
Moral outrage in the digital age - hliyan
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-017-0213-3.epdf?author_access_token=g7DCcgI5RN7lYtll2TN91dRgN0jAjWel9jnR3ZoTv0NeX9lcnqMb85KhxxCNXPvcT9GiKnBqrtnmpjrd_GOPGrJhzSoffolMzocFxY_IUgW1PXgqUTxBApfNabbmgnbQzUbucqLUbY5EV9bfCBawVA%3D%3D
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HumanDrivenDev
One thing I find interesting is that moral outrage and hygienic thought are
now the domain of the left - a sharp contrast to even a couple of decades ago.
If a young person wants to be edgy and rebel - they become far right, not far
left.

The 'alt-right' is largely a manifestation of this.

~~~
Impossible
Far right being edgy and rebellious is only the case in a narrow segment of
the world that happens to be overrepresented on HN. The right is rebellion for
young, affluent, educated white men that attend liberal universities and work
in tech. For everyone else being far right is either how things have always
been or not in your own best interest.

~~~
HumanDrivenDev
I don't know how you've come to these conclusions. A huge segment of the
working class is right-wing and always has been. Being far-right is a
rebellion for the poor just as much as it is for the rich.

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amarant
Finally someone advocating civilized discussion instead of finger pointing!
Really if we want to improve society we must stop screaming and get to work!

~~~
the-dude
Exclamation mark!

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thegreatcosmo
I agree but then I hear old people talk about political bombings and student
groups with guns in the 60s and I think its still better then that.

~~~
WalterSear
“People have completely forgotten that in 1972 we had over _nineteen hundred
domestic bombings in the United States._ ” — Max Noel, FBI (ret.)

[https://status451.com/2017/01/20/days-of-
rage/](https://status451.com/2017/01/20/days-of-rage/)

"The 1970s underground wasn’t small. It was hundreds of people becoming urban
guerrillas. Bombing buildings: the Pentagon, the Capitol, courthouses,
restaurants, corporations. Robbing banks. Assassinating police. People really
thought that revolution was imminent, and thought violence would bring it
about."

~~~
JBlue42
But wasn't that also an all out war on the far left as well as minority
movements vs letting the right-wing militants fester over time? I recall the
90s, esp. after the OKC bombing, having a lot more talk about militias. The
media also plays up cartel violence or, usually black/Latino, gang violence
more than we've ever seen discussion of the Aryan Brotherhood or, at the very
least, classifying abortion clinic attacks/bombings (typically done by white
Christians) as terrorist attacks.

------
ygaf
Key paragraph:

> Like the boy who cried wolf, the Twitter mob crying "SHAME!" becomes easier
> to dismiss the less precisely it positions its crosshairs. To move the
> needle on gun control, public outrage needs to remain focused on the gun-
> violence epidemic, lawmakers' inaction and the lies of the NRA. But in the
> wake of the shooting, viral outrage has also erupted over U.S. President
> Donald Trump's crib sheet reminding him to express empathy for the victims
> and his unserious proposal to arm teachers. Just looking at the responses
> online, an observer from another planet might think we humans believe all
> these offences deserve equal attention. When everything is worthy of
> outrage, effectively nothing is.

I really think kids by a certain age should be able to distinguish for
themselves the importance of events from the hysteria of the writer. Maybe a
cartoon series where twitter is the villain? At the end of each episode, the
heroes realise they were being wound up.

~~~
kelukelugames
I feel this is what happened with protests and marches. They are much less
effective today because people are used to them.

~~~
Sag0Sag0
And because they are less likely to turn into a violent insurrection.

------
qxzw
This is dangerous. Complimented with _virtual moral high ground_, a lot of
stupid people have a voice. Reminds me of [0]. Female porn star said she
didn't want to shoot films with male porn stars who did gay porn prior. Of
course many people found that outrageous. Cyber bullying made her kill
herself. One would think women should have freedom to decide for themselves
who they should have sex with. Ironic.

[0] -
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/August_Ames#Death](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/August_Ames#Death)

------
spodek
Is there a male/female breakdown in the pattern of expressing moral outrage,
signaling, receiving reward from likes and share, and amplifying it? Does
either sex express more outrage? Does either sex receive more rewarding likes
and shares?

~~~
nugi
A nuanced view? Are you sexist?! /s

I highly suspect it is closely tied with each sexes favored topic. Most women
are less interested in Right-to-Repair, where men seem much less interested in
identity politics until either get the pointy end. I, like you, would favor
data over conversation and pontificating.

Already, studies of this type can be hard to fund. Introducing a component
that could promote bias (real or percieved), is enough to often warrant its
disconsideration, and it is unfortunate.

~~~
kevinh
> where men seem much less interested in identity politics

I wouldn't be surprised if there's a bias to this. After the 2016 election,
there was discussion about the focus of Democrats on identity politics, but
Trump's campaign was almost entirely identity politics, which was rarely
explicitly called out.

It seems as though when the group that holds the most political power (men,
white people, Christians) has concerns, it's not viewed as identity politics,
whereas for political minorities, it is.

~~~
ygaf
I still don't understand what identity politics is. (as opposed to politics)

~~~
ajmurmann
This is really hard to respond to because the general definition is straight
forward, but concrete examples get controversial really quick. As I understand
it identity politics is dominated by in-group and out-group thinking. The
group can be racial, cultural, gender based, didn't really matter. Extreme
examples are: You aren't allowed to speak about the situation of women in the
work place without identifying as a woman; if you are pro abortion and don't
smoke you are likely against guns and the crucial part: might be shunned from
your social group of you aren't; funny example from a recent article here: if
you are a true Vegan you also can't eat processed food like Quorn.

~~~
ygaf
So identity politics is when you try to make other people invalid. That's a
more radical definition than the one(s) in wikipedia, thanks though.

~~~
ygaf
Multiple downvotes for acknowledging replies, wow. There's some real clowns
out there.

------
truculation
Outrage inflation is a thing but there's a limit to how far outrage could take
society anyhow. Shaming and outrage are continuous with bullying. They only
work on weak people. But it's still open to us to better society by improving
ourselves as individuals.

~~~
skummetmaelk
Weak people and people with a conscience.

~~~
yjftsjthsd-h
People with a conscience should be convinced by calm discussion, not outage.

~~~
andrepd
What about people that are not convinced by calm discussion? Sometimes violent
struggle is needed to achieve a goal.

~~~
paulryanrogers
Violence should be a last resort with clear boundaries. Sometimes it's better
to suffer when there are no better alternatives.

~~~
andrepd
Yes, it should be a last resort. But the rest failing, violence is sometimes
needed. Few social progress was ever made without violent struggle. Turning
the other cheek isn't an option.

------
moomin
Sorry but this is dumb. Outrage culture, like the weaponisation of the
abortion, drug and gun debates, has been going on since _at least_ the
sixties. I mean, look at this picture and tell me how social media’s made this
worse:
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Little_Rock_Desegregati...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Little_Rock_Desegregation_1957.jpg)

What social media has done is ensure you hear more from groups that previously
didn’t get a voice. The outrage has always been there, and no progress has
been made on those issues. Thinking social media is causing the left to get
more vocal is like thinking cameraphones cause police shootings.

~~~
psyc
Five short years ago, I was no less a permanent resident of the Internet than
I am now, and I was no stranger to the unsavory dark corners. Yet I had either
never, or very rarely encountered so many of the inflammatory topics that i
see now on a daily basis.

There were no regular references to nazis (godwin'd threads aside) and white
supremacy. You don't even hear about godwin's law anymore, because it applies
much too often now. I'd never heard of antifa. I didn't daily encounter people
accusing people and things of being racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic,
and so on. I didn't know the names of any white supremacists other than David
Duke, and I rarely saw anything about him. (Ironically, I still have never
seen any white supremacist material or figures in any organic context. I only
see them being promoted by their opponents due to the Streisand Effect).

My perception of all of this has changed drastically in the last 5 years. I
encounter all of the above _daily_ to the point where it's never far from my
thoughts. That was never the case before. I'm not an activist. I don't take an
interest in politics. I only subscribe to graphics programmers on Twitter, and
I only visit subreddits that interest me. But it's only in the past 3-4 years
that I can't even be on the web without seeing all of the above.

Now all of this hasn't found its way into IRL, yet. But it has begun to.
People I've known for many years have recently started posting about what I
consider fairly extreme political ideas. Certain distinctive vocabulary, and
the associated thinking, is seeping into their lexicons.

I'm sure there's a lot of truth to what you're saying too. But culture
spreads. If those outraged voices are "just" being heard more, there is no
"just" about it. They're drawing people in, the ideas are spreading, and the
mobs are growing too.

~~~
knieveltech
Point of Order: Godwin suspended Godwin's Law indefinitely, likely in response
to the alt-right and Trump's election.

~~~
dempseye
Just shows that invoking Godwin's Law as if it had probative force was
nonsense in the first place. Valid principles of reasoning can't be suspended
by fiat.

~~~
dragonwriter
Godwin’s Law wasn't suspended and isn't a principle of reasoning.

(Godwin did indicate that a common adaptation of the law, which is a principle
[though not a valid one] of reasoning, which is often mislabeled as the law
itself, was both overly broad and specifically improper when applied to
particular comparisons to the Nazis.)

~~~
dempseye
> Godwin’s Law... isn't a principle of reasoning

Turns out what I was referring to was not the law itself, but a principle that
is mislabeled as it, which I object to people using as a "checkmate" move or
as a thought-terminating cliché.

------
scanr
I think it might be good to consider outrage an externality that we should
price in somehow.

Not sure how we would do it.

~~~
oldcynic
If you're not careful that line of thought leads to something akin to the
Chinese social credit system.

~~~
scanr
I think outrage amplification may be a side effect of optimising for
engagement.

Do you think that changing that would be tantamount to having a social credit
system?

Or that a social credit system is the only way to price in outrage
amplification?

~~~
oldcynic
> outrage amplification may be a side effect of optimising for engagement

I tend to agree, but I suspect that is the last thing the networks would be
willing to change, as that is what keeps people there and gets advertising
clicks.

If it were to reach the point of attracting regulation, what could be
regulated? Maximum engagement by the networks, impose some sort of ration, or
regulate the users and their twitterings?

So I could see it all too easily ending up solving the wrong problem in the
wrong way.

Honestly off the top of my head, I don't know how I would approach this.
Especially when some of the possible approaches would be a conflict of
interest for the networks.

~~~
scanr
Agreed. It’s a tough problem. Do you think we could reliably measure outrage?

~~~
AnimalMuppet
Robert Heinlein, in one of his novels (don't remember which one), had a scale
of how emotionally loaded individual words were, and regulations that
prohibited news organizations from using the more loaded words.

Of course, nobody's going to agree which words have what rating on the
scale...

------
hownottowrite
Better to read the original framework in Nature [0]. Avoids the hot topics of
the moment and focuses on the real issue, which is polarization of society.

[0] "Moral outrage in the digital age"
[https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-017-0213-3.epdf?autho...](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-017-0213-3.epdf?author_access_token=g7DCcgI5RN7lYtll2TN91dRgN0jAjWel9jnR3ZoTv0NeX9lcnqMb85KhxxCNXPvcT9GiKnBqrtnmpjrd_GOPGrJhzSoffolMzocFxY_IUgW1PXgqUTxBApfNabbmgnbQzUbucqLUbY5EV9bfCBawVA%3D%3D)

~~~
sctb
Thanks! We've updated the link from
[https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/modern-outrage-is-
ma...](https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/modern-outrage-is-making-it-
harder-to-bettersociety/article38179877/).

------
jochung
Moral outrage is hiding the fact that it's not the kids doing it. There is an
entire network of activist organizations researching these issues, so that
when tragedy strikes, a campaign can be astroturfed within a day, and pressure
can be exercised on large corporate and public targets.

This takes time, and effort, and willing megaphones in media. The biggest
illusion of the social media era is that any of this is "organic" rather than
instigated top-down, using human networks built slowly over time rather than
spontaneously willed into being using the magic of Twitter.

The media does not report, they shape the agenda, decide what is important and
what isn't, and who gets to be heard under what sort of light.

Even this article pulls the same scam: it sneaks the question by you of
whether the "kids" will succeed, thus painting them as the only real people
with agency. You don't need to believe in conspiracy or crisis actors to see
this is bunk.

~~~
CodeWriter23
It’s really as simple as this. This is a 34 second clip of Edward Bernays,
consultant to Joseph Stalin and father of the American Public Relations
Industry illustrating how to transmute a reprehensible idea into an acceptable
one. And doing it with a frightening amount of ease.

[https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=5dtg-
qFPYDE](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=5dtg-qFPYDE)

~~~
bobthechef
More good material:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ddVmKS3AOo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ddVmKS3AOo)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iBEclayBCdc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iBEclayBCdc)

~~~
CodeWriter23
This one, he’s on Letterman and has Letterman call him “Doctor”. He wasn’t a
Doctor nor. PhD. Tap in to find out why he did that.

[https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=i6hH3roMe4w](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=i6hH3roMe4w)

------
smoyer
I know I'm older than most here (and have the tri-focals to prove it) but did
anyone else read this as "modem outrage"? Perhaps it's just the font used on
HN because as I type this, it's pretty clear that:

    
    
      modem != modern
    

But with formatted (and deemphasized) title text I see modem = modern.

Back to the topic at hand - I don't think modern outage is much different than
it used to be. The main difference is that it spreads much faster. Outrage
used to start in one location and might take months to reach another part of
the country (at which point it would be over in the originating location). Now
it's possible to have everyone enraged (outraged?) at once.

~~~
jfk13
> I know I'm older than most here (and have the tri-focals to prove it) but
> did anyone else read this as "modem outrage"?

[http://www.ironicsans.com/2008/02/idea_a_new_typography_term...](http://www.ironicsans.com/2008/02/idea_a_new_typography_term.html)

~~~
smoyer
Bookmarked! That's my kind of humor (and pinboard suggested the tags should be
"design humor typography" which seems perfect).

