Intermarkets' Privacy Policy Support
Donate to Ace of Spades HQ! Contact
Ace:aceofspadeshq at gee mail.com Buck: buck.throckmorton at protonmail.com CBD: cbd at cutjibnewsletter.com joe mannix: mannix2024 at proton.me MisHum: petmorons at gee mail.com J.J. Sefton: sefton at cutjibnewsletter.com Recent Entries
Sunday Overnight Open Thread (12/8/24) - Doof
Gun Thread: Less Than Robust Content Edition! Food Thread: No Blood For Rib Roasts! First-World Problems... Be Careful What You Wish For...The Unintended Consequences Of Regime Change Sunday Morning Book Thread - 12-08-2024 ["Perfessor" Squirrel] Daily Tech News 8 December 2024 Overnight Open Thread: 12/07/2024 [scampydog] Music Thread: Brazilian Music? Who'da Thunk It! Hobby Thread - December 7, 2024 [TRex] Absent Friends
Bandersnatch 2024
GnuBreed 2024 Captain Hate 2023 moon_over_vermont 2023 westminsterdogshow 2023 Ann Wilson(Empire1) 2022 Dave In Texas 2022 Jesse in D.C. 2022 OregonMuse 2022 redc1c4 2021 Tami 2021 Chavez the Hugo 2020 Ibguy 2020 Rickl 2019 Joffen 2014 AoSHQ Writers Group
A site for members of the Horde to post their stories seeking beta readers, editing help, brainstorming, and story ideas. Also to share links to potential publishing outlets, writing help sites, and videos posting tips to get published.
Contact OrangeEnt for info:
maildrop62 at proton dot me Cutting The Cord And Email Security
Moron Meet-Ups
|
« Top 40 Prince Songs |
Main
| Overnight Open Thread (4-21-2016) »
April 21, 2016
Vox: The Reason People Are So Cruel On the Internet Is Altruistic PunishmentBefore getting to that, let's mention today's victim of the Internet Outrage Mob: Curt Schilling, who was just fired from his job at ESPN (time to boycott ESPN, no?). He was fired because he shared on FaceBook-- months ago -- a meme goofing on men who want to use women's restrooms: The post showed an overweight man wearing a wig and women’s clothing with parts of the T-shirt cut out to expose his breasts. It says: "LET HIM IN! to the restroom with your daughter or else you're a narrow-minded, judgmental, unloving racist bigot who needs to die." ESPN is a company that sells men on the idea that watching hours of other men doing athletic things is itself manly. ESPN should really stop daring men to exit their economic sphere entirely, before they begin figuring out that it's women who should enjoy watching dudes exert themselves. Seriously, ESPN has always been kinda extremely homoerotic, and it's making this more obvious every day. They should just start advertising tampons on there. Why anyone watches this anymore, I have no idea. It's like Bravo but without practical advice about redoing your kitchen. It's a pageant with occasional whistles and instant replays. Schilling discusses his Tolerance Sacking here. Now, on to Vox, and third-party punishment. I've been talking about this for about two years now, I think -- we did a podcast on the subject with John Sexton (another convert to the cause after I recommended Trial by Fury to him). Vox now Voxspalains altruistic punishment, which they call "third party punishment." The two terms describe the same phenomenon, which is that people take pleasure in punishing people for wronging others. That's the third-party part, or the "altruistic" part -- apes punish other apes for wronging themselves, but apes don't care if you harm another ape. Humans -- possibly uniquely -- do. This is an altruistic impulse and it underlies our sense of fairness in society generally. But there is a dark side to it. Because humans are hard-wired to really, really enjoy punishing others for their alleged sins against other people -- we derive actual pleasure from it; it's that feeling of angry righteous fury political partisans feel -- and sometimes we go deliberately looking for slights to others, which could be entirely imaginary, to righteously punish. One point the Vox article makes which I haven't made myself is that people are willing to use more vicious punishments when defending the alleged wrongs inflicted on others than they are to avenge wrongs perpetrated on themselves. This may be because people are naturally more tough than they credit others with being. And so if you say "You're an asshole" to someone, he just shrugs it off -- who cares? But if you say "You're an asshole" to one of his designated victim cohorts he is honor-bound to defend and avenge, he assumes a bunch of things about his victim cohort -- that they're weak; that they're excessively sensitive and can be wounded by trivial things; and that they are utterly incapable of standing up for themselves -- and permits himself to engage in cruelty he would never consider indulging in on his own behalf to avenge the wronged third party. This could be why furious liberals are so furious and nasty about the Washington Redskins team name, but if you ask the actual Indians about it, they shrug and say "What's the big deal? Isn't it a compliment?" and actually name their own high school teams the "Redskins" and other Indian-themed names. But when you're coming in to defend these Indians -- well, you assume a level of offense on their behalf that really doesn't exist, then you assume they're weak and need a White Knight (usually an actual caucasian White Knight, actually) and you get nastier defending the Poor Indians than you'd ever be defending anyone apart from your own children. And that's why the internet is so terrible. This isn't an impulse to be completely suppressed -- as I said, it is this sense of what is "fair" to others that informs the most rudimentary sense of morality and ethics people feel. (Feel, not think.) Third-party or altruistic punishment is the neurobiological impulse at the root of morality itself. But it should be restrained. And people need to think deeply: Are these poor souls are being so cruel in defending really so weak that they cannot defend themselves? Are they really this sensitive that they are wounded and scarred by the most trivial verbal gaffe? Is the imagined cruelty one seeks to avenge actually greater than the deliberate and calculated cruelty the avenger seeks to visit upon the supposed original wrongdoer? Is the cruelty one is about to deliberately add to the world really likely to make the world a less cruel place? Or just a crueler one? And one needs to ask -- am I really doing this to save my poor victim cohort, or am I just doing it because cruelty feels good and this is the only socially-permissible outlet for behaving cruelly? It's this cycle -- imagining a minor slight to be a major one, then escalating this minor alleged cruelty into a major bout of intentional, coordinated group cruelty (group shaming, viral punishment, etc.) -- that is turning the internet, and the society that it shapes, into a never-ending Vicious Circle. It's time to start letting some things go, and start letting the alleged third-party victims maybe do some complaining and self-defending first before the world jumps in to make every minor squabble a major cultural battle. Open Blog. Here's a game. The forbidden word is elephant. Pretend "elephant" is the most vulgar, offensive, politically incorrect word that exists. You can make allusions to it, you can euphemize, you can say "the e-word" -- but whatever you do, you may not say elephant. It's too obscene and controversial. Update: Target now lets dudes into their ladies' rooms. | Recent Comments
Cosda:
""I hunt with a.54 percussion Lyman now. Slow twist ..."
Notorious BFD: "G'nite, Weasel. Thanks and hope you have a great w ..." JTB: "262 ... Modern guns only shooters often think muzz ..." Mary Clogginstein from Brattleboro,Vt: "Anyone herds anything from Presdent Obama abouts w ..." Weasel: "Nite GWB! ..." Steve O: "I've said this 100 times. If Assad were leading a ..." GWB: "Y'all have a good night, and see you next week. A ..." Bertram Cabot, Jr.: "Is there peanut butter and jelly whiskey? ..." Unknown Drip Under Pressure: "[i]ISIS are CIA assets? Don’t tell the Kurds ..." Weasel: "Posted by: Eromero at December 08, 2024 09:54 PM ( ..." Eromero: "Whiskey, wuh wuh wuh wuh whiskey, wuh wuh wuh wuh ..." Weasel: "Thx again, Weasel-San. Posted by: RI Red at Decem ..." Recent Entries
Sunday Overnight Open Thread (12/8/24) - Doof
Gun Thread: Less Than Robust Content Edition! Food Thread: No Blood For Rib Roasts! First-World Problems... Be Careful What You Wish For...The Unintended Consequences Of Regime Change Sunday Morning Book Thread - 12-08-2024 ["Perfessor" Squirrel] Daily Tech News 8 December 2024 Overnight Open Thread: 12/07/2024 [scampydog] Music Thread: Brazilian Music? Who'da Thunk It! Hobby Thread - December 7, 2024 [TRex] Search
Polls! Polls! Polls!
Frequently Asked Questions
The (Almost) Complete Paul Anka Integrity Kick
Primary Document: The Audio
Paul Anka Haiku Contest Announcement Integrity SAT's: Entrance Exam for Paul Anka's Band AllahPundit's Paul Anka 45's Collection AnkaPundit: Paul Anka Takes Over the Site for a Weekend (Continues through to Monday's postings) George Bush Slices Don Rumsfeld Like an F*ckin' Hammer Top Top Tens
Democratic Forays into Erotica New Shows On Gore's DNC/MTV Network Nicknames for Potatoes, By People Who Really Hate Potatoes Star Wars Euphemisms for Self-Abuse Signs You're at an Iraqi "Wedding Party" Signs Your Clown Has Gone Bad Signs That You, Geroge Michael, Should Probably Just Give It Up Signs of Hip-Hop Influence on John Kerry NYT Headlines Spinning Bush's Jobs Boom Things People Are More Likely to Say Than "Did You Hear What Al Franken Said Yesterday?" Signs that Paul Krugman Has Lost His Frickin' Mind All-Time Best NBA Players, According to Senator Robert Byrd Other Bad Things About the Jews, According to the Koran Signs That David Letterman Just Doesn't Care Anymore Examples of Bob Kerrey's Insufferable Racial Jackassery Signs Andy Rooney Is Going Senile Other Judgments Dick Clarke Made About Condi Rice Based on Her Appearance Collective Names for Groups of People John Kerry's Other Vietnam Super-Pets Cool Things About the XM8 Assault Rifle Media-Approved Facts About the Democrat Spy Changes to Make Christianity More "Inclusive" Secret John Kerry Senatorial Accomplishments John Edwards Campaign Excuses John Kerry Pick-Up Lines Changes Liberal Senator George Michell Will Make at Disney Torments in Dog-Hell Greatest Hitjobs
The Ace of Spades HQ Sex-for-Money Skankathon A D&D Guide to the Democratic Candidates Margaret Cho: Just Not Funny More Margaret Cho Abuse Margaret Cho: Still Not Funny Iraqi Prisoner Claims He Was Raped... By Woman Wonkette Announces "Morning Zoo" Format John Kerry's "Plan" Causes Surrender of Moqtada al-Sadr's Militia World Muslim Leaders Apologize for Nick Berg's Beheading Michael Moore Goes on Lunchtime Manhattan Death-Spree Milestone: Oliver Willis Posts 400th "Fake News Article" Referencing Britney Spears Liberal Economists Rue a "New Decade of Greed" Artificial Insouciance: Maureen Dowd's Word Processor Revolts Against Her Numbing Imbecility Intelligence Officials Eye Blogs for Tips They Done Found Us Out, Cletus: Intrepid Internet Detective Figures Out Our Master Plan Shock: Josh Marshall Almost Mentions Sarin Discovery in Iraq Leather-Clad Biker Freaks Terrorize Australian Town When Clinton Was President, Torture Was Cool What Wonkette Means When She Explains What Tina Brown Means Wonkette's Stand-Up Act Wankette HQ Gay-Rumors Du Jour Here's What's Bugging Me: Goose and Slider My Own Micah Wright Style Confession of Dishonesty Outraged "Conservatives" React to the FMA An On-Line Impression of Dennis Miller Having Sex with a Kodiak Bear The Story the Rightwing Media Refuses to Report! Our Lunch with David "Glengarry Glen Ross" Mamet The House of Love: Paul Krugman A Michael Moore Mystery (TM) The Dowd-O-Matic! Liberal Consistency and Other Myths Kepler's Laws of Liberal Media Bias John Kerry-- The Splunge! Candidate "Divisive" Politics & "Attacks on Patriotism" (very long) The Donkey ("The Raven" parody) |