What Propels Cancel Culture? (2020)
robkhenderson.substack.comI think there’s a simpler explanation that wasn’t really talked about in the article — “cancelling” is just voting with your wallet and right of voluntary association and pressuring those in power to do so as well. This kind of behavior is born out of the natural frustration of people not only not facing consequences but at times becoming more successful as a result of the harm they cause. It’s filling a gap in our legal system so if you want to see cancel culture end it will be because it moves to the courts with things like a national hate speech law and sexual assault and domestic violence laws that don’t heavily favor the abuser.
You’re free to not like or want these things to be codified in law but it’s still nonetheless the formula of how to turn mob rule into a dialog. Nobody is showing up to the house of a murderer with pitchforks anymore because we have a functioning court system. Factory owners aren’t having their door broken down by angry workers because we have labor laws.
Does this count as cancel culture or not? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Chicks#2003%E2%80%932005:_...
And they were just speaking out against the war and a President.
Groups using cancel culture tactics don’t necessarily share politics, but they share a strange willingness to do harm to others that don’t share their belief system. That makes them more alike than different in my opinion. Above all else, they are bullies.
I think it does. Cancel culture is not new, it just seems to be especially aggressive over the past several years.
It seems that way because people keep writing about it.
The way social media works today is crazy. Like someone's tweet can be cherry picked out of 10,000+ tweets to control any narrative about that person. I often delete tweets out of pure regret and often think how the tweet would be weaponized against me in the future. This is why I've largely shifted to messenger apps with disappearing messages turned on. Some things just need to be ephemeral and forgotten about.
Not just that they can cherry-pick, but they can go back many years to find words of your own to turn against you. Peoples' positions on all sorts of topics change over time. Punishing them for ever having a certain point of view doesn't help anyone. Instead people should be happy to see that change happen. It means the person took in new information about the world and other people and adjusted their opinions to match. That is far better than someone who digs their feet into a position and cover their ears, even if that position does turn out to be the better one.
when I, and others, did moderation of a community primarily communicating with Slack, using the channels to cause drama was an easy way to get yourself talked about in the moderator chat. Eventually, some of us moved to Telegram, which had the nice feature of letting you know when someone had taken screenshots of 'private' messages. There's ways around that if you don't want the recipient to know you are recording them, of course, but I think the lesson from all that was if you don't want to get yourself in trouble for stirring the pot, then take your conversations offline, with people, in person.
I think the experience Elon Musk had in regards to this effect is why he developed a strong aversion for misinformation/lies - and why he seems to have genuinely decided to acquire Twitter; even if he's playing a game to see if either he can get it cheaper than his offer by forcing Twitter to be transparent with its numbers, or deciding its not worth anywhere near $44 billion - and perhaps launching his own platform; he does have x.com - not the best for branding, but quick to type at least; x marks the spot.
I don't think ephemeral messages really solve the problem because the information that seems most often weaponized are public posts - or a person can just take a screenshot of it if they're interacting with you for the express purpose of gathering something they could frame in a bad light against you.
>I think the experience Elon Musk had in regards to this effect is why he developed a strong aversion for misinformation/lies
I'm lost. Musk himself was spreading misinformation and lies about Covid, e.g. about HCQ/Ivermectin being magic cures to his 62M twitter followers. What lies and misinformation are you talking about?
So you're certain that the pharmaceutical industrial complex had nothing to do with suppressing existing, safe medications, by spreading propaganda that they weren't effective - and even dangerous - rather that you need to buy their newer, expensive treatment?
Are you so sure Musk was spreading misinformation?
Did you know that Pfizers new anti-viral drug targets the same pathway that Ivermectin apparently uses as well? I've seen that stated elsewhere - but also someone on HN not so long ago brought it up too, and provided citations to that research.
Are you aware of how much money and what % of ad spend on mainstream-mass media channels is paid for by the pharmaceutical industry? Ads which are solely meant to manipulate people to believe something to then do certain behaviours they otherwise wouldn't have? Is it starting to feel like a conspiracy theory to you, even though the logic holds?
Musk doesn't know how to read and interpret medical studies. So he thought HCQ was a magic cure based on a quack Google doc and spread it.
Ivermectin turned out to be somewhat helpful only if the covid patient had stomach worms which is rare in the US. Ad spending by pharma companies doesn't there are bad quality studies pushed by quacks who mislead people like Musk, Trump and Fox News hosts who have their own agendas.
If any of those actually worked after 2 years of intense research the Chinese govt would be all over them instead of wrecking their economy and political capital with lockdowns. Musk has hundreds of billions, if those drugs actually worked he could have funded studies on them, but even he is smart enough to not continue to believe his own disproven bullshit that he feeds to conspiracy theorists.
You bought into the propaganda hook, line, sunk - all of your responses are exactly shallow narratives the mainstream establishment trained the general population with.
I'm not even going to bother linking to you to 5+ hours of testimony from various highly credentialed experts sharing their expertise as well as data, because you'll see a few of the names who have been demonized and had smear campaigns against them - and you'll then immediately and reactively dismiss the actual content of the video; there's also a 30-40 minute summary version of the video which is more easy to digest initially but I'd recommend watching the full version.
If you'd actually like to watch what I'm talking about then ask and I'll link it.
The studies and the data from all around the world don't lie. HCQ and Ivermectin don't work. The MRNA vaccines are highly safe and effective like Paxlovid. Five hours of ranting without any proof will not change anything. Meanwhile Musk is so clueless about viruses that he said coronavirus is a type of cold, ignoring SARS and the super deadly MERS which were both coronaviruses. As I said, lies and misinformation while not having the first clue about viruses.
> The MRNA vaccines are highly safe and effective
For some, but not necessarily for all. Everybody (in the US) who was going to get a Covid vaccine has got one, there is no need to continue the “safe and effective” talking point any more to try and convince the holdouts.
https://www.deseret.com/coronavirus/2021/11/2/22757739/fda-m...
https://www.forbes.com/sites/roberthart/2021/11/10/germany-f...
https://abcnews.go.com/Health/wireStory/finland-joins-nordic...
It's definitely relevant in the context of '5 hours of video' of clout chasing "experts" trashing the vaccines as very dangerous.
Isn't it funny though, how I could make the exact same baseless claim about you - that you're just clout chasing by engaging so adamantly and arrogantly on HN? It's such a vacant name calling argument tactic but it works on ideologues like yourself - and so why you also use it; it also goes to show that you don't actually weigh your arguments out, if these experts are lying simply for "clout chasing" then what behaviours will Pfizer (et al) partake in if they are profit chasing?
Pfizer in 2021 made $37 billion just from the mRNA shots - but you think these "clout chasing" experts who are probably only making a very tiny fraction of what Pfizer is making (probably nowhere near how much the politicians make, who get money from these companies, for added conflict of interest that you should address too), these counter mainstream narrative experts putting their 20-40+ year careers on the line for clout is more likely the one participating in bad-unethical-illegal behaviour?
You're aware of the pharmaceutical's previous unethical behaviours that they'e been fined to the tune of billions of dollars for - and arguably those fines aren't adequate, and because none of the executives end up in jail - there's no disincentive to try to stop them from continuing to try the same unethical behaviours?
I'm truly curious: how do you balance these facts, or do you not understand or appreciate or believe that this human behaviour exists - even though Pfizer et al have already been found guilty of these behaviours in the past? Do you even weigh things out of what you believe with opposing information presented to you?
I hope you also reply in depth to my long reply, we'll all truly see if you actually care about the truth then or not - if you're more likely doing it for clout: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31396978
No. It’s not at all relevant anymore. The MRNA vaccines are no longer “effective” on current variants and are not necessarily “safe” for certain groups. Just dropping a talking point as gospel when it is not, is doing the exact same thing that you are complaining about.
Your point could have been valid in early 2021 when we were not vaccinating healthy males under 30, and the risk ratio was a lot higher due to the severity of the novel covid and variants up to delta. Once Omicron arrived and the severity dropped significantly and we opened vaccination to healthy males under 30 the risk ratio changed. The vaccines were not significantly effective past delta, and the myocardial risk for males under 30 became statistically significant as compared to the protection that the vaccines were offering.
You're in an information silo - and you even prove it by claiming I'm chasing to look for "experts" who are counter the narrative you've been indoctrinated with.
And it's even more obvious that you're indoctrinated because you're still spouting the blatant lie that "MRNA vaccines are highly safe and effective" - when even Pfizer's data that they had to release says otherwise.
Surely you've heard of information and filter bubbles before? Or is that disinformation too? You can do a Google search to find a lot of articles on the subject, here's a random one I'll cite since you're probably too lazy to look into it yourself: "How Filter Bubbles Distort Reality: Everything You Need to Know" - https://fs.blog/filter-bubbles/
Or you'll reactively believe that you're immune to bubble filters, and therefore not in one? Yet, interestingly.
The filter bubble you're in is arguably more sophisticated and refined by other intellectual ideologues or those wanting to carefully control the narrative and manipulate you than perhaps the more shallow narratives needed to capture and lead along general ideologues (who have lower intelligence) - but you're still clearly in an information bubble, and intellectually dishonest because you're simply automatically dismissing me and "5 hours of 'expert' video testimony" who have the opposite position and understanding than you do.
I'm guessing with how you quickly/instantly dismiss the opposition with a shallow reaction, avoiding actually citing research and data, or willing to look at the information the opposition has - you keep yourself blind, and ignorantly blissful - righteous even.
So, I decided I will link the video for you - so how about you watch this 38 minute summary of the 5+ hours: https://rumble.com/vtamrn-covid-19-a-second-opinion-shorter-...
Here's the full 5+ hours, for anyone else curious: https://rumble.com/vt62y6-covid-19-a-second-opinion.html
Hopefully you’ll go expert by expert, statement by statement, and respond to them - and not only pick one or two to react to, so that you're easily cherrypicking potentially low hanging fruit that probably requires more than the 30 minutes summary to reenforce or understand what they're referring to; “but who has time for that - finding the truth and seeing if I’ve only been exposed to biased information isn’t important enough! And then I get to keep just yelling that you’re wrong, an idiot, and a danger to society for spreading [mis]information I don’t believe is true nor will research adequately to see if I’m right!”
There's been a concerted effort to suppress scientific process, but you're not someone to care about that - you probably actually applaud it, being so arrogant as to think you couldn't be wrong and mislead by propaganda, and you're even now being a good puppet-soldier for those who manipulated you by performing the social-peer pressure necessary to attempt to suppress conversations like these.
But I predicted this is exactly how this conversation would go because your language already exposed you, and so I've stopped bothering searching for a large amount of citations I could present to you.
You're clearly not up-to-date on the research/data either, but that's not surprising. I wonder if you're aware of the contents of the Pfizer data that they were forced to publish 75 years before they wanted to?
Here's another video you should watch where Bret Weinstein and Heather Heying are discussing analysis of Pfizer's data but looking at all-cause mortality for the COVID mRNA shots, etc: https://youtu.be/Fc0SEdPresU?t=1095 - starts around 18:15 so I linked to that timestamp, from the video description:
“New research suggests that adenovirus-vectored vaccines (e.g. J&J, AstraZeneca) reduce all-cause mortality, but that mRNA vaccines (e.g. Pfizer, Moderna) do not. What are the implications of this? What kinds of vaccines are recommended and effective, and how can someone not trained in thinking about these things know? We also discuss the role of vitamin D in Covid outcomes, as well as NIR (Near Infrared Radiation), which we primarily get from being outside. Since before the Industrial Revolution, our exposure to NIR has declined dramatically—we spend less time outdoors, and now even our lightbulbs and the glass in our windows limits how much NIR we receive, but it turns out that we need it. What else do we need that we don’t yet know about?”
If you respond to anything I'm curious how you react to the numbers in that all-cause mortality analysis? The data is from Pfizer, and all the study is doing is adding up death totals between treatment and placebo/control group - hopefully you'll comment on why there were 31 deaths in the Pfizer mRNA vaccine group vs. 30 in the placebo group, and actually only 15 deaths in the non-mRNA vaccine group that it's also compared to? It looks like the non-mRNA vaccine is 2x as effective as Pfizer, but the mRNA treatment has roughly equal benefit as the no treatment that the control/placebo got.
Or will you not even watch the video, read the all-cause mortality study for yourself, and instantly dismiss it - perhaps in part because you'll see Bret Weinstein's name and you'll have read somewhere in a smear campaign that he's a quack?
Please do let me know where you stop fighting for truth though, where the resistance of your anger blocks you from moving forward into the discomfort that challenges what you currently seem to deeply believe - causing you such painful cognitive dissonance that you will instead of sit with that pain while digesting the information you're seeing, instead you'll quell that emotion by writing out long shallow sentences to try to discredit or demean me or those I am citing in order to have filler to make it look like you argued a point - when there's no support to your statements at all?
I do hope you watch the two ~30 minute videos above though - and if only one of them, the all-cause mortality one - as then that will focus the conversation specifically on concrete data that we can see how the results either confirm or deny your conclusion that the mRNA treatment is "highly safe and effective" as you so boldly claim; there's so much more to argue though but it's a waste of time with someone who's so deeply indoctrinated and close minded that they're intellectually dishonest and unable to take in new information to critically think through - for example, the clinical trial designs were wholly inadequate and even criminally unethical in design by designing them to manufacturing a narrow conclusion; there is evidence of this as well, and a thought exercise I could guide you through, to see first if you're even willing to admit it'd be a problem and unethical even before pointing you out to the proof for the specific mRNA clinical trials.
P.S. It's a common tactic for ideologues like yourself to attack the person rather than attacking the data, and conveniently you don't even cite your sources to backup your own claims - along with your general, short, and shallow statements; and by not citing specific research to backup your claims you don't allow the opportunity for someone to potentially debunk them - or point you to a source that has debunked them if there's flawed/questionable science/analysis in your source(s). Instead you see a name and your anger, emotion, makes you reactively avoid them - keeping you away from them; which is why the solution to the intellectual-ideological crisis we have in society today is to develop self-awareness and emotional regulation - so please start a regular yoga practice if you haven't yet, along with other practices that will start to open up your mind and heart. People who haven't developed emotional regulation then are prime candidates for being sucked into what's coined as mass formation psychosis - latching onto a susceptible person's free floating anxiety, giving them a place to quell their anxieties into cult-like behaviours.
"Intelligent ideologues are the most dangerous because they've really convinced themselves they're right" - Jordan Peterson
Do you think the tweets by King referred to in the article in the article are okay to make on Twitter just because someone has 10K other tweets?
>"A routine background check of King's social media revealed two racist jokes, one comparing black mothers to gorillas and another making light of black people killed in the holocaust
You're missing the point. Petty theft is bad but petty thieves don't deserve capital punishment. Similarly, those tweets are bad but King didn't deserve to be canceled for them.
Is it considered petty theft by all the victims of the latest racist mass shooting in NYand their friends and families?
King literally dehumanized Black women thus making it sound like its okay to kill them in cold bloaod and livestream it. There would be no deterrence for that if people didn't find it unacceptable.
> Is it considered petty theft by all the victims of the latest racist mass shooting in NYand their friends and families?
No, but King isn't the one who committed that mass shooting. You shouldn't hold him responsible for others' actions.
By the same metric you should also not hold the reporter who revealed the racist tweets responsible for the actions of Anheuser-Busch and other companies. He didn't do the canceling.
I'd argue that the reporter did do the canceling, though. Canceling happens in three stages:
1. Someone with access to a wide audience learns of a minor transgression, blows it out of proportion, and blasts it to them all
2. People who heard about the minor transgression start pressuring the employer/school/business partners/social media moderators/etc. to cut ties
3. The employer/school/business partners/social media moderators/etc. kowtow to the pressure and actually do cut ties
If you've done any of those steps, you've participated in cancel culture.
Now do the same analysis for racism.
Power propels cancel culture. Causing harm, pain, discomfort, whatever, to someone else gives people a feeling of power. Especially when they feel they have a righteous reason for doing so.
Part of it is enacting a cost for the wrong behavior
Part of society understands that the excarcerated deserve employment opportunities
But then another group wants someone fired for telling a bad joke at a tech conference tweeting the wrong joke while on a trans-atlantic flight
We must understand that we are all a product of our best and worse moments and learn to forgive
Cancel culture doesn't exist. People shun those they dislike. That's human nature. Entertainers are routinely cancelled for not being entertaining enough. Being morally objectionable makes people be disliked as well. The rise in prominence is due to two things: The permanent record that is The Internet and fake outrage from right-wing media. The same people who created the Hollywood black list for suspected Communists.
The story of the beer guy and the reporter who cancelled him and got cancelled is mostly fake. The reported did background as standard practice and found the racist tweets and reached out to the beer guy for comment. He never intended to play them up or make a case to "cancel" him. But the beer guy issued a proactive statement that the Register was targeting him which lead to an immediate and over-the-top counteroffensive driven by right-wing media. The anti-cancel culture missionaries look for any and every excuse to protect racist messaging, so they fight any and every attempt to shed light on racism.
https://www.cjr.org/first_person/aaron-calvin-viral-story-tw...
Cancel culture does not exist - until you get cancelled.
It's not a culture. It's the human need for justice. There is a huge swath of legal but unacceptable behavior that will get you shunned. If you have a coworker who calls everyone in the office a moron that's protected free speech but you wouldn't be upset if they got fired.
Cancel culture: we're going to get you fired from your job and ruin your life because you told an off-color joke 10 years ago.
Let's look at the most recent cancel culture that I have seen.
https://ottawa.citynews.ca/local-news/ontario-liberals-drop-...
So election is going on:
>Alex Mazurek was terminated after homophobic comments on Facebook from 2014 were unearthed.
POLITicians are supposed to be POLITe.
>The Ontario Liberals are dropping their candidate in the Chatham-Kent-Leamington riding after comments he made on Facebook several years ago were brought to light.
There's basically no chance the liberals win in chatham. This has more to do with virtue signaling. "We are so virtuous that we would never let one of our candidates say homophobic things.
>In a statement posted to Facebook, Mazurek said the comments were unacceptable, but noted he was 13 years old when he wrote them eight years ago.
13 years old you said something mean? Cancelled!
What makes the NDP care what a 13 year old boy said? All people mature and get wiser since they were 13. What made the liberals go nuclear on a riding they have 0% chance of winning?
It's about saying how virtuous they are.
Yeah. I sure don't want to be judged by some of the things I said when I was 13, or even 20. I said some pretty stupid things. Did some stupid things, too.
> It's about saying how virtuous they are.
I agree; that's what they're doing. But isn't there some virtue also in not judging adults for the stupid things they said when they were kids?
I mean, maybe it was dumb for AB to put the guy's name on the can in the first place. Maybe we should be decrying stupid corporate advertising stunts
There was a whole lot of right-wing driven cancel culture in the 1920's and particularly the 1930's and 1940's. It's not a right or left thing, it's just convenient to use whatever is at hand that generates the appropriate response.
> Driven primarily by young progressives
Progressives tend to be more concerned with economics than with culture war. Trad libs are more likely to wage culture war.
Honestly, in my long time on this earth as a liberal, I see it completely the opposite. I see this latest generation of progressive left to be way more concerned about the culture war. At least in the US.