An alternative is to say things and let your friends pass them on anonymously.
Things very wise and/or experienced VCs/founders have told me which I'm sure they wouldn't publish, which I have valued very much:
* If you don't look like a stereotypical founder, you won't follow the stereotypical path; that's not a problem, it's just a difference. Pursue your dream from first principles.
* The difference between flirting and friendly is perception, not purpose - don't worry about seeming aloof and don't take it the wrong way when pursued (to a point).
* Never come out until/unless absolutely necessary. Especially not to gay men.
* Absolutely don't talk about your young children with investors, especially if the investor has children of their own.
* The other side of not being perceived as a highly technical co-founder (which I am) because of my gender/appearance is that I'm more easily seen as a people person or product owner (which I'm very much not). It's ok to take advantage of that.
* I don't look enough like a founder to get angel/seed; I should make my money as a co-founder then self-fund through series-A, which tends to work out better regardless.
* Never, ever speak at a conference/on a panel about diversity. Your online identity defines your future opportunities, and the diversity racket is awfully small.
(Many more too specific or nuanced to include here.)
> What is the consequence of coming out to gay men?
Out gay people are both more likely to out someone and more likely to have complicated feelings about others preferring not to be outed.
> What counts as absolutely necessary?
It's always better to come out than be outed.
> How much of a role does flirting play in the business dealings of founders?
Ideally none. Unfortunately when you're a woman in her 20's courting men in their 30's as investors, the rituals often overlap with romantic overture. (suggesting coffee, discussing deals/valuation over dinner, feigning interest in their opinion or soliciting advice, grooming, etc.)
The point is not that it's ok to flirt, the point is that it's ok (and not your fault) to be perceived as flirting. Too many female entrepreneurs avoid approaching male VCs because they're afraid of being misinterpreted.
imho, one thought I've heard is to avoid having a personal relationship until after the professional relationship is successful. One possibility is if the investor and entrepreneur are parents, they are not on equal footing or capability, and being parent's shouldn't be used to somehow compromise, blur, or bend the professional relationship by either side. I've had friendships come out of successful professional relationships, but putting friendship before doing the work is a bit harder.
* A small subset of the startup ecosystem is implicitly/explicitly biased.
* A larger subset of the startup ecosystem recognizes that fact, and won't invest in diverse founders (all things being equal) because of the additional hurdles we have to clear.
* Everyone else knows that some people are cautious about funding diversity because some people are biased.
That first tiny percentage has the devil's own leverage.
That can be seen as a positive thing - it's hard to make money as an investor in this ecosystem by just following the groupthink, therefore the contrarians stand to make the most money.
> if the diversity racket is so small why does it seem so many have built their careers on it?
Perhaps because the diversity racket is in some way related to the group of people causing Jessica to avoid sharing thoughts online? If you can silence all the people not in your group, your group's size will appear a lot larger than it really is.
Example of a gig being a paid appearance on TV as a talking head proffering some expertise - you have to make enough noise for people to remember you and the need for your services. Compare that to a career of someone like a nurse or airline pilot - they sure are welcome to go to nursing and airline conferences to remind people about importance of nursing and air travel as well as discuss the current issues facing both fields (sometimes even on TV), but it's not a requirement to keep collecting a paycheck.
I had a philosophy professor once who was very upset after she'd graded our papers on Plato's Republic.
She gripped the lectern and looked at the floor for a few seconds sadly.
She looked up.
"What happened here, guys? You're all so smart. This was a real let-down. No, the Republic is not a sacred text. No, we're not here to worship it. But there's also such a thing as employing the critical spirit in the wrong way. We're here to understand this book, to engage with its ideas seriously, not to tear it apart without thought to feel superior."
"Again, this is not an object of worship. But this book has been preserved for 2500 years by human beings, most of whom had to copy each page by hand. A long chain of brilliant people from across generations worked to put this paperback in your hand. They did this in part because they thought it was worth the effort of preserving it for you. If, after a minute or two of thought, we find a glaring flaw that makes Plato looks like a blithering idiot, it would be wise to examine our critique in a spirit of humility. Without humility and charity, it's impossible to learn anything."
This idea is equally valuable outside the context of interpreting philosophical texts.
Everything she said is unfashionable, not only in academia but in public life. Political entertainers earn their keep by deliberately distorting their opponents' arguments with easy mockery. A lot of social media reward mindless criticism.
But the most productive, insightful online communities have some element of exclusion and some punishments (karma, banning, etc.) for repeated violations of the principle of charity.
One of my philosophy professors called that "doing it MIT-style." In essence, argue against the best possible form of an idea rather than the imperfect form in front of you.
Thanks for the story. Now that you mention it, I realize it illustrates the main reason I don't comment much (and why I'm annoyed by the majority of comments on popular websites, where commenting anything is more valuable than commenting smartly).
People are starting to realize (en masse now), this is the downside of permitting group identity-based "discussions" to flourish. Whatever you say, people are going to try interpreting it against the group you are perceived to belong to, eagerly pouncing on things that are in "conflict" with their own group identity. I put conflict in quotes here because this ultimately empty conflict is what actually drives both sides. Facts and open discussion are utterly irrelevant in this process, instead your words just get parsed for trigger phrases.
There is an argument to be made that internet discussions have always been at risk, and I think it's indeed a known pathology. However, subjectively, it seems to me this has escalated in a massive way within the last two years - to the point that important issues have effectively been taken off the discussion table because the participant pool is entirely made up of people fighting content-free meme wars.
In my opinion, the only way to combat this is to violate the rules of these meme wars and start talking about content again. But I wouldn't recommend it for high profile personalities whose job entails getting along with as many people as possible, because the fears of backlash are absolutely justified even if you might garner more respect this way in the long term. Worse yet, once a discussion has been taken over by mindless reactions like this, it becomes very difficult to form your own opinion rationally because it involves separating what the memes want of you from whatever the facts and your internal thoughts say.
As a rule of thumb: if both parties are angry at you, you're on the right track.
Personally I think the current state of things is either unsustainable, meaning the group identity thing is going to burn itself out over time, or it's a new low-energy state as far as human thought process goes which means it's going to be permanent. Either way, at least some influential people need to fight this, even if it means you'll be perceived as having rough edges.
> As a rule of thumb: if both parties are angry at you, you're on the right track.
No; this is an excuse to pat yourself on the back for being contrary. Don't validate your beliefs by how much they make others angry, any more than you validate them by how much they make others happy.
> the group identity thing
Group identity and culture wars are not new (and are certainly not going away). It's plausible to me that the internet is making this worse - a premise of your post - but I'm not yet convinced. It's possible they're merely coincident. What concrete reasons are there to believe the internet is a primary cause of today's increasingly vitriolic culture wars, rather than merely a new venue in which they are being pursued?
Not sure how to reply to this, it seems I certainly failed to get the point across here.
> No; this is an excuse to pat yourself on the back for being contrary. Don't validate your beliefs by how much they make others angry
That was absolutely not what I intended to say with this admittedly tongue-in-cheek quip. There is a kernel of (subjective) truth in there though: if you find yourself agreeing with one side of a meme war 100% on everything, it's most likely time to rethink some assumptions. Conversely, if you're not agreeing wholesale, you just have a target on your back, that's a given. So I could have worded that better, it doesn't have anything to do with being contrarian for the sake of causing offense.
> Group identity and culture wars are not new (and are certainly not going away).
I thought I addressed that. Again, I probably worded it too obtusely.
The printing press seems to have been a prime cause of the Protestant Reformation with its attendant wars. Years ago a friend predicted to me that social media would increase conflict analogously. I'm not sure he was right, but clearly events have gone in the right direction.
"As a rule of thumb: if both parties are angry at you, you're on the right track."
That's the same fallacy as saying "The truth is somewhere in between". If everybody is angry at you, maybe you just said something universally stupid. Or maybe you were right. You can't make this a rule.
Perhaps expands to "in a world where anger is a proxy for nonconformance, and where even nuance is nonconformance, and if nuance is good because reality is not two sided, then having people angry at you is indicative of maturity in an immature world".
There's a lot to disagree with there, probably mostly around two sided-ness though there's mostly a lack of tech in meme wars, they haven't figured out how to make smaller groups and dynamically manage them effectively. I know that nuance as a sign of maturity is also directly under attack and that there's no apriori way to justify it.
I generally agree, but would suggest amending "permitting group identity-based 'discussion' to flourish." The issue IMO, is not the activity of the discussion, but the impoverished shortcut of identity as a classification. My apologies if this is what you intended. It came out to me as if the discussion were to be avoided, rather than the lens of identity.
All "identities" are crude prejudice. They're a pair of glasses we put on to try to perceive things a certain way. This is an artifact of "Motivated Reasoning." Anticipating someone's vote based on their melanin is harmful and self-defeating in the long run. As you say, we should discuss content, or "issues." Instead of negating everything e.g. YouKnowWho does, we need to debate each bill on its own merit.
We live in the "call out culture" and, ironically, it's how Donald Trump gained so much momentum. People have reacted to this by staying silent instead of explicitly stating their views publicly and creating conversations, opportunities for learning, and ideation.
In this Brown Political review article [0], the author states
> Furthermore, calling-out non-influential figures and handing them the spotlight in the process gives other individuals incentive to make controversial statements of their own. In other words, if someone is desperate enough for attention, even if it’s negative, they might see that saying or doing something blatantly hateful can garner the publicity they crave. It’s the same concept the has boosted Trump and Carson campaigns (to different levels of effectiveness) this election cycle; that is, using controversy and outrage to get their names out there and increase their visibility in the media and public eye.
There is a good study of a case of a (now) popular misogynistic and homophobic YouTube user that actually tripled his viewership as a result of protests on social media about him holding a meeting in their town.
I personally do not "fear" callout culture, but I also realize that the things I put out there on the internet have consequences that I would rather avoid. And like the article states, I am in no position of power.
"We live in the "call out culture" and, ironically, it's how Donald Trump gained so much momentum. People have reacted to this by staying silent instead of explicitly stating their views publicly and creating conversations, opportunities for learning, and ideation."
Of course, let's also not forget that there is a culture that has made a point of shouting down contrarian or critical viewpoints when a discussion could be initiated.
Worried that perhaps some vaccinations are unnecessary? You're a stupid anti-vaxxer.
Critical of environmental science methodology? You're a climate change denier (and probably in the pocket of Big Oil).
Not a fan of how Black Lives Matter conducts some of their protests, or perhaps you think that using ID to combat potential voter fraud is a valid idea? You're a racist.
Not a supporter of a specific presidential candidate? Well, it's probably because you're a misogynist...and there's a good chance you're rather deplorable as well.
That's a good part of why people have stayed silent: they're demonized before a conversation can begin. It's not necessarily because they didn't want to have a conversation.
There's a difference between " shouting down contrarian or critical viewpoints when a discussion could be initiated" and "shouting down people who are rehashing tired old arguments that looks exactly the same as the arguments put forth by people who are already known to be operating in bad faith"
> It’s the same concept the has boosted Trump and Carson campaigns
I don't think its a coincidence that Donald Trump, a name half of America recognized before the election, won the election while Ben Carson, an unknown before the election, didn't make it past the primaries and received less than 3% of republican vote.
And if I'm right, this completely contradicts your article's thesis: Trump got the attention because he was already famous and known, not what he was saying. The general election also supports this.
It's not the overarching thesis of the paper, but expanding on one of the points it is trying to make about the dangers of call-out culture with a reliable conjecture about the rise of Trump. The article states it worked to varying levels of effectiveness for Trump and Carson. Carson received more recognition than he ever had prior to riding the coat-tails of this call out culture, and playing the contrarian (in my opinion). You can look at it this way: a neurosurgeon with no political experience and a murky past won 9% of the republican primaries, ahead of establishment candidates such as Jeb Bush, Rand Paul, Chris Christie, Rick Santorum. The mistake was placing his name next to Trump when comparing the effectiveness of this phenomena, because Trump is the ultimate representation, but it was extremely effective for Carson as well.
I don't see why it's ironic. Call out culture has been a staple of the right for decades now, which is not to say it doesn't happen on the left as well. RINO dates back to the 90s, and that's just the most recent version.
Call out culture's effect is multiplied by social media. And I am not sure that it was the norm in the 90s. Most people were raised with the values that you minded your own business, often too far that way.
Well, ole Jim Bob got to drinkin' and Sally done got a black eye again
Now honey you know better than to going around and snoopin' in other people's business
That was the culture up until lately, and even if it was present earlier, it certainly didn't have the consequences (good or bad) as it does now.
As a temporary fix, (and I emphasize, this is not a solution) the answer might be to have a 'pen name' or 'pen personality' . mini-msft is the classical example in our industry.
If Jessica were to venture a 'twistable' opinion, sure there will be a huge uproar, because of her association with YC. If this is published under a fake persona,Jess McFake, someone who can be identified only by a body of writing, then it is hard to bring these prejudices, and even if it is "twisted" who cares?
I do this to some extent by having multiple online personas, none of which have my real name associated with this, one for each 'community' I participate in,(not true for HN, fwiw) and I find this very useful and liberating, and I'm nobody. I'd be surprised if 'celebrities' don't do something like this already.
Of course if you are as rich as (and so untouchable) as, say, Peter Thiel, you can just go ahead and express what you want wherever you want and don't give a damn if you are misinterpreted and/or out of synch with particular orthodoxies, but for the rest of us, this might work as a temporary fix.
This seems like a reasonable idea, but I don't think it can last indefinitely. You will almost certainly reveal something that will allow someone to unmask you eventually, regardless of how careful you are.
Pen names have a long and glorious tradition in calling out authority figures in the US. From Silence Dogood to Mark Twain to Raoul Duke. The words on the page are to be the focus, not the person composing them, so to speak.
I have the fake personas too, and it works, but if I were all fired-up to say something "as myself" on the internet (I'm not, particularly) then I wouldn't wait until I'm as rich as Thiel. You just need to be living off the interest on your capital investments, so that your income isn't dependent on people liking you. That happens a lot sooner if you're good at saving money.
The problem is that the "oomph" of the message and ability to spread it is lost for largely the same reasons. Jessica worked for a long time to get the ears of so many people. A pen name is far more likely to get lost in the noise or have its credibility called into question.
One the one hand, any opinionated information will upset some portion of the public, the internet just makes it more visible to you. From that perspective, maybe the solution is to exert better self-control and stay off twitter, not google yourself, and care less about imaginary internet karma points.
Her ask for compassion is coming from a sincere place. I think however the real long term answer is to examine how rules of the forum incentivize certain types discussion (twitter=outrage, youtube=insults, facebook=food pictures & generic upbeat life-observations, reddit=jokes, news.yc=thougtful comments, buzzfeed/tech-crunch/whatever=unreadable linkbait).
Another way to look at this, is that these famous people get something from public validation. In a sense, it's a trade of inside information for public validation. If she really just wanted to get the word out there, she could do what the rest of us do, post on a throwaway account, losing the karma points, losing the automatic boost by posting as a famous person, and see if her ideas are packaged well enough to rise to the top.
The thing that's slightly offputting to me is that I get a sense that a lot of these public figures actually are not as right as they seem to think. For example, I'd bet 5 grand that if I could talk to PG for a day about the things he's blogged about, I could change his mind on at least one of them. Yet at the same time I think he was quite troubled when he posted his 1%-money piece and people were outraged.
This touches on the topic of projection. You are never who you actually are, to another person. You are just a blank, upon which they'll project all their own questions, fears, priorities and pet issues. If you're insecure about money you'll say "Damn that richypants Jessica and her sanctimonious blablabla." If you're preoccupied with race you'll say "Typical that a privileged white lady says so and so." If gender is your thing you'll either say "It's so empowering to see a woman blablabla" or "The nerve of this evil harpy blablabla," depending. Do any of these various horseshit interpretations represent the real Jessica?
So no, a lot of people decide it's not worth it, to be everybody's projection target. And contrary to one of her points, I don't think it's any great tragedy. It's only the stupid internet, remember! What unites people in real friendship is long-term shared tangible interest, of a type that is all but gone from public life in America except maybe in the smallest, supposedly most "backward" farming towns.
> How do we solve this problem? I don't know, but I hope there is a solution.
Two solutions I can think of:
(a) private, close-knit communities, i.e. not HN.
(b) new norms developing to judge people's action in a specific domain based on actions in that specific domain, i.e. Jessica Livingston qua startup investor, not qua x-ist or proponent of y-ology or whatever. Of course, this goes against the very idea of identity politics, where the whole point seems to be to couple every person with their (supposed) political views, i.e. humans qua politicians.
One thing you realize with that second frame is that most people, Y.T. included in this thread, are not acting in capacity of anything. One might call us "qua randoms", spouting opinion without skin in the game (assuming it isn't qua friend, etc).
If the problem is "too much downside in being distracted by people's opinions about my opinions", some options would seem to be:
* publish anonymously, putting the ideas in the discourse, albeit without them getting the signal boost of one's reputation.
* publish them in a format, such as a book, where you can explain them in such detail that you can ignore people misinterpretations, satisfied that you have explained everything to the best of your ability, and you don't have to worry about people's misinterpretations. This seems a lot of effort, and it's hardly certain one would succeed.
* It's unclear if the problem is that people will misinterpret across the universe of social and traditional media (which seems unsolvable) or simply within a particular forum in which the idea is shared. If it's merely within a particular forum, then one could have a private secretary (or sufficiently advanced AI, or grad student, or friend) cull through the comments for interesting responses, saving you the burden of looking at the rest.
* If, as is hypothesized, the successful are full of ideas that it would be a burden to share, presumably a credible third party could collect and publish these ideas. Politico, for example, had a panel of insiders from both parties who gave their impressions on the presidential campaign, with quotes not being attributed to any particular panelist.
*If misinterpretation comes from people "shooting from the hip" because posting first is rewarded, one partial mitigation might be putting replies in a lockbox and, say, displaying them after 8 hours, with the replies with certain characteristics (longer, more complicated sentence structure, less inflammatory words) being displayed more prominently. At that point more interactive commenter to commenter exchanges could begin.
Just searched for the meaning of "qua" and it seems you are using it as "as" (so "humans as politicians"). Just wanted to add it here in case others also don't have a clue what "qua" means.
Should've added that, thanks. It means more than just "as", it also means "in the capacity of", for which there's in my opinion no good english substitute. It comes from Aristotle (https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aristotle-mathematics/#7....), but there are also somewhat similar strains of thought in confucianism, usually in a more prescriptive manner (how to be an X to a Y).
The problem with (b) is that when I empower or support somebody in one context, they receive a platform in which to influence people in other contexts. As an example, a famous actor will have some degree of media reach in which to push their political views, support of a charity, or whatever else.
Especially when I support someone monetarily, they are able to spend that money on things that I find abhorrent, and use that money to buy influence, even if I'm supporting them because of a product or piece of art. I think I'd be ethically liable if I knowingly gave a significant chunk of money to somebody who I knew would later use it to influence people towards harming others.
Money is usually earmarked for specific purposes. If you buy a movie cause you think one of the actors in it is good you are supporting that movie. The person playing the part may become rich and do things you "disagree" with, but so what? That's life and human freedom for you; you can't control everything. You are paying for a movie and encouraging them to make more movies. If they are breaking laws qua citizen or being a bad friend, that'll sort itself out.
Of course you are free to boycott them if you so wish, but boy do you need to boycott a lot of people if you apply this strictly. There are other systems in place to take care of this, which may or may not require additional work (such as justice system not being as strict with rich people), but that's a separate question.
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Things very wise and/or experienced VCs/founders have told me which I'm sure they wouldn't publish, which I have valued very much:
* If you don't look like a stereotypical founder, you won't follow the stereotypical path; that's not a problem, it's just a difference. Pursue your dream from first principles.
* The difference between flirting and friendly is perception, not purpose - don't worry about seeming aloof and don't take it the wrong way when pursued (to a point).
* Never come out until/unless absolutely necessary. Especially not to gay men.
* Absolutely don't talk about your young children with investors, especially if the investor has children of their own.
* The other side of not being perceived as a highly technical co-founder (which I am) because of my gender/appearance is that I'm more easily seen as a people person or product owner (which I'm very much not). It's ok to take advantage of that.
* I don't look enough like a founder to get angel/seed; I should make my money as a co-founder then self-fund through series-A, which tends to work out better regardless.
* Never, ever speak at a conference/on a panel about diversity. Your online identity defines your future opportunities, and the diversity racket is awfully small.
(Many more too specific or nuanced to include here.)
What is the consequence of coming out to gay men? What counts as absolutely necessary?
How much of a role does flirting play in the business dealings of founders?
Out gay people are both more likely to out someone and more likely to have complicated feelings about others preferring not to be outed.
> What counts as absolutely necessary?
It's always better to come out than be outed.
> How much of a role does flirting play in the business dealings of founders?
Ideally none. Unfortunately when you're a woman in her 20's courting men in their 30's as investors, the rituals often overlap with romantic overture. (suggesting coffee, discussing deals/valuation over dinner, feigning interest in their opinion or soliciting advice, grooming, etc.) The point is not that it's ok to flirt, the point is that it's ok (and not your fault) to be perceived as flirting. Too many female entrepreneurs avoid approaching male VCs because they're afraid of being misinterpreted.
"I don't have time to fight with people who are trying to misunderstand me."
* A small subset of the startup ecosystem is implicitly/explicitly biased.
* A larger subset of the startup ecosystem recognizes that fact, and won't invest in diverse founders (all things being equal) because of the additional hurdles we have to clear.
* Everyone else knows that some people are cautious about funding diversity because some people are biased.
That first tiny percentage has the devil's own leverage.
Deleted Comment
Perhaps because the diversity racket is in some way related to the group of people causing Jessica to avoid sharing thoughts online? If you can silence all the people not in your group, your group's size will appear a lot larger than it really is.
Visibility equals neither impact nor income.
Example of a gig being a paid appearance on TV as a talking head proffering some expertise - you have to make enough noise for people to remember you and the need for your services. Compare that to a career of someone like a nurse or airline pilot - they sure are welcome to go to nursing and airline conferences to remind people about importance of nursing and air travel as well as discuss the current issues facing both fields (sometimes even on TV), but it's not a requirement to keep collecting a paycheck.
She gripped the lectern and looked at the floor for a few seconds sadly.
She looked up.
"What happened here, guys? You're all so smart. This was a real let-down. No, the Republic is not a sacred text. No, we're not here to worship it. But there's also such a thing as employing the critical spirit in the wrong way. We're here to understand this book, to engage with its ideas seriously, not to tear it apart without thought to feel superior."
"Again, this is not an object of worship. But this book has been preserved for 2500 years by human beings, most of whom had to copy each page by hand. A long chain of brilliant people from across generations worked to put this paperback in your hand. They did this in part because they thought it was worth the effort of preserving it for you. If, after a minute or two of thought, we find a glaring flaw that makes Plato looks like a blithering idiot, it would be wise to examine our critique in a spirit of humility. Without humility and charity, it's impossible to learn anything."
"After we've understood, then we can critique."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle_of_charity
This idea is equally valuable outside the context of interpreting philosophical texts.
Everything she said is unfashionable, not only in academia but in public life. Political entertainers earn their keep by deliberately distorting their opponents' arguments with easy mockery. A lot of social media reward mindless criticism.
But the most productive, insightful online communities have some element of exclusion and some punishments (karma, banning, etc.) for repeated violations of the principle of charity.
Public life, I'll give you.
There is an argument to be made that internet discussions have always been at risk, and I think it's indeed a known pathology. However, subjectively, it seems to me this has escalated in a massive way within the last two years - to the point that important issues have effectively been taken off the discussion table because the participant pool is entirely made up of people fighting content-free meme wars.
In my opinion, the only way to combat this is to violate the rules of these meme wars and start talking about content again. But I wouldn't recommend it for high profile personalities whose job entails getting along with as many people as possible, because the fears of backlash are absolutely justified even if you might garner more respect this way in the long term. Worse yet, once a discussion has been taken over by mindless reactions like this, it becomes very difficult to form your own opinion rationally because it involves separating what the memes want of you from whatever the facts and your internal thoughts say.
As a rule of thumb: if both parties are angry at you, you're on the right track.
Personally I think the current state of things is either unsustainable, meaning the group identity thing is going to burn itself out over time, or it's a new low-energy state as far as human thought process goes which means it's going to be permanent. Either way, at least some influential people need to fight this, even if it means you'll be perceived as having rough edges.
No; this is an excuse to pat yourself on the back for being contrary. Don't validate your beliefs by how much they make others angry, any more than you validate them by how much they make others happy.
> the group identity thing
Group identity and culture wars are not new (and are certainly not going away). It's plausible to me that the internet is making this worse - a premise of your post - but I'm not yet convinced. It's possible they're merely coincident. What concrete reasons are there to believe the internet is a primary cause of today's increasingly vitriolic culture wars, rather than merely a new venue in which they are being pursued?
> No; this is an excuse to pat yourself on the back for being contrary. Don't validate your beliefs by how much they make others angry
That was absolutely not what I intended to say with this admittedly tongue-in-cheek quip. There is a kernel of (subjective) truth in there though: if you find yourself agreeing with one side of a meme war 100% on everything, it's most likely time to rethink some assumptions. Conversely, if you're not agreeing wholesale, you just have a target on your back, that's a given. So I could have worded that better, it doesn't have anything to do with being contrarian for the sake of causing offense.
> Group identity and culture wars are not new (and are certainly not going away).
I thought I addressed that. Again, I probably worded it too obtusely.
That's the same fallacy as saying "The truth is somewhere in between". If everybody is angry at you, maybe you just said something universally stupid. Or maybe you were right. You can't make this a rule.
There's a lot to disagree with there, probably mostly around two sided-ness though there's mostly a lack of tech in meme wars, they haven't figured out how to make smaller groups and dynamically manage them effectively. I know that nuance as a sign of maturity is also directly under attack and that there's no apriori way to justify it.
And the more general: "If idiots are happy with you, you're likely an idiot too - or just acting like one."
All "identities" are crude prejudice. They're a pair of glasses we put on to try to perceive things a certain way. This is an artifact of "Motivated Reasoning." Anticipating someone's vote based on their melanin is harmful and self-defeating in the long run. As you say, we should discuss content, or "issues." Instead of negating everything e.g. YouKnowWho does, we need to debate each bill on its own merit.
Or worse even, they use a Facebook discussion plugin, so whatever you say is attached to your Facebook account.
In this Brown Political review article [0], the author states
> Furthermore, calling-out non-influential figures and handing them the spotlight in the process gives other individuals incentive to make controversial statements of their own. In other words, if someone is desperate enough for attention, even if it’s negative, they might see that saying or doing something blatantly hateful can garner the publicity they crave. It’s the same concept the has boosted Trump and Carson campaigns (to different levels of effectiveness) this election cycle; that is, using controversy and outrage to get their names out there and increase their visibility in the media and public eye.
There is a good study of a case of a (now) popular misogynistic and homophobic YouTube user that actually tripled his viewership as a result of protests on social media about him holding a meeting in their town.
I personally do not "fear" callout culture, but I also realize that the things I put out there on the internet have consequences that I would rather avoid. And like the article states, I am in no position of power.
[0]: http://www.brownpoliticalreview.org/2016/05/26760/
Of course, let's also not forget that there is a culture that has made a point of shouting down contrarian or critical viewpoints when a discussion could be initiated.
Worried that perhaps some vaccinations are unnecessary? You're a stupid anti-vaxxer.
Critical of environmental science methodology? You're a climate change denier (and probably in the pocket of Big Oil).
Not a fan of how Black Lives Matter conducts some of their protests, or perhaps you think that using ID to combat potential voter fraud is a valid idea? You're a racist.
Not a supporter of a specific presidential candidate? Well, it's probably because you're a misogynist...and there's a good chance you're rather deplorable as well.
That's a good part of why people have stayed silent: they're demonized before a conversation can begin. It's not necessarily because they didn't want to have a conversation.
I don't think its a coincidence that Donald Trump, a name half of America recognized before the election, won the election while Ben Carson, an unknown before the election, didn't make it past the primaries and received less than 3% of republican vote.
And if I'm right, this completely contradicts your article's thesis: Trump got the attention because he was already famous and known, not what he was saying. The general election also supports this.
Well, ole Jim Bob got to drinkin' and Sally done got a black eye again
Now honey you know better than to going around and snoopin' in other people's business
That was the culture up until lately, and even if it was present earlier, it certainly didn't have the consequences (good or bad) as it does now.
If Jessica were to venture a 'twistable' opinion, sure there will be a huge uproar, because of her association with YC. If this is published under a fake persona,Jess McFake, someone who can be identified only by a body of writing, then it is hard to bring these prejudices, and even if it is "twisted" who cares?
I do this to some extent by having multiple online personas, none of which have my real name associated with this, one for each 'community' I participate in,(not true for HN, fwiw) and I find this very useful and liberating, and I'm nobody. I'd be surprised if 'celebrities' don't do something like this already.
Of course if you are as rich as (and so untouchable) as, say, Peter Thiel, you can just go ahead and express what you want wherever you want and don't give a damn if you are misinterpreted and/or out of synch with particular orthodoxies, but for the rest of us, this might work as a temporary fix.
Startup L. Jackson is a great example: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-03-17/unmasking...
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ender's_Game
Also: http://www.theatlantic.com/personal/archive/2010/06/demosthe...
And of course XKCD: https://xkcd.com/635/
One the one hand, any opinionated information will upset some portion of the public, the internet just makes it more visible to you. From that perspective, maybe the solution is to exert better self-control and stay off twitter, not google yourself, and care less about imaginary internet karma points.
Her ask for compassion is coming from a sincere place. I think however the real long term answer is to examine how rules of the forum incentivize certain types discussion (twitter=outrage, youtube=insults, facebook=food pictures & generic upbeat life-observations, reddit=jokes, news.yc=thougtful comments, buzzfeed/tech-crunch/whatever=unreadable linkbait).
Another way to look at this, is that these famous people get something from public validation. In a sense, it's a trade of inside information for public validation. If she really just wanted to get the word out there, she could do what the rest of us do, post on a throwaway account, losing the karma points, losing the automatic boost by posting as a famous person, and see if her ideas are packaged well enough to rise to the top.
The thing that's slightly offputting to me is that I get a sense that a lot of these public figures actually are not as right as they seem to think. For example, I'd bet 5 grand that if I could talk to PG for a day about the things he's blogged about, I could change his mind on at least one of them. Yet at the same time I think he was quite troubled when he posted his 1%-money piece and people were outraged.
There's really a lot to this discussion.
So no, a lot of people decide it's not worth it, to be everybody's projection target. And contrary to one of her points, I don't think it's any great tragedy. It's only the stupid internet, remember! What unites people in real friendship is long-term shared tangible interest, of a type that is all but gone from public life in America except maybe in the smallest, supposedly most "backward" farming towns.
Two solutions I can think of:
(a) private, close-knit communities, i.e. not HN.
(b) new norms developing to judge people's action in a specific domain based on actions in that specific domain, i.e. Jessica Livingston qua startup investor, not qua x-ist or proponent of y-ology or whatever. Of course, this goes against the very idea of identity politics, where the whole point seems to be to couple every person with their (supposed) political views, i.e. humans qua politicians.
One thing you realize with that second frame is that most people, Y.T. included in this thread, are not acting in capacity of anything. One might call us "qua randoms", spouting opinion without skin in the game (assuming it isn't qua friend, etc).
* publish anonymously, putting the ideas in the discourse, albeit without them getting the signal boost of one's reputation.
* publish them in a format, such as a book, where you can explain them in such detail that you can ignore people misinterpretations, satisfied that you have explained everything to the best of your ability, and you don't have to worry about people's misinterpretations. This seems a lot of effort, and it's hardly certain one would succeed.
* It's unclear if the problem is that people will misinterpret across the universe of social and traditional media (which seems unsolvable) or simply within a particular forum in which the idea is shared. If it's merely within a particular forum, then one could have a private secretary (or sufficiently advanced AI, or grad student, or friend) cull through the comments for interesting responses, saving you the burden of looking at the rest.
* If, as is hypothesized, the successful are full of ideas that it would be a burden to share, presumably a credible third party could collect and publish these ideas. Politico, for example, had a panel of insiders from both parties who gave their impressions on the presidential campaign, with quotes not being attributed to any particular panelist.
*If misinterpretation comes from people "shooting from the hip" because posting first is rewarded, one partial mitigation might be putting replies in a lockbox and, say, displaying them after 8 hours, with the replies with certain characteristics (longer, more complicated sentence structure, less inflammatory words) being displayed more prominently. At that point more interactive commenter to commenter exchanges could begin.
Especially when I support someone monetarily, they are able to spend that money on things that I find abhorrent, and use that money to buy influence, even if I'm supporting them because of a product or piece of art. I think I'd be ethically liable if I knowingly gave a significant chunk of money to somebody who I knew would later use it to influence people towards harming others.
Of course you are free to boycott them if you so wish, but boy do you need to boycott a lot of people if you apply this strictly. There are other systems in place to take care of this, which may or may not require additional work (such as justice system not being as strict with rich people), but that's a separate question.