From Gamergate to Cecil the lion: internet mob justice is out of control | Vox
What Palmer did was wrong, and he deserves to be punished to the full extent of the law. But it’s easy to forget just how dangerous and unjust “mob justice” is while it’s targeting someone you despise. The more this behavior is normalized, the more likely it is to be deployed against targets who might not necessarily deserve to have their lives destroyed — including, perhaps one day, against you.
I did not follow the Cecil the lion story in detail, but I did find this article extremely relevant to the conversation. The ability for groups of people to essentially take justice into their own hands by using information that can be easily found — and spread — online is worrisome. There’s no need for such “mobs” to wait on action from the actual legal justice system, which in my mind does serious harm to the entire “innocent until proven guilty” concept that we supposedly hold dear. Small groups of people can essentially decide on their own, based on whatever assessment of available information they deem worthy, whether someone is guilty or not, and take actions that significantly impact that person’s life as a result.
Drag Me Down | One Direction
The boy band filmed their latest video at JSC and nearby Ellington Field! Boy band or not (and don’t worry, I do love me some boy band music from time to time), this is pretty dang cool.
Inside Amazon: Wrestling Big Ideas in a Bruising Workplace | New York Times
Stories like this about how harsh life can be working for a tech company always terrify me. No doubt some things are exaggerated or untrue or case-specific, but overall I am left with the overwhelming feeling that I could NOT hack it at a stereotypical tech company. It makes me very thankful for the relative calm and flexibility of working at NASA.
There is a push across the nation that, whether intentional or not, is attacking and negating the basic principle of “innocent until proven guilty”. The affirmative consent laws that California, NY, and other states have passed or are considering are the exact opposite, where the accused are guilty until proven innocent. And good luck with that.
While I trust that sanity in the judicial branch will prevail over these misguided attempts… if enough places try this, I’m concerned it will gain traction somewhere.
It’s not actually clear that Palmer did anything illegal. What he did was morally wrong in my book, but I’m opposed to hunting all of the big beasts, including the ones that are legally hunted in the US without moral outrage (wolves). It’s a little too easy to get angry because lions, which are not universally loved, are hunted far away where they don’t hurt us while being OK with wolf hunting in the US.
Lion hunting is apparently legal in whatever country he was in, and the only problem was killing Cecil by luring him out of the sanctuary. It’s not clear that Palmer had any part in luring the lion out of the sanctuary. Maybe he did, maybe he didn’t. The guide seems clearly at fault, but the dentist not.
Again, I personally don’t think we should be shooting any lions, but I’m sure it happens legally all the time, so I think the moral outrage at Palmer specifically is misplaced, assuming he wasn’t privy to luring Cecil from the sanctuary.