
The Bully - cykod
http://cykod.com/blog/post/2013-01-the-bully
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ditonal
Well, I'm a nerd but I do agree with the bully. I don't think that the
severity of a crime should be judged by a victim's reaction to it. While I see
how a suicide might bring notoriety to a problem, I don't think it changes the
nature of what was done. It's similar to the Tyler Clementi case, who killed
himself because he was being videotaped in gay acts by his roommate. I never
thought it was fair that the bully in this case would be held accountable for
essentially the entirety of our society's homophobia just because his actions
were the final straw. He should have been punished the same that anybody would
be for video taping their roommate in a sexual act and publishing it online
(which I do recognize as severe bullying and very wrong). I believe that his
official charges were along those lines, but it was clear it was being taken
more seriously because of the suicide.

The other thing I hate is the concept of "The" Bully. It's easy to imagine a
sick, hateful person, most importantly someone else, and individual bullies
certainly exist, but I think the far more common situation is where the bully
is a group of people. I think one way to 'Stop Bullying' is to help people
understand when they are bullying, instead of just imagining it's something
someone else does. I doubt there that many people that never had an adolescent
moment where they 'ganged up' on someone (verbally) to feel like they belonged
more in a group, or just to give an outsider or a 'runt' of the group a hard
time, because it's such an instinctive thing to do. So much so that it's a
huge theme of Lord of the Flies, a book everybody reads in high school, but
rarely views within the context of their own life.

The most ironic thing about these stop bullying campaigns is so very, very
often they reflect the same group bullying mentality they purport to be
fighting. All these people 'ganging up' on the prosecutors in this case are
example of that. I'm not saying this wasn't a failure of our justice system
that should be fixed, only that it at times this is seeming awfully like a
witch hunt.

~~~
dpatru
> It's similar to the Tyler Clementi case, who killed himself because he was
> being videotaped in gay acts by his roommate. I never thought it was fair
> that the bully in this case would be held accountable . . .

This is an unfair analogy. Don't compare a college roommate with a US
Attorney. First, they don't have the same moral training: the roommate is
young and still in school, while the prosecutor has spent years in school
studing justice and is near the top of a profession with the primary goal of
doing justice. Second, their acts aren't comparable: the roommate acted on a
sick, misguided impulse intending to embarrass, while the prosecutor
deliberately over the course of many months and spending many thousands of
dollars intended to force a kid to admitting to a felony and to agree to spend
months in prison.

There is a clear bully here and it's not the people protesting Carmen Ortiz's
actions.

~~~
vijayr
_roommate acted on a sick, misguided impulse intending to embarrass_

Pretty much. Also, the roommate had nothing much to gain, politically or
career wise.

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sdoering
Thanks. Sad, sad topic, but probably the best take on the topic I have read.

And not only on the recent context. This is a story, that sadly fits so many
contexts, that it could be shown day after day after day.

~~~
corresation
It simplifies the world in a way that such narrative always does, adding no
understanding and doing nothing to make the future better.

In the real world we're _all_ bullies (1), and sometimes suicide, self-harm,
and hysterical overreaction is the _ultimate tactic to bully_. It seems
entirely irrational, and I'm sure the mere notion of it will outrage some, but
humans are prone to irrationality.

One of the most dangerous behaviors is to empower suicide -- to make it the
ultimate "get back at them" tactic, internet lynch mobs that _didn't care at
all_ before suddenly up in arms against the purported aggressors, the
narrative of the story simplified and made completely one-sided, where there
are only villains and victims. That isn't how the real world works.

Despite the ham-fisted Swartz parable in the linked thing, I was not talking
about that situation above. However if I might, it was clear years earlier
that Aaron wasn't exactly the happiest person in the world. There were things
going on there that none of us understand, and presuming that everything would
be happy sailing if a prosecutor looked the other way isn't rational.

(1)- Some of the most egregious, obnoxious bullying happened in the recent
thread recounting the thread about Aaron's situation from a half a year ago.
Suddenly everything was seemingly so clear to some, their righteous outrage
and vilification so loud. Just embarrassing.

~~~
sdoering
Why not sometimes simplify some things? It is a good starting point, and I was
not saying, that we should stop there. But there is a special power in stories
told good.

I was not (or at least, I hope so) empowering suicide, as this would be the
last thing on my mind. I read the story as some kind of parable, teaching me
something. It got me thinking. It broke through all the layers protecting my
brain from all the noise out there. It gripped me and I started thinking,
about the times, I was on the receiving- and on the giving-end of the bully-
stick.

I am far to far away, to judge, if anyone in the linked context qualifies as
bully. Really I am. And to be fair, it is ok not to judge here, not knowing of
Aarons situation, not knowing the people involved and only having read some
1000 words on the topic.

But I can judge myself being bullied and being a bully sometimes. And I was
able to identify some situations, in which i was not the good man, I want to
be, situations, I was able to revisit in memory, See where I went wrong and
what I could do better next time. And speaking an apology to the one on the
receiving-end.

So what is so bad in this irrational, emotional, but maybe moving story? In my
humble opinion, it would only be "bad" not to go the next step after reading
it.

~~~
cykod
Thanks, I really appreciate the comment - I wrote it as a parable and only
added the context link after my father emailed me in a tiff asking if it was
autobiographical and I had secretly been bullied in high-school.

The goal was to simplify the discussion and throw some culpability on the
reader to make them a little uncomfortable, but as I only usually write about
tech stuff this was new ground for me and I had no idea if people would "get"
the intent or if it would just feel like a one-sided condemnation.

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chimpinee
There's a kind of emotional economy that nerds don't tune into. To those who
aren't strong enough to resist participating in this collective exchange, it
seems like the nerd is cheating. And he's perpetually anxious, so he must be
in the wrong, right?

>everyone - including the teacher - had laughed

Yes. 'Socialization' --a purportedly legitimate function of schooling-- exists
on the same continuum as teasing and bullying.

~~~
wwwtyro
> There's a kind of emotional economy that nerds don't tune into.

Please expand on this as much as you're willing.

~~~
scrumper
Might be referring to this essay by Paul Graham:
<http://www.paulgraham.com/nerds.html>

~~~
wwwtyro
That was very good; thanks.

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zaidf
I am not a huge fan of the term "bully" in this conversation because it keeps
us from having a nuanced conversation.

The easiest counterpoint is noting so-called "bully-like" behavior from
prosecutors in cases that ended up putting someone genuinely dangerous behind
bars or into confessing a crime they committed but wouldn't confess to without
the so-called "bullying".

So, if we want to talk about this from the perspective of a bully, let's begin
by defining what it is and _isn't_.

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dschiptsov
I suggest that author should write more about HTML5.

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lsc
I'm not sure the models we use when understanding the behaviour of an
individual are useful for understanding the behaviour of a state or another
large group with no one individual in control. Groups of people, I think, are
fundamentally different entities from individuals.

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seivan
Feels like an analogy to what Ortiz is did to Aaron.

~~~
Zarel
The article says as much with its "Context" link near the bottom.

~~~
seivan
I missed that :)

