but really? I think that's the wrong approach. The context trumps the relationship; Even if I meet someone from work in a nightclub, that doesn't mean I can apply nightclub behavioral standards to my interactions with them in the office. (I would argue that I could apply nightclub standards to our interactions in the nightclub, but some would disagree.) - At least for me, (and I am told that this is very different for other people) the thing I am concerned about is not so much keeping my non-professional self secret, but in allowing people to choose a context in which to interact with me, and allowing them to be not made uncomfortable by personal issues. If they want to dig and find my personal issues? that's on them.
The worst part is, I think we'd find many of the worst offenders are 14 or so ...
Based on some of the stupid comments my eleven year old has posted on Youtube, and the equally asinine replies, I find this very plausible. I've talked to him about what kind impression he makes for himself. He's not out to hurt anyone, he just posts stuff without thinking about it. Normal behavior for an eleven year old. I said some pretty dumb things when I was a kid, but none of it was broadcasted further than my classmates. Now I'm making my son think about what he says online and I think it's sinking in. I hope that in a few more years when he's old enough to go on the internet without parental supervision he'll be a decent online citizen. A lot of parents don't know how to do this, or it wouldn't occur to them to do so.
Yep ... That's exactly what I meant (not that 14 year-olds were more vicious these days). Your teaching moment will come when he's on the receiving end and will consist of two messages; 1) I'm sorry your feelings were hurt and the people on the other end were so mean. 2) Remember that when you're commenting on someone else, they have feelings too.
Funnily enough, I find HN to discourage "knowing" other posters -- with no avatars, signature blocks, etc., the only way to recognize posters is by a username which the interface deliberately deemphasizes. I almost never notice who posted a given comment.
There's maybe three HN usernames I "recognize" from posts, two of which are for consistently posting stupid comments. (Generally I read the comment, roll my eyes at it, then notice the username and say "oh yeah, that guy again".)
A large percentage of the internet populace is running on autopilot: browse hundreds of random images a day for quick fixes of entertainment, and post the odd impulsive, thoughtless and, most importantly, internet-badassity-enhancing comment.
It's much more common to be scathing and hurtful on the internet, simply because there is less of, or none of, a 'society filter' out there. If one were to stand on a soapbox in public and make the kind of remarks people make unashamedly and unfilteredly on the internet, they wouldn't be standing there for long and would in all likelihood get called out on their behavior.
Not (directly) so on the internet. I can identify two major reasons for that: One, peer groups. Internet douchebags is a major internet peer group, who will e-high-five each other for remarks outlined in the article. Two: Nobody cares. Scathing remarks are made by anonymous people all over the internet, so a lot of people have been desensitised or simply feel powerless, on behalf of not actually knowing the person making the remarks.
The difference for that last point lies in community. A lot of these image sharing sites have a loosely-tied, unloyal random userbase, where most commenters will not or never know or recognise each other from other 'threads'. This in contrast to, say, HN, where people can gain fame and notoriety over time. In the latter category, where comments and the overall mood is much less random and much more focussed at a certain audience, scathing and offensive and plain dumb comments (which is about 99% of youtube comments, for example) will not only be (anonymously, disconnecedly) downvoted, but outright confronted, countered, and the people behind them approached and have their unwanted behaviour pointed out to them.
[faux-psychologist]Freud assigned people's behavior as a result of the id, ego, and super-ego; on the internet, shielded by anonymity and a high abstraction and reduction of communication to quickly typed, short messages, the super-ego has little power in the big, anonymous communities; there is little to no society that tells people "No, this behavior is unwanted". This in turn dulls the ego (one's rational mind, conscience, etc), allowing the id (the impulsive mind that screams LOL FAT PEOPLE KILL UR SELF LOL) to write a similar blurb onto the internet. Communities like HN have a much stronger super-ego, and unwanted behavior is put down. When the poster approached the commenters, she acted as the super-ego, and the commenters suddenly snapped out of their autopilot, impulsive state of mind, having their conscience suddenly kick in when they realised there was a living person with real feelings behind the 2D image of a random woman dressing up as a character with a different physique.[/faux-psychologist]