> […]what they're looking for is a human response.

Well, considering that most people aren't willing to admit that words emanating from this account is the work of some amazing AI platform straight from DARPA, or a being not of this world that is traditionally accepted by the masses, what you really mean is that I didn't illicit a k̶n̶e̶e̶ ̶j̶e̶r̶k̶ reaction (human response: I was tempted) or provide more anecdota to illicit more k̶n̶e̶e̶ ̶j̶e̶r̶k̶ traditional socially accepted reactions?

Meta: But doesn't socially accepted reactions change over time? I wonder how that happened? Did no one try to study human behaviors and some how try to influence such, and we just magically change to the present?

If I took to the forums for all the ways people treated me for the color tint of my skin or other groups I may be subscribed to (black, male, college dropout [some of the things some people would describe me as], etc…), will I learn that all these people behind the their internet connections really give a fuck about me (and vise versa) and that will some how magically change the world now that my ego would have been pandered too? Sure, maybe more people would know that such things happen, but then what? We just keep on keeping on after we log off? Shame on me to even suggest that is/will take the form of actively maintaining the status quo?

Was that human response enough? Now what did we learn that could forward our understanding of such dynamics that take place in a society and change the way people interact for the "better"?

Not just a human response, but one that matches theirs. Attempting rational analysis in the presence of an angry mob is not a good idea - your only real options are to actively join in the fun, or stay at home with the lights off.

> Attempting rational analysis in the presence of an angry mob is not a good idea - your only real options are to actively join in the fun, or stay at home with the lights off.

Probably great advice for the meatspace, but I question if such needs to be the lowest common denominator for online interactions. But I guess some people must be thinking: "How could this person not derive any pleasure/fun from deriding another human being (or in this case, anonymous men who abuse their position in power or in society for a variety of reasons not made apparent but must be inferred by the audience, but human being nonetheless), especially when its socially accepted to do so?!?! How dare he (go figure, but he's admitted to being black [gasp!] so now I'm confused!?!?!) not partake in a sadomasochistic expression of the human condition!?!?!"

Well the online consequences are a lot less serious. The possibility of some downvotes is not dissuading either one of us from carrying on saying what we think. I said what I did mainly to point out that this whole thread is indeed mob behavior, because the phenomenon seems have gotten really bad in this community lately. But even if I do get greyed out, it doesn't really matter because a few people will still read nuance and see that there are indeed people who don't agree but aren't just part of a rival mob. In meatspace, my voice would have been drowned out by the jeers of the day ("faggot" (1995), "traitor" (2005), "privileged" (2015), etc), so that's some incremental improvement to be thankful for.

I don't really think it's a thought of "why don't you take pleasure joining in", but a very base judgment of whether someone is with-us or against-us. Since you're not outraged at this very important subject, you must not share my values. And since you have different values, you must be a contributor to the problem.

>I said what I did mainly to point out that this whole thread is indeed mob behavior, because the phenomenon seems have gotten really bad in this community lately.

Agreed. I figured maybe if I could try to frame the issue in a technical means that might interest people of this community in the context of controversial present uses of technology (trying to expand beyond the mob behaviors in the community towards present asymmetric usage of such) that could benefit us in many spheres if used to study our behaviors if the means were more available/accessible to all.

It's just funny because now people in my position have been pushed towards pursing startups in order to try to address social behaviors using technology because no such freedoms are granted in academia until one is grey haired, and even then you must pander the present status quo in academia which I have friends whine to me about all the time.

At least on HN, I can have a way to even find people trying to do similar things, and I wouldn't know if I didn't state what I was thinking which I think outweighs the fear of being grey out (it still is pretty unpleasant since that affects whether some people who may help pursue such ways of trying to address things may over look, but maybe it attracts those people even more, so maybe not!).

All in all, I'm still pretty hopeful that such interactions here and in derivative spaces like github/twitter can draw me towards people who want to think of/build something to address something like this one day. It's worked form getting me interested in decompiling firmware, network bruteforcing, learning different programming languages, writing code to mine twitter for social information corresponding to crowd sourcing campaigns and their influencers, etc…

> […]but a very base judgment of whether someone is with-us or against-us. Since you're not outraged, you must not share my exact values. Since you don't share my values, you must be part of the problem.

Yeah, I can understand that, but I just stated how such judgements can be construed as (with an intentional mocking touch placed in that train of thought). And this is coming from someone who had an official position at an Ivy League university before I dropped out, as a "Minority Peer Counselor". Funny enough, even there, people who normally initially associate with others (and me) on the basis of their skin (for a multitude of reasons, most predominantly surrounding some internalized fear of rejection/and derivatives from prior experiences or teachings) didn't like when I brought up such phenomena.