First step would be taking down the website, second step is an apology, third step is bringing back online with new branding and eventually a final word to thank them, share the link and say they remain open to criticism.
It's not rocket science. Pretty sure even his LLM would give that strategy and implement it without burning too many tokens.
More than inexperienced, either he really can't read a room or he knows very well what he is doing.
It’s not either-or. You can tell people No and be empathetic to their reasons at the same time. Understanding doesn’t mean agreement or acceptance. It also doesn’t mean you excuse their behavior, or allow it to continue. Empathy doesn’t mean you like what they’re doing. That would be sympathy.
In fact, understanding makes it easier to get people to do what you want.
Some argue that it is even a precondition, to meet someone where they are, to get them to change their ways. The other remaining option is violence/force, which will not fundamentally change their behavior but only shift the problematic behavior elsewhere (and often make it worse).
> It’s not either-or. You can tell people No and be empathetic to their reasons at the same time. Understanding doesn’t mean agreement or acceptance. It also doesn’t mean you excuse their behavior, or allow it to continue. Empathy doesn’t mean you like what they’re doing. That would be sympathy.
We're talking about a discussion in which the author continues their violations after being told "no", and excuses it with their "reasons".
Their reasons can come after they stop the actual wrongdoing, and maybe after they understand what they did wrong and apologize for it.
Asking someone to empathize with their persecutor while they are actively harming that someone is generally viewed as abusive gaslighting in most other contexts.
Would you ask physical abuse victims to be empathetic towards their abusers in the middle of a beating, too? What if they were told it hurt, and asked to stop, and they instead continued anyways while repeatedly and politely saying they had good intentions in beating the victim?
Why limit that protective instinct to physical abuse?
What we see in the thread is people doing what you're talking about: trying to step in to stop abuse. The fact that it isn't a beating doesn't mean it isn't abuse.
I saw plenty of empathy in the discussion for the slop-copy author.
I also saw plenty of empathy in the discussion for Don Ho.
There was probably more of the second than the first, which makes sense, as the victim deserves more empathy than the perpetrator, especially while the perpetrator continues to victimize others.
You misunderstand empathy. Its purpose is to see things clearly: a wrongdoer, victimizer, etc. is still human. A victim is not more human. Empathy is outside circumstance. Only when you don't understand it, you start using it in concert with sympathy. They're different things. Ask yourself this: do you need a lack of empathy to recognize that someone is acting in a destructive way?
If your entire argument is predicated upon a singular, unsupported claim by yourself that I misunderstand something, I don't think we'll have a productive conversation (especially if the claim is not correct).
I said what I said: There were people showing EMpathy for the people on both sides of the conflict in that thread. I said it because it's true. It's true and it's understandable, and probably better than if it were for just the perpetrator.
Perhaps it is you who misunderstands the term? Between us two random people out of billions, it might statistically be just as likely, and neither of us is an impartial judge of the other's understanding. Do you see how that approach to discussion is thus not productive?
Gaslighting in its original sense is a continued process of abuse that leads to a person doubting their own perception, typically with a long term PTSD as consequence. What we are discussing here are possible strategies to get somebody to change their behavior. If you consider people stating a different opinion than you to be gaslighting you, you might want to dig deeper.
I think what is happening here is a difference in understanding of what we mean by empathy, and what it entails in terms of visible action or response. I tried to make it clear that to me, you can both be understanding of the feelings and the (ir)rationality of an abuser and be clear in your boundary-setting (and possible application of protective force) at the same time. The understanding of your “opponent” can help guide your interaction, whether it is verbal communication or other. It doesn’t mean “to be nice” in your response, or accepting their actions.
The reason why I advocate for “more empathy” is because I firmly believe it can make you more successful in clear boundary setting and in communicating and achieving your goals, not weaker, especially in situations where you strongly disagree with somebody else’s actions.
To come back to the case at hand: We seem to agree that the goal is to get him to stop and take the project down. The strategies employed so far to tell him No didn’t make him stop. Now what? I suggested to try a little empathy in the response, something along the lines of “Thank you for offering your help in making NP++ even more successful! We appreciate your effort. For now, can you please take it down, and then we can discuss how you can bring your strengths and abilities to the project in a way that causes less controversy in our happy little community? Looking forward to hearing about your ideas!”. (Only works if sufficiently true; adjust where necessary.)
The goal remains the same. Only the strategy is different. It doesn’t matter if I “like” the person or not, or if I “care” about them. I am interested in achieving my goals, and it requires their cooperation for that —- unless I want to sue. Which I don’t.
With your hypothetical domestic violence abuser, you can shout No all you want at some people and they just won’t stop. If your goal is to get them to stop, you CAN try different strategies. Empathy expands your range of possible actions; it doesn’t limit them.
> Gaslighting in its original sense is a continued process of abuse that leads to a person doubting their own perception
Yes, like the slop-author here adding gaslighting onto their continuing abuse here, using polite language and self-justification to mask that they are being abusive.
> The reason why I advocate for “more empathy” is because I firmly believe it can make you more successful in firm boundary setting and in communicating and achieving your goals
Don Ho tried that first, even encouraging forks under a different name, yet the abuse still continues. Thus, the hypothesis did not hold true in this case. The other comments you see from victims about how the abuser is violating boundaries, are a direct consequence of the hypothesis being tried and failing here.
Not that it will always fail: it's probably a good idea in general. It just didn't work here. It is an unfortunate fact of life that there exist personalities in this world who simply ignore "no" or "stop hurting me" when it conflicts with their own desires. No amount of empathy will make these people immediately stop.
I did not challenge or question Don Ho’s attempts. I attribute the person’s defensive responses as reaction to other people’s displayed lack of empathy, including some posters here, not Don’s. In fact, when you scroll back you will find that I merely shared my opinion, and then continued to expand on it further to provide more information on why I have that opinion. I don’t need you to agree with me. Often, I expand on my opinions more as a service to other readers, who may still be interested in reading about them.
I don’t share the analysis that it didn’t work; it didn’t work so far; the story is live and still unfolding.
His defensive responses we can set aside for a moment. Even if we ignore those, we see him acting abusively: refusing to get consent; refusing to accept "no", from the very beginning.
> I don’t share the analysis that it didn’t work; it didn’t work so far; the story is live and still unfolding.
I think that Don would, and speaking objectively, we can see that it did not achieve the objective of immediately ceasing violations (potentially including, but not limited to, temporarily taking the site offline while further discussions are had). The immediacy is an inherent part of the objective. A solution that takes days, much less weeks, before the abuse stops, is an inadequate remedy here, and that has been explained to the abuser.
altek has been given a number of off-ramps and alternatives to proceed. His continued resistance to take those isn't a sign of naivete, it's a sign of bad faith.
I miss data to confirm any of this does significantly improve security.
Anecdata:
I have yet to meet someone who have been targeted by unknowingly side-loading apps.
If they really want to improve security they can work on much more impactful changes.
I know people having been scammed by ads proudly delivered by instagram and google.
I read about malicious apps that somehow went through official store filtering.
Vendor or even model specific tools plus fighting with glue is not that complicated for someone willing to dedicate the effort, but it won't help recycling economy.
By design it's a game where people with inside knowledge or enough power to bend reality can steal money from people with gambling addiction. Automating your addiction might not be the best move.
This is what markets like Polymarket boil down to. Normies can't win. Some will, of course, but that's just chance and there's no way if ensuring it's you.
It's really no different than a casino: if you ever find yourself with more money than you walked in with, cash out and leave.
Best strategy for most people though is to simply not participate and you'll break even.
I fully agree with not participating and would go even further: it's far worse than a casino, which was already bad. It's not regulated. It has a stronger impact on the outside world. With bets you can put a target on people job or head.
Except, the thing is, a decent portion of the population enjoys throwing money away in casinos. If they feel a similar level of enjoyment/entertainment from this type of market, then it's no different and they're playing for a non-financial purpose that your calculus isn't pricing in. Maybe a stretch but theoretically, if they enjoy it enough, it can serve as a much cheaper alternative to a casino and thus could actually have a positive net return to one's personal finances even while losing.
And, I'm not even contemplating gambling addiction. There's a huge market of people that just go to Vegas once or twice a year and come home thousands of dollars poorer. But they don't need it, they may not gamble outside of Vegas, or nothing that would signal an addiction.
> I don't have a gambling addiction, I just enjoy throwing money away in casinos. I come home thousands of dollars poorer. It's a net return to my finances. Totally healthy.
It's all hypothetical of course but I know Vegas has some high table/game minimums and these markets can be pretty cheap if you just want a piece of action. Also, eliminates the cost of actually traveling.
Again, no idea if anyone sees this as a true substitute or not. My guess is not as Polymarket bets don't feel entertaining at all (IMO). So it's not filling that void for anyone, but it hypothetically could.
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