I found your work via Paul Graham on twitter and I have to say I love every single installment of the newsletter. Your writing style is so unique and authentic I can't help but be engaged, regardless of the topic.
I feel like with every post I am listening to a wise old uncle give life advice that is more valuable than anything I've learned in the past 16 years of school.
Nice piece. Was struck by your point that one should not "apologize for something when you don’t know what you’re apologizing for." Seems obvious when stated like that, but I'm sure it's not in the moment. So many of us (myself very much included) walk around feeling guilty for so many of our failures (or perceived failures). I imagine if put to it I would feel the compulsion to apologize. Then there also the mistaken assumption that if you apologize quickly then you can forestall the worst consequences. In our private lives that's often true, but in public life if seems not so often true, and often disastrous.
Re-reading this... Yes, very useful to be reminded of the mob mentality. Thank you for your insight. Though it feels terminal at the moment it's happening, yes, it's survivable. Good to know, 'cause ya never know who's next.
In my eyes, "snowflake" culture is responsible for a LOT of cancel-culture bullshit since so many of them don't feel they should have to clearly state whether someone's attention is welcome or not. My son went through a version of this at his last job. He is a good friend and one who will go out of his way to provide help/comfort. Because he offered his ear and his friendship to a woman who was, at first, gung-ho to hang with him and then wasn't but wouldn't directly say so, he was fired and dragged on social media. There was a whole phantom account made by someone from the store where he worked and he was dragged along with several other staff and the company itself for fostering an unsafe work environment. If you are a very forward personality, God help you in this climate. I'm so tired of hearing people say they feel unsafe just because someone had the audacity to be enthusiastic or disappointed because they were a no-show for someone's invitation; because they offered you a hangout meal and a shoulder to cry on; because someone says good morning to you every day and compliments your outfit/hair. Part of Manger's Training at my current job is that the male administrators should NEVER compliment a woman's shirt because she could take it as being undressed with your supervisor's eyes and report you for sexual harassment. I say get a friggin' grip already. My mother worked in an upscale financial office in the World Trade Center back in the 70's. Men in that office would often say stupid things like, "Uh-oh, Lynn - are ya a little COLD there?? (wink, wink)" which is inappropriate... unless you really don't give a shit because almost everyone's nipples get hard when it's cold. She would come home and joke about it but in this day and age those men would be out of a job and probably a lot of money. I know it gets complicated for a myriad of reasons but it isn't really that complicated to be an adult who is female.
This could only have been written by someone who actually knows what it is like. It's very good advice. Cancellation is the absolute worst thing we've ever been through and from the outside people really don't get it. Especially when you feel your work is meaningful and useful to others. I think our malicious attackers would have been delighted if me or my husband had killed ourselves. A power shift has occured and do-gooder ideas haven't caught up. Ironically, the 'first feminist' Mary Wollstonecraft, dedicated a huge amount of her book "vindication on the rights of women" to critiquing egoic, stupid and hypocritical habits in women. Her idea of empowerment included granting women the ability to be adult humans with free will to act in good or bad ways. This kind of healthy self-reflection and adult self-responsibility has gone out of fashion big-time.
re:"You believe more people are falsely accused of murder than rape?” That was exactly what they believed, though it was obviously not true."
My first thought is that I have no idea which kind of accusation is more common because I haven't counted. It seems like figuring out what counts as a serious accusation and getting an unbiased sample would be kind of tricky. Also, I'd need to figure out which accusations are false, which seems hard to do in a systematic way. (It's hard enough to figure out whether *one* accusation is true or false! Often you never find out.) So wouldn't this require some fairly heavy research to get a grip on?
Maybe I'm just out of touch, though. How do you know what you know?
Well, the murder vs. rape thing is fairly obvious. With a rape charge there is frequently a motive to make a false accusation. Also, you have situations where parties might experience things differently. If you hate someone it's much easier to file a false rape accusation than a false murder accusation. So there are really many reasons why it's obvious that there would be a higher percentage of false rape accusations. With a murder you need a dead body. It's a higher bar. Which is not to say that rape and sexual harassment isn't seriously underreported, it surely is. But there have been studies and most of them point to 10% of rape accusations being false. That's an enormous number. It would be lower maybe if we were able to encourage people who chose not to report their assault to report, that would lower the percentage. But you wouldn't want to create incentives for false accusations simultaneously, ie anonymous accusations.
But really just think on how much easier it is to falsely accuse a person of rape (which you can do anonymously) than of murder, which requires a murdered body. That alone should be enough. There's no logical universe where it's easier to falsely accuse someone of murder.
Okay, good point. I guess I was thinking more about rumors than formal accusations. There could be rumors that someone had once killed somebody years ago (without saying who; no body of course). People say all sorts of crap online.
Thank you. Most useful. And explains how an actress who unfollowed/blocked last year after firing me from a writing project, is following me again, responding to my posts, and looking to work with me... *sigh...
> We had good reasons for enshrining the principle of innocent until proven guilty, but we ignore that principle because that’s what human beings do. We make exceptions because we’re convinced we’re exceptional people living in exceptional times. And we are not.
I have no idea what a fair trial in the internet attention economy might look like. I'm not sure what I should teach my kids. They are already bombarded with misinformation, so I suspect they'll become more suspicious of internet bs than previous generations. I guess I'll encourage them to look for proof before passing judgement.
This is among the best pieces I have read about cancellation.
Thank you so much!
I found your work via Paul Graham on twitter and I have to say I love every single installment of the newsletter. Your writing style is so unique and authentic I can't help but be engaged, regardless of the topic.
I feel like with every post I am listening to a wise old uncle give life advice that is more valuable than anything I've learned in the past 16 years of school.
Thank you. That's so kind. I'm not particularly wise though. But maybe you can learn a little from my mistakes. I'm a mistake making machine!
Nice piece. Was struck by your point that one should not "apologize for something when you don’t know what you’re apologizing for." Seems obvious when stated like that, but I'm sure it's not in the moment. So many of us (myself very much included) walk around feeling guilty for so many of our failures (or perceived failures). I imagine if put to it I would feel the compulsion to apologize. Then there also the mistaken assumption that if you apologize quickly then you can forestall the worst consequences. In our private lives that's often true, but in public life if seems not so often true, and often disastrous.
Exactly right.
Re-reading this... Yes, very useful to be reminded of the mob mentality. Thank you for your insight. Though it feels terminal at the moment it's happening, yes, it's survivable. Good to know, 'cause ya never know who's next.
This helped me a lot. Thank you
I'm so glad :)
I learned a lot, thanks.
Wow, I needed to read this. Thank you Stephen.
Thank you Pasquale! I'm so glad this was helpful for you.
Thank you Pasquale! I'm so glad this was helpful for you.
In my eyes, "snowflake" culture is responsible for a LOT of cancel-culture bullshit since so many of them don't feel they should have to clearly state whether someone's attention is welcome or not. My son went through a version of this at his last job. He is a good friend and one who will go out of his way to provide help/comfort. Because he offered his ear and his friendship to a woman who was, at first, gung-ho to hang with him and then wasn't but wouldn't directly say so, he was fired and dragged on social media. There was a whole phantom account made by someone from the store where he worked and he was dragged along with several other staff and the company itself for fostering an unsafe work environment. If you are a very forward personality, God help you in this climate. I'm so tired of hearing people say they feel unsafe just because someone had the audacity to be enthusiastic or disappointed because they were a no-show for someone's invitation; because they offered you a hangout meal and a shoulder to cry on; because someone says good morning to you every day and compliments your outfit/hair. Part of Manger's Training at my current job is that the male administrators should NEVER compliment a woman's shirt because she could take it as being undressed with your supervisor's eyes and report you for sexual harassment. I say get a friggin' grip already. My mother worked in an upscale financial office in the World Trade Center back in the 70's. Men in that office would often say stupid things like, "Uh-oh, Lynn - are ya a little COLD there?? (wink, wink)" which is inappropriate... unless you really don't give a shit because almost everyone's nipples get hard when it's cold. She would come home and joke about it but in this day and age those men would be out of a job and probably a lot of money. I know it gets complicated for a myriad of reasons but it isn't really that complicated to be an adult who is female.
This could only have been written by someone who actually knows what it is like. It's very good advice. Cancellation is the absolute worst thing we've ever been through and from the outside people really don't get it. Especially when you feel your work is meaningful and useful to others. I think our malicious attackers would have been delighted if me or my husband had killed ourselves. A power shift has occured and do-gooder ideas haven't caught up. Ironically, the 'first feminist' Mary Wollstonecraft, dedicated a huge amount of her book "vindication on the rights of women" to critiquing egoic, stupid and hypocritical habits in women. Her idea of empowerment included granting women the ability to be adult humans with free will to act in good or bad ways. This kind of healthy self-reflection and adult self-responsibility has gone out of fashion big-time.
Thank you so much for sharing your insights.
Thank you!
re:"You believe more people are falsely accused of murder than rape?” That was exactly what they believed, though it was obviously not true."
My first thought is that I have no idea which kind of accusation is more common because I haven't counted. It seems like figuring out what counts as a serious accusation and getting an unbiased sample would be kind of tricky. Also, I'd need to figure out which accusations are false, which seems hard to do in a systematic way. (It's hard enough to figure out whether *one* accusation is true or false! Often you never find out.) So wouldn't this require some fairly heavy research to get a grip on?
Maybe I'm just out of touch, though. How do you know what you know?
Well, the murder vs. rape thing is fairly obvious. With a rape charge there is frequently a motive to make a false accusation. Also, you have situations where parties might experience things differently. If you hate someone it's much easier to file a false rape accusation than a false murder accusation. So there are really many reasons why it's obvious that there would be a higher percentage of false rape accusations. With a murder you need a dead body. It's a higher bar. Which is not to say that rape and sexual harassment isn't seriously underreported, it surely is. But there have been studies and most of them point to 10% of rape accusations being false. That's an enormous number. It would be lower maybe if we were able to encourage people who chose not to report their assault to report, that would lower the percentage. But you wouldn't want to create incentives for false accusations simultaneously, ie anonymous accusations.
But really just think on how much easier it is to falsely accuse a person of rape (which you can do anonymously) than of murder, which requires a murdered body. That alone should be enough. There's no logical universe where it's easier to falsely accuse someone of murder.
Okay, good point. I guess I was thinking more about rumors than formal accusations. There could be rumors that someone had once killed somebody years ago (without saying who; no body of course). People say all sorts of crap online.
Good piece!!
This is really clarifying.
Thank you. Most useful. And explains how an actress who unfollowed/blocked last year after firing me from a writing project, is following me again, responding to my posts, and looking to work with me... *sigh...
> We had good reasons for enshrining the principle of innocent until proven guilty, but we ignore that principle because that’s what human beings do. We make exceptions because we’re convinced we’re exceptional people living in exceptional times. And we are not.
I have no idea what a fair trial in the internet attention economy might look like. I'm not sure what I should teach my kids. They are already bombarded with misinformation, so I suspect they'll become more suspicious of internet bs than previous generations. I guess I'll encourage them to look for proof before passing judgement.