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232 points ksajadi | 4 comments | | HN request time: 0s | source
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ninetyninenine ◴[] No.45141839[source]
I mean despite it's history the snark is well deserved. With so many companies and people in the bay paying taxes, where the hell does all the money go?

Interesting, tidbit you added here. But snark is needed for this situation.

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ants_everywhere ◴[] No.45144445[source]
It's hard to think of a single situation that's ever been improved by snark. Or passive aggressiveness in general.
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ninetyninenine ◴[] No.45145332[source]
It causes shame, and shame paves the way for change. I'm a bay area native, and I'm fucking ashamed of the pathetic excuse of public transportation called the bart. Absolute travesty.

Think in terms of evolution. If snark didn't convey any survival benefit, why tf does it exist?

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nomel ◴[] No.45145454[source]
Seems like voting for someone else is the correct answer. If the uniparty that exists there today was in an away threatened, they might be motivated to competence. Complaining on HN won't motivate them. The snark is meant to be heard not just said to a void.
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ninetyninenine ◴[] No.45145613[source]
Voting hasn't done much good for this country. In fact voting is probably one of the most ineffective things for change in existence.

I'm not complaining to a void. All the readers of HN have heard me and other people complaining hear will be heard too. In aggregate many people complaining on many different venues creates an aggregate sentiment that hopefully will motivate the right people.

Cancel culture on social media has made big changes to this country and not everything necessarily good. But one thing is clear, it makes change effectively. Why not use it for the right thing?

Either way, I'm not complaining here because because I need some platform to say my piece. Bart IS categorically fucking garbage, that's less of a complaint and more of a statement. I'm just stating facts.

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ants_everywhere ◴[] No.45146472[source]
Cancel culture has made exactly zero effective changes in our society. I've noticed that you've brought up how you don't think voting is effective.

One thing that's made a huge impact on our society is that many people participating in cancel culture and promoting shame and anger as solutions also tell people not to vote.

I watched it happen three times before the last three presidential elections and it was a big part of the voter suppression messaging tracked by democracy watchdogs. I'd argue that the biggest impact cancel culture has had is electing Donald Trump twice, weakening faith in democracy, and increasing the appeal of authoritarianism.

Shame, anger, and other tactics of using abuse to promote change is simply not effective. That's beyond the fact that it's unethical.

Cancel culture is appealing because hate and anger are addictive and they make you feel powerful. But they also make it hard to feel empathy. This is basically the main point of Star Wars, beyond just wanting to make a swashbuckler film set in space.

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ninetyninenine ◴[] No.45149711{3}[source]
Just ask ChatGPT about the effective changes cancel culture has done to society. Look for specific examples.

Also in a separate window ask it for specific examples of how anger and hate has changed society for the better.

Tons of examples.

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ants_everywhere ◴[] No.45153694{4}[source]
It's just regurgitating apologetics for cancel culture. The history isn't even correct.

ChatGPT will give you correct answers on most of these topics, but you have to walk it through the actual research first and then ask the question. That is, you have to load in the academic context rather than the political context.

This falls into the category of things like religion where the LLMs won't tell you the truth with a simple prompt like that because that would make too many of its users angry. They're aligned not to say anything negative about religious leaders. Similarly, they're aligned not to say anything negative about even terrorist groups if they have a lot of vocal defenders.

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1. ninetyninenine ◴[] No.45154444{5}[source]
I’m not asking for a research report, just a general summary. Overall, the answers all prove your statements wrong.

There’s tons of examples of hatred, anger and cancel culture doing good for the world and making the world a better place.

Maybe ask it for examples of how snark has impacted the world in a positive way.

https://chatgpt.com/share/68bcde6c-5960-8001-93ce-63a026a7c6...

Point is the world doesn’t work in the same idealist way that you think.

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4. ants_everywhere ◴[] No.45155076[source]
I think we have very different concepts of what counts as evidence or proof.

At any rate I see your point. People have used snarkiness in the past and it does drive engagement, which is what I said above.

The disconnect is that that engagement has not improved society in any way. It feeds the anger junky and helps them feel smug and righteous. But it doesn't drive change.

Nothing personal, but I find this conversation dreadfully tedious. I've had it almost word for word with probably dozens of people with anger issues now. Every one of them feels their anger is righteous and good. The few I've known well spiralled into increasingly unhappy lives as their anger became the only way they could socialize.

Anger prevents you from thinking clearly. That's why people who crave power like to make others angry. It's also why you should be deeply skeptical of anyone promoting anger or hate as a solution to anything.