[ondrek]

It seems that face recognition could be as dangerous as country laws are. China's social credit system is a strong mirror to its government. The Black Mirror scenario with all those people scared to even talk publicly could (if once real) be strongly country specific, if we get to the point, where life drastically depend on ethics of technology laws.

[mmmBacon]

I think we already have a system in the West where people are afraid to speak openly; it’s referred to as cancel culture but exists elsewhere. The difference is that it’s not a formal government system but more of a mob social justice system.

[fpgaminer]

Comparing cancel culture to China's social credit system is ... not a great choice, in my opinion.

Regardless, I've had this theory about cancel culture. I don't necessarily agree with cancel culture, for the aforementioned problem of it being mob social justice. But it seems to me like it has arisen out of a failure by the real justice system. Issues like sexism in particular, which affect half of the population, have been ignored and marginalized. It took how long for Bill Cosby's heinous crimes to finally be prosecuted? More over, how likely would it have been for his crimes to yet again have been swept under the rug had cancel culture not fostered an environment where the victims felt comfortable coming forward?

The very topic we're discussing, the terrorist attack on our Capitol, is another example of racist failures of our police force.

So is it really any surprise that society has collectively taken matters into their owns hands?

Again, I don't _agree_ with the idea that society at large should pass their own judgements. I'd rather the courts do that. But they haven't been. And aren't. And we just suffered through one of the worst years on record of blatant police abuse and court inaction.

If we want to get rid of cancel culture I think we need to fix our policing and justice system to the extent that society feels they don't need to take up the mantel of justice themselves.

In other words, I don't see value in deriding cancel culture. If one feels that cancel culture is wrong, my belief is that one should be calling for action to repair the _cause_ of cancel culture, not the symptoms. And that cause is a prejudiced justice system.

[inglor_cz]

"So is it really any surprise that society has collectively taken matters into their owns hands?"

It is not the society. The virtual mobs that hunt people online, even though looking massive (1:N is scary even for N==100), are absolutely tiny when compared to the society as a whole.

And as for the reasons, every mob in history, including the ones that did absolutely horrible things (such as pogroms), had some reasoning as to why their activity is virtuous and noble. And putative inefficiency or corruption of the legal system was one of them. Check up on history of lynching - that was done because the legal system was perceived to be "soft".

[celdon25]

> Regardless, I've had this theory about cancel culture. I don't necessarily agree with cancel culture, for the aforementioned problem of it being mob social justice. But it seems to me like it has arisen out of a failure by the real justice system.

> In other words, I don't see value in deriding cancel culture.

This is apologism, and starting such an argument with "I don't agree with this but..." is just a way to trick a few more people into taking your ideas seriously enough to read to the end of the paragraph.

And terrorists, really? You could use your same EXACT logic, in fact even more justifiably, as a defense for what happened at the U.S. Capital.

[fpgaminer]

> And terrorists, really?

I use the word terrorist because _many_ of the people involved in the group brought guns and bombs, were prepared to take hostages, and voiced their intent to murder members of the government. For example:

https://nbc-2.com/news/national-world/2021/01/08/police-foun...

Additionally a large noose and cross were erected at the scene. The former is a symbol of violent white supremacy in the United States, and the latter is both a religious symbol and a frequently used symbol of an existing terrorist organization, the KKK. Some of those involved were self-professed followers of a known conspiracy cult (QAnon). Also at least one speech during the event quoted Hitler.

It's hard not to use the word "terrorism" to describe what happened that day, given the breadth of violence, both implied and actual, and the wide associations with cults, terrorist organizations, religious organizations, and despotic figures. All of those things are hallmarks of past terrorist acts both within and outside of the United States.

Not three months ago another event occurred, which Wikipedia describes as a "domestic terror plot": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gretchen_Whitmer_kidnapping_pl...

I see little difference between that, a group of individuals plotting to kidnap and murder a government official, and the events at the Capitol which involved groups plotting to kidnap and murder government officials.

> is just a way to trick a few more people into taking your ideas seriously enough to read to the end of the paragraph.

That was certainly not my intent, and I don't believe your comment addresses the best possible version of my argument.

[bllguo]

"not a great choice"? Why? Because it makes us uncomfortable? I think this is an interesting comparison that people are too willing to gloss over.

[logicchains]

> Comparing cancel culture to China's social credit system is ... not a great choice, in my opinion.

Yep. I lived in China for a few years, speak Chinese, and never heard of anybody being kicked out of a job at a private company because of their social credit score.

[fapjacks]

Cancel culture exists because it is 100% cost-free to shitpost on Twitter when people feel like their petty political issues with some person or company are in conflict with their own personal value judgments. But this isn't an issue with the courts at all.

[j8hn]

Who was terrorized during the events at the Capitol building?

Also, how were those events a racist failure of the police force?

[jackson1442]

In reality, cancel culture is just the free market at work and has always felt, to me, like a narrative peddled by the powerful to allow themselves to not be held accountable for their actions.

If I don't want to buy a Musk-mobile because I don't agree with Musk on issues like racism[0] or don't like how he treats his employees[1], I am allowed to act on it. I am also allowed to share these thoughts with people on appropriate platforms, like I'm doing here.

I can understand the frustration coming from people digging up problematic tweets from 4 years ago, but this whole idea that "the internet forgets nothing" isn't new. I learned it in grade school. If you want to post racist/sexist/homophobic things on your public Twitter, so be it, but don't be surprised when someone finds it. There's also a delete button.

[0] https://www.theverge.com/2018/11/30/18119832/tesla-elon-musk...

[1] https://www.ibtimes.com/elon-musk-hot-water-after-tesla-empl...

[inglor_cz]

"If you want to post racist/sexist/homophobic things on your public Twitter, so be it, but don't be surprised when someone finds it."

So, what is going to be the kiss of death in 2050? Do you know in advance? How many of your contemporary comments are going to run afoul of the standard of 2050 and will you remember to delete them all, including from Internet archive/wayback sites, in 2049?

Remember, a senior manager at Boeing was forced to step down 33 years after he wrote an offending article. The article was published before WWW even existed.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/08/business/boeing-resignati...

[jackson1442]

I definitely agree that his forced resignation wasn't exactly just, but that's not really cancel culture in action, that was a response to a single employee complaint from my research. It almost reads as if execs were looking for an excuse to get rid of him. If it was up to me, I'd just quietly release a statement or something along that... 33 years is a long time.

What I'm more referring to is situations like JK Rowling where she is openly posting hateful content publicly (people don't even have to dig for it!) and she's criticizing cancel culture as the reason people don't want to read her new book, which just looks like it'll be awful[1].

[1] https://www.cnn.com/2020/09/15/entertainment/jk-rowling-trou...

[kombucha111]

So whats your point? Culture changes and what was once permissible is now taboo? This is decidedly not a new phenomenon.

I just can't find any sort of argument being made here.

No one can predict the future but do you believe culture is static and that the cultural landscape of 2050 will the same as 2020?

Close to 30 years ago everyone was up in arms that Murphy Brown was a having a child out of wedlock and without a man! Shock! Horror!

[inglor_cz]

The point is that human life is comparatively long and current technology enables the witch-hunters to destroy people for very old and no longer relevant utterances.

This is something that, IMHO, the society should frown upon and discourage. Destroying people should be as hard as possible, that is why nation states built so many protections into law over centuries.

[JMTQp8lwXL]

Is there any reasonably valid speech that is unduly silenced by cancel culture? I don't disagree that people are restrictive of their speech, but I am trying to ascertain if we are better or worse off due to self-censorship.

[fogihujy]

That's the problem: we don't know.

I don't have any particularly noteworthy political opinions; most people would probably put me in the "surprisingly ordinary" box if they had to categorize me. Despite that, I wouldn't dream of getting into something like a political discussion on Twitter. It's simply impossible to know whom the mob will go after next, or in 10 or 20 years.

I don't know how many others feel the same way, but I do know there are others out there. There is a non-zero chance that one of us has something really important to say, but won't, because we don't want to face a potential angry online mob in the future.

[jonathanlb]

“Cancel culture” is also not new. Indigenous societies were “canceled” by Spanish missionaries and Indian schools, gay and trans people have been “canceled” by bigots, political activists “canceled” by COINTELPRO, and communist sympathizers canceled by Joe McCarthy.

So, “cancel culture” been a matter of fact, at least in the US, for quite some time now. It’s just given a scary name when those who have been “canceled” in the past are doing the “canceling”.

[akhilcacharya]

Complaining about "cancel culture" with regard to a mob that literally tried to cancel the votes of 81 million people is hilariously missing the point.

[eplanit]

True, but what's frightening now is that the mob/SJWs are aligned (mostly) with the new administration, whose party has swept up all power in the government.

[heyoni]

No one swept up all of the power. It’s insane to say that just because democrats are in control. There’s an entire spectrum of opinions and differences within the party that is being set aside in order to fight for some common beliefs...like ending the war on drugs, the war on the female reproductive system, and the war on education.

There’s a baseline among progressives which, once reached, will create entirely new divisions, trust me.

[j8hn]

"The war on the female reproductive system". I realize you are referring to pro-choice. I'm curious why you chose to phrase it in this way.

What is the war on education?

[heyoni]

I'm not sure why I chose to phrase it that way. Probably because it's ongoing, multifaceted and victim to some very very dirty tactics. Also, we like "waging war" on things here rather than solve them.

Briefly, our education system in the US is one of the least well performing systems amongst modern states. It is also the least well funded systems with conservatives trying to practically hand it over to private schools.

Then you have public funding issues too numerous to list that contribute to the low quality of education including student loan debt being debt you cannot bankrupt your way out of, or cutting off funds to channels like PBS...

[j8hn]

Is the GOP platform to privatize schools? If it was, how is that a war on education?

[dragonwriter]

> whose party has swept up all power in the government.

Did most of the federal judiciary die or resign? Was the Constitution amended to remove supermajority to requirements for certain actions?

[busterarm]

The federal judiciary has been taking criticism from both parties for decades now where both sides think that the courts have abdicated their responsibilities and let Executive authority run amok.

Of course that criticism is never consistent temporally, and always depends on which party is in which office and doing the criticism.

Either way, I'm not particularly excited about leaving things up to the courts.

[akhilcacharya]

"Frightening?" No, what's frightening is the armed insurrection that happened last Wednesday.

[ThrowawayR2]

I'm not sure how one would come to that conclusion. Biden is regarded as a centrist, e.g. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/19/us/politics/biden-cabinet... or https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2020-08-12/harris-bid... , so there's no love lost between his administration and the progressives. They might get a few things they want but Biden and the mainstream Democrats are probably going to keep their distance for the most part.

[remarkEon]

Joe Biden is 78. He’s not firing on all cylinders anymore. He leads a party that has attempted, haphazardly, to deal with a growing and increasingly powerful left wing cultural phenomenon that seeks to use the infrastructure of government to change how society operates. You may be right, but it’s just a bet that the mainstream democrats manage to put a lid on these more extreme elements.

[wpietri]

Oh, please. People have been "afraid to speak openly" for all of America's history. The notion that there's something drastically different about "cancel culture" in terms of severity is historically ignorant. Look at the comedian Lenny Bruce's arrests for obscenity, for example. Or the anticommunist panic of the 1950s. To say nothing of how women were controlled up to and after suffrage: deprivation of rights, marginalization, beatings, and rape. Ditto the free speech of black people, who faced lynching for as little as whistling.

Social actions will always have social consequences; that's a necessary corollary to freedom of speech. What's different today is that social conservatives and especially the radical right are starting to experience those same social consequences. If people are going to use their freedom of speech and association to, say, support Nazis, then other people are free to use their freedoms of speech and association in response.

[wpietri]

I think it is hilarious when, as happens all the time here on HN, people against "cancel culture" downvote critics in hopes of canceling speech they don't like.