Few people will see your post, but the ones who do see it might be exactly the people who can hurt you the most — those who specifically sought it out in order to gain information on you. This matters even more if you have ambition, because the incentive to dig up dirt in you increases the more of a public facing role you seek. Putting out this kind of stuff early in your career is a good way to limit what you can achieve, or at least create unnecessary friction, potentially without realizing the impact.
I’d also note that if few people see your post, then that makes it even easier to come out to just them. That more or less eliminates the downside risk while giving you the same benefits.
I really don’t see the benefit unless posting your secrets online happens to scratch a quirky psychological itch, or you’re aiming to use a big megaphone, get a large readership, and find opportunities you couldn’t get any other way. Overall, it seems to me like an area where you should be cautious, clear on your motives, and slow-moving, directly analogous to, say, posting a sex tape online.
those who specifically sought it out in order to gain information on you
Unless you are the sort of person who is likely to have a stalker at some point, that premise is low-grade paranoia, not a realistic concern. Most likely, nobody cares about hurting you enough to put in that kind of effort.
We could quantify some of these risks, such as the base rate of risks associated with stalking, the frequency with which hiring managers research potential hires on Google or social media, and so on. In fact, it would be trivial to pull together a preliminary report using one of the deep research AI products. What level of marginal risk do you think it’s worth taking to post your taboo personal details online, considering the range of risks this potentially exposes you to?
I’d also note that doings stuff like this, and encouraging others to do so, rhymes with cult behavior. Other cults collect dirty details and keep them secret as blackmail. If rationalism establishes a culture of high-status members encouraging others to post potentially embarrassing personal/sexual info online, that can easy be, and be seen as, a way to indoctrinate and trap people within the community.
Dude, that doesn’t make any sense. People making their secrets public is the opposite of what blackmailers want.
This logic is so bad that I think it should be a flag to you that you are clearly motivatedly reasoning real hard here.
Anyway, quantifying a little:
Lifetime incidence of stalking is about 12-16% for women and 4-7% for men. Most of it is from former romantic partners. And stalkers are not usually trying to just hurt the target as much as they can; something like sharing one’s home address would be relevant to stalkers, but sharing emotional secrets much less so.
Hiring managers blah blah blah: hard to get a base rate, but none of the people who hired other people at half a dozen different companies do that to my knowledge, and even if any of them did I can’t think of anything far short of literally being a KKK member that would make a difference to the hiring process.
You say “and so on” but, like, I don’t think there’s all that much so to on here?
I think the more important point here is not the base rates, but the fact that the kind of things I’m talking about sharing here usually just aren’t usually that relevant to most stalkers or hiring managers or whoever. If the things you’re scared of sharing are political in nature, then sure, some of those can come with some risk, though the risks will be more salient than the base rates merit. But other than that… we’re not talking about sharing things like your address.
Dude, that doesn’t make any sense. People making their secrets public is the opposite of what blackmailers want.
This logic is so bad that I think it should be a flag to you that you are clearly motivatedly reasoning real hard here.
I want to flag that you are unilaterally escalating this conversation rhetorically, and making accusations about my psychological state that I really do not appreciate. Let’s keep it civil and focused on the object-level topic.
Literally, on a surface level, you are correct that publicly posting dirty secrets online pre-empts some blackmail threats, although it still exposes the poster to the risk that those posts will be distorted or amplified in ways they didn’t intend.
Functionally, my argument is plausible and logically sound that the outcome of blackmail and publicly posting secrets can be very similar. Both practices can result in an individual being trapped in the group/cult by the perception that their action (handing over blackmail threats or posting embarrassing secrets online) has now cut off or created friction for pathways to careers and relationships outside the community.
Furthermore, if the group acquires an even stronger perception of being a cult than it has as a result of adopting the practice of encouraging members to post dirty secrets about themselves online, then that perception will further taint the reputation of and isolate its members. These sorts of ideas can be a way of gradually converting a formerly healthy community into a cult.
Do you have a particular example in mind which is generating this whole thread, which you’re willing to gesture at? I was escalating because it’s seemed-to-me from the beginning that this whole class of objection is very obviously statistically unrealistic (once one sets aside its emotional salience), and the arguments you’ve made seem to me not only wrong but obviously wrong (again, once one sets aside emotional salience). In my experience, just continuing at the object level usually doesn’t prove useful in such situations.
If I’m being epistemically generous, I would guess that you have some specific example in mind which is very different from the sort of thing I was imagining when writing the post, and as a result we’ve been talking past each other a lot. For instance, elsewhere in this thread, David Davidson brought up “Many people in countries with more authoritarian governments have to worry about going to prison over having the wrong opinion (like China or the UK).”. I thought the examples in the post made it pretty obvious that that was not the sort of thing I was talking about, but maybe that was not obvious?
My core belief on this topic is that coming out is, in fact, a risky practice in America and world wide. It’s risky to come out about your kinks, your sexual gender orientation, your political beliefs, and your historical affiliations with groups or types of groups that have controversial reputations.
Coming out can be net beneficial under controlled circumstances. Generally, it is better to have a world in which people have the ability to achieve those benefits. That starts by being aware of and working to mitigate those risks. The queer community is an excellent example of a group of people who’ve done that and reaped the rewards.
My central problem with your OP and responses here is that you seem to be rejecting the need for consideration or mitigation of those risks. This flies in the face of the historical experience of queers, apostates, atheists, political, radicals, and other groups who’ve come out in ways that failed to control those risks and suffered for it. By encouraging people to just come out without considering or taking steps to mitigate risks, you encourage them to make themselves vulnerable in ways that may make them more dependent on the rationalist community as the place where you’re seeking to enact this attitude toward coming out.
In my view, there is an enormous volume of historical experience of a wide variety of groups that backs up the profound risks of coming out. These risks include ostracism, exclusion from job opportunities, public humiliation, and physical violence. Again, those risks can be mitigated and the reward for doing so are great. But flat out denying those risks strikes me as foolish when it’s done by an individual, and cult-inducing when it becomes a community norm.
There are stories of people losing their jobs over social media posts—the stories I’ve heard have been about high school teachers getting fired over things like pictures of themselves on Facebook drinking at a party.
the sort of person who is likely to have a stalker at some point
This does not cut reality at the joints at all. There is no such “type”; stalkers do not care about your “type”. Stalkers tend to be crazy people. And even the tiniest bit of fame is enough to spawn stalkers, no matter how you act.
79% of stalkers are people the victim knows [1]- not parasocial famous relationships. Of parasocial stalkers, erotomanic is most common: men who have power and wealth and older than the stalker are the common victims. Erotomaniacs tend to be women from lower socio-economic classes, as I said in my other comment—I would guess that this means they have less access to mental health support, may in fact be victims of domestic violence of some sort, have low self-confidence or control over their own lives which leads them to project fantasies onto someone, such as David Letterman, whom she might see every night from the television in her home, while she is drifting off to sleep.
Stalkers tend to be crazy people
I think that’s unnecessarily dehumanizing and doesn’t cut at the joints of reality because ignores a huge body of research that does in fact tell us about the various different types of stalking profiles and what precipitates them. Most stalkers are motivated by personal connection, not fame—tiny or otherwise—at all. I elaborate on that in this comment. Those who are motivated by fame it is not “tiny fame” but repeat exposure, usually by the media, that amplifies relevance to the stalker. Not a “tiny bit of fame.”
79% of victims were acquainted with their pursuer (N = 62), and half of all stalking emerged specifically from romantic relationships (M = 49%, N = 53). (meta-analysis of 175 studies)
The state of the art of stalking: Taking stock of the emerging literature. Brian H. Spitzberg. William R. Cupach.
79% of stalkers are people the victim knows [1]- not parasocial famous relationships.
But that’s not relevant to what we’re discussing here, which is the scenario where someone acquires a stalker (or multiple stalkers) as a consequence of publicly revealing things about themselves (“coming out”).
Of parasocial stalkers, erotomanic is most common: men who have power and wealth and older than the stalker are the common victims. Erotomaniacs tend to be women from lower socio-economic classes, as I said in my other comment—
Seems plausible.
Stalkers tend to be crazy people
I think that’s unnecessarily dehumanizing and doesn’t cut at the joints of reality because ignores a huge body of research that does in fact tell us about the various different types of stalking profiles and what precipitates them.
The “huge body of research” tells us that stalkers tend to be crazy people.
There’s nothing “dehumanizing” about that. Crazy people are people, i.e., humans. They’re not aliens, robots, animals, inanimate objects, etc. But they’re still crazy. (And we’re not talking about, like, depression, anxiety disorders, autism, etc.; stalkers—particularly “parasocial stalkers”, as you aptly put it—are crazy in an absolutely central sense of the word.)
But that’s not relevant to what we’re discussing here, which is the scenario where someone acquires a stalker (or multiple stalkers) as a consequence of publicly revealing things about themselves (“coming out”).
A scenario which is statistically unlikely. Not all 21% of non-personal stalkers are triggered by a single internet post. For example, erotomaniacs, most of them fixate on people who are famous.
Can you point to even a single instance of a “confessional” “out of the closet blog post” causing someone to become a stalker with no prior personal contact, and the person who wrote the blog post not having a previous history of revealing things about their life.
There’s nothing “dehumanizing” about that
The dictionary definition of dehumanizing is “To deprive of human qualities such as individuality, [1]compassion, or civility.”—whenever you dismiss a large group of people as “crazy” you are depriving them of their individuality, therefore dehumanize them. I think my assessment was correct.
And the research shows that most people who seek out information on someone have a preexisting relationship with them, a smaller group become fixated on famous people—neither conform to a single “out of the closet” post.
Cambridge Dictionary: “to remove from a person the special human qualities of independent thought...” Merriam-Webster: “To address or portray (someone) in a way that obscures or demeans that person’s humanity or individuality”
Can you point to even a single instance of a “confessional” “out of the closet blog post” causing someone to become a stalker with no prior personal contact, and the person who wrote the blog post not having a previous history of revealing things about their life.
Of course not, but how likely is that? Take the post that we’re commenting under. Can John be described as someone who just wrote one blog post about himself, and has no prior history of revealing things about his life, and has no other claim to fame at all? No, none of those things are true.
And this is going to be the norm. Nobody’s just writing one blog post where they say “btw here is a fact about me” and otherwise it’s radio silence.
It’s very easy, these days, to gain enough internet fame to acquire stalkers. A bit of social media activity / blogging / other forms of poasting, a few of people talk about you a few times, and bam—you’re there.
The dictionary definition of dehumanizing is “To deprive of human qualities such as individuality, [1]compassion, or civility.”—whenever you dismiss a large group of people as “crazy” you are depriving them of their individuality, therefore dehumanize them. I think my assessment was correct.
Seems like a fully general argument against ever describing anyone as being crazy. I reject it.
Some people are crazy. “Parasocial stalkers” usually are. That’s facts.
It’s very easy, these days, to gain enough internet fame to acquire stalkers. A bit of social media activity / blogging / other forms of poasting, a few of people talk about you a few times, and bam—you’re there.
No it’s not easy to gain internet fame. I know. I’ve tried it.
Some people are crazy. “Parasocial stalkers” usually are. That’s facts.
What is a fact exactly, what specifically do you mean by they are “crazy”? Why is that the most unambiguous word you can think of?
No it’s not easy to gain internet fame. I know. I’ve tried it.
I don’t know what to tell you; I’ve tried it too, and it’s pretty easy.
What is a fact exactly, what specifically do you mean by they are “crazy”?
Regular, ordinary-person meaning of the word.
Why is that the most unambiguous word you can think of?
Well, now, this is a new complaint. Is it the most unambiguous word I can think of? Maybe, maybe not. I don’t make that claim.
But it is a perfectly ordinary, straightforward word, which conveys my meaning.
Anyhow, I’m done litigating my word choice here. I don’t believe that you don’t know what I mean, so this isn’t about ambiguity or a failure to communicate.
I googled “what fraction of famous stalkees are female”. After insisting I meant “stalkees” not “stalkers”, Google’s AI said:
Available statistics suggest that a significantly larger fraction of famous stalkees are female. Some studies indicate that women account for about 70% to 80% of all stalking victims, according to Oxford Academic.
However, some research focusing specifically on celebrity stalking, particularly involving television personalities, suggests a more balanced gender distribution among victims, where the percentages of male and female respondents who reported being stalked were similar.
Few people will see your post, but the ones who do see it might be exactly the people who can hurt you the most — those who specifically sought it out in order to gain information on you.
If few people see your post, then this almost by definition means it is unlikely anyone will seek to “gain information over you”. The kind of people who obsessively try to collect information about other people tend to fall into two broad groups: anti-fans—which are people who were stans and then were shut out, or people who had some kind of direct personal relationship or interaction with the person that went sour.
Anti-Fans may be in some cases be catalyzed by someone “coming out of the closet” if they have been misrepresenting themselves in a way which was intrinsic and important to the ongoing parasocial relationship they had with their stans (think of cruxy things, like Bob Dylan going electric, or more recently MAGA supporters enraged over the lack of disclosure about Epstein). More often than not, it is actually provoked by something very different: the sudden radio silence or “taking a step back for my privacy”—in a sense, going into a closet. This lack of closure causes resentment and fans begin trying to find out everything they can to reach the previous level of exposure. (Does this remind you of “ghosting”?)
This behavior is very similar to stalker behavior is interconnected to domestic violence. A romantic partner or potential suitor is rejected, but unable to accept why—as it is said “To stalk is to seek relevance.” (Not all stalking behaviour is caused by a sudden step back, but it is the most common[1]. Erotomanic delusions almost always involve repeated exposure to the victim, which is why they tend to be very famous and powerful people like Kings, Late Night TV show hosts, famous baseballers, or movie idols: people for whom media exposure is great- in a sense their obsession is a subset of the media’s obsession. Victims are tends to be males who are older and wealthier than the stalker, stalkers tend to be women with low socio-ecoonomic status (which I would guess means less mental health support, less self-confidence, more likely to be victims of abuse too—but that’s my speculation) dreaming of ‘escape’)
Not so fun fact: “approach behaviour” of stalkers is a counterintuitive indicator of likelihood of harm—threats are less likely to lead to acting on threats[2]. This again leads me to suspect that one single blog post isn’t going to trigger an obsessive information gatherer. They need to already have some kind of investment in the confessor.
Simply put—a post unlikely to be seen by anyone means that no one is sufficiently invested in their parasocial relationship with you to obsessively seek information over you. What does trigger that kind of behavior—is suddenly ghosting an audience.
So a couple of years ago I wanted to write about why people get obsessive and start collections—and part of that lead me to collect a lot of anecdotes and research on stalking behaviour, vexatious litigants, chronic complainers, OCD and Schizophrenia. I wrote a first draft of the book but never polished it since the topic is too vague to be cohesive. Might turn it into a Youtube series. It’s less about stalking—more about collecting—lot’s of stuff about Pinterest boards, wardrobes, sneakerheads and the bus-ticket theory of genius. Hopefully you’re not worried why I have all this info now.
79% of victims were acquainted with their pursuer (N = 62), and half of all stalking emerged specifically from romantic relationships (M = 49%, N = 53). (meta-analysis of 175 studies)
The state of the art of stalking: Taking stock of the emerging literature. Brian H. Spitzberg. William R. Cupach.
″...stalkers who communicate hateful, threatening, or obscene messages or content are the least likely to physically attack their target. This is especially true when the unwelcome communications are made anonymously. However, if such communications persist, the risk increases with each successive contact. Stalkers who express a desire to meet their target in person and to travel for that purpose are much more likely to be dangerous. But paradoxically, those who express a desire to have children with their target are typically less of a threat.” https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/machiavellians-gulling-the-rubes/201810/the-many-stalkers-taylor-swift
This was an interesting read. Thank you for sharing your information. I personally wouldn’t have been worried about why you have all this information, as it simply reads to me like an essay by somebody who’s done research on an important topic.
The way your comment is written, the underlying narrative is that the only risk to consider with coming out online is turning a reader into a stalker due to that post in isolation, and that this risk is insubstantial. I think your argument is plausible for that specific risk. However, I am considering a wider variety of risks, including:
A person with a larger body of online writings who comes out.
A person who publishes their post to an audience or on a platform that’s more likely to generate unwanted attention.
A person who is being investigated and/or stalked online as a result of real-world activities, such as applying for a job or pursuing political office.
A person for whom coming out will create friction in pursuing real-world activities in the future that oughtweighs the benefits they gain from coming out online.
A potential sense of paranoia about having disclosed potentially embarrassing information online.
The reputational and perceptions risk for a controversial community of its high-status members advocating that its low-status members post embarrassing information online.
LessWrong and the rationalist community already has a controversial reputation and is often accused of being a cult. It is an online platform, which is capable of spawning hate-readers like r/sneerclub. It is also a real-world community with a notorious history of deeply exploitative behavior and what seems to be a higher-than-average fraction of self-identified participants or ex-participants with deep mental health issues. It has a history of scandal and has generated a substantial amount of negative media coveage, considering its small size.
Considering all of this, I believe that the LessWrong and rationalist community is not well-positioned to reduce the risks of coming out beyond the normal level available in the wider culture. In other words, if there’s an X that you don’t feel safe to come out about, then I don’t think LessWrong/rationalism in its current form is capable of helping you feel more safe about coming out about X. This is a heuristic, not a general rule, and if other people do feel LessWrong/rationalism helps them come out about their personal characteristics in a way other communities don’t, I’m interested to hear it. But for this reason, I think that high-status LessWrong members should not be encouraging others to come out in public about more things with little regard for risks. That seems irresponsible and likely to result in damage both to members and to the community as a whole.
I do think that it would be beneficial if LessWrong/rationalism worked to think through this problem and become the sort of community that is capable of effectively supporting its members in “coming out” in a way that improved the community, its relations with the rest of the world, and the health and wellbeing of its members. Basically, I like the vision of “generalized coming out,” but I don’t like the strategy John proposes in his OP for getting there for LessWrong/rationalism.
Thank you for that reply specifying the controversy and history within the lesswrong community—and therefore that being the chosen platform for “coming out”, does seem to me to increase the risks.
I have to reflect more on this. But I think it’s important to acknowledge your reply in the meantime.
I think my current question or crux is sort of “okay, but if you don’t have a substantial posting history—why will you become stalked out of all the others?”. And that is probably case-by-case thing that depends, even within the localized environment of Lesswrong, important factors like: what actual topic or taboo they are coming out about, even how much it resonates with the community so how it gets displayed on the front-page and therefore how visible it might be to r/sneerclub-ers, other aspects of their identity could also make them more vulnerable—even gender.
I think I need to think more fine-grain about this.
Few people will see your post, but the ones who do see it might be exactly the people who can hurt you the most — those who specifically sought it out in order to gain information on you. This matters even more if you have ambition, because the incentive to dig up dirt in you increases the more of a public facing role you seek. Putting out this kind of stuff early in your career is a good way to limit what you can achieve, or at least create unnecessary friction, potentially without realizing the impact.
I’d also note that if few people see your post, then that makes it even easier to come out to just them. That more or less eliminates the downside risk while giving you the same benefits.
I really don’t see the benefit unless posting your secrets online happens to scratch a quirky psychological itch, or you’re aiming to use a big megaphone, get a large readership, and find opportunities you couldn’t get any other way. Overall, it seems to me like an area where you should be cautious, clear on your motives, and slow-moving, directly analogous to, say, posting a sex tape online.
Unless you are the sort of person who is likely to have a stalker at some point, that premise is low-grade paranoia, not a realistic concern. Most likely, nobody cares about hurting you enough to put in that kind of effort.
We could quantify some of these risks, such as the base rate of risks associated with stalking, the frequency with which hiring managers research potential hires on Google or social media, and so on. In fact, it would be trivial to pull together a preliminary report using one of the deep research AI products. What level of marginal risk do you think it’s worth taking to post your taboo personal details online, considering the range of risks this potentially exposes you to?
I’d also note that doings stuff like this, and encouraging others to do so, rhymes with cult behavior. Other cults collect dirty details and keep them secret as blackmail. If rationalism establishes a culture of high-status members encouraging others to post potentially embarrassing personal/sexual info online, that can easy be, and be seen as, a way to indoctrinate and trap people within the community.
Dude, that doesn’t make any sense. People making their secrets public is the opposite of what blackmailers want.
This logic is so bad that I think it should be a flag to you that you are clearly motivatedly reasoning real hard here.
Anyway, quantifying a little:
Lifetime incidence of stalking is about 12-16% for women and 4-7% for men. Most of it is from former romantic partners. And stalkers are not usually trying to just hurt the target as much as they can; something like sharing one’s home address would be relevant to stalkers, but sharing emotional secrets much less so.
Hiring managers blah blah blah: hard to get a base rate, but none of the people who hired other people at half a dozen different companies do that to my knowledge, and even if any of them did I can’t think of anything far short of literally being a KKK member that would make a difference to the hiring process.
You say “and so on” but, like, I don’t think there’s all that much so to on here?
I think the more important point here is not the base rates, but the fact that the kind of things I’m talking about sharing here usually just aren’t usually that relevant to most stalkers or hiring managers or whoever. If the things you’re scared of sharing are political in nature, then sure, some of those can come with some risk, though the risks will be more salient than the base rates merit. But other than that… we’re not talking about sharing things like your address.
I want to flag that you are unilaterally escalating this conversation rhetorically, and making accusations about my psychological state that I really do not appreciate. Let’s keep it civil and focused on the object-level topic.
Literally, on a surface level, you are correct that publicly posting dirty secrets online pre-empts some blackmail threats, although it still exposes the poster to the risk that those posts will be distorted or amplified in ways they didn’t intend.
Functionally, my argument is plausible and logically sound that the outcome of blackmail and publicly posting secrets can be very similar. Both practices can result in an individual being trapped in the group/cult by the perception that their action (handing over blackmail threats or posting embarrassing secrets online) has now cut off or created friction for pathways to careers and relationships outside the community.
Furthermore, if the group acquires an even stronger perception of being a cult than it has as a result of adopting the practice of encouraging members to post dirty secrets about themselves online, then that perception will further taint the reputation of and isolate its members. These sorts of ideas can be a way of gradually converting a formerly healthy community into a cult.
Do you have a particular example in mind which is generating this whole thread, which you’re willing to gesture at? I was escalating because it’s seemed-to-me from the beginning that this whole class of objection is very obviously statistically unrealistic (once one sets aside its emotional salience), and the arguments you’ve made seem to me not only wrong but obviously wrong (again, once one sets aside emotional salience). In my experience, just continuing at the object level usually doesn’t prove useful in such situations.
If I’m being epistemically generous, I would guess that you have some specific example in mind which is very different from the sort of thing I was imagining when writing the post, and as a result we’ve been talking past each other a lot. For instance, elsewhere in this thread, David Davidson brought up “Many people in countries with more authoritarian governments have to worry about going to prison over having the wrong opinion (like China or the UK).”. I thought the examples in the post made it pretty obvious that that was not the sort of thing I was talking about, but maybe that was not obvious?
My core belief on this topic is that coming out is, in fact, a risky practice in America and world wide. It’s risky to come out about your kinks, your sexual gender orientation, your political beliefs, and your historical affiliations with groups or types of groups that have controversial reputations.
Coming out can be net beneficial under controlled circumstances. Generally, it is better to have a world in which people have the ability to achieve those benefits. That starts by being aware of and working to mitigate those risks. The queer community is an excellent example of a group of people who’ve done that and reaped the rewards.
My central problem with your OP and responses here is that you seem to be rejecting the need for consideration or mitigation of those risks. This flies in the face of the historical experience of queers, apostates, atheists, political, radicals, and other groups who’ve come out in ways that failed to control those risks and suffered for it. By encouraging people to just come out without considering or taking steps to mitigate risks, you encourage them to make themselves vulnerable in ways that may make them more dependent on the rationalist community as the place where you’re seeking to enact this attitude toward coming out.
In my view, there is an enormous volume of historical experience of a wide variety of groups that backs up the profound risks of coming out. These risks include ostracism, exclusion from job opportunities, public humiliation, and physical violence. Again, those risks can be mitigated and the reward for doing so are great. But flat out denying those risks strikes me as foolish when it’s done by an individual, and cult-inducing when it becomes a community norm.
There are stories of people losing their jobs over social media posts—the stories I’ve heard have been about high school teachers getting fired over things like pictures of themselves on Facebook drinking at a party.
This does not cut reality at the joints at all. There is no such “type”; stalkers do not care about your “type”. Stalkers tend to be crazy people. And even the tiniest bit of fame is enough to spawn stalkers, no matter how you act.
79% of stalkers are people the victim knows [1]- not parasocial famous relationships. Of parasocial stalkers, erotomanic is most common: men who have power and wealth and older than the stalker are the common victims. Erotomaniacs tend to be women from lower socio-economic classes, as I said in my other comment—I would guess that this means they have less access to mental health support, may in fact be victims of domestic violence of some sort, have low self-confidence or control over their own lives which leads them to project fantasies onto someone, such as David Letterman, whom she might see every night from the television in her home, while she is drifting off to sleep.
I think that’s unnecessarily dehumanizing and doesn’t cut at the joints of reality because ignores a huge body of research that does in fact tell us about the various different types of stalking profiles and what precipitates them. Most stalkers are motivated by personal connection, not fame—tiny or otherwise—at all. I elaborate on that in this comment. Those who are motivated by fame it is not “tiny fame” but repeat exposure, usually by the media, that amplifies relevance to the stalker. Not a “tiny bit of fame.”
79% of victims were acquainted with their pursuer (N = 62), and half of all stalking emerged specifically from romantic relationships (M = 49%, N = 53). (meta-analysis of 175 studies)
The state of the art of stalking: Taking stock of the emerging literature. Brian H. Spitzberg. William R. Cupach.
But that’s not relevant to what we’re discussing here, which is the scenario where someone acquires a stalker (or multiple stalkers) as a consequence of publicly revealing things about themselves (“coming out”).
Seems plausible.
The “huge body of research” tells us that stalkers tend to be crazy people.
There’s nothing “dehumanizing” about that. Crazy people are people, i.e., humans. They’re not aliens, robots, animals, inanimate objects, etc. But they’re still crazy. (And we’re not talking about, like, depression, anxiety disorders, autism, etc.; stalkers—particularly “parasocial stalkers”, as you aptly put it—are crazy in an absolutely central sense of the word.)
A scenario which is statistically unlikely. Not all 21% of non-personal stalkers are triggered by a single internet post. For example, erotomaniacs, most of them fixate on people who are famous.
Can you point to even a single instance of a “confessional” “out of the closet blog post” causing someone to become a stalker with no prior personal contact, and the person who wrote the blog post not having a previous history of revealing things about their life.
The dictionary definition of dehumanizing is “To deprive of human qualities such as individuality, [1]compassion, or civility.”—whenever you dismiss a large group of people as “crazy” you are depriving them of their individuality, therefore dehumanize them. I think my assessment was correct.
And the research shows that most people who seek out information on someone have a preexisting relationship with them, a smaller group become fixated on famous people—neither conform to a single “out of the closet” post.
Cambridge Dictionary: “to remove from a person the special human qualities of independent thought...”
Merriam-Webster: “To address or portray (someone) in a way that obscures or demeans that person’s humanity or individuality”
Of course not, but how likely is that? Take the post that we’re commenting under. Can John be described as someone who just wrote one blog post about himself, and has no prior history of revealing things about his life, and has no other claim to fame at all? No, none of those things are true.
And this is going to be the norm. Nobody’s just writing one blog post where they say “btw here is a fact about me” and otherwise it’s radio silence.
It’s very easy, these days, to gain enough internet fame to acquire stalkers. A bit of social media activity / blogging / other forms of poasting, a few of people talk about you a few times, and bam—you’re there.
Seems like a fully general argument against ever describing anyone as being crazy. I reject it.
Some people are crazy. “Parasocial stalkers” usually are. That’s facts.
No it’s not easy to gain internet fame. I know. I’ve tried it.
What is a fact exactly, what specifically do you mean by they are “crazy”? Why is that the most unambiguous word you can think of?
I don’t know what to tell you; I’ve tried it too, and it’s pretty easy.
Regular, ordinary-person meaning of the word.
Well, now, this is a new complaint. Is it the most unambiguous word I can think of? Maybe, maybe not. I don’t make that claim.
But it is a perfectly ordinary, straightforward word, which conveys my meaning.
Anyhow, I’m done litigating my word choice here. I don’t believe that you don’t know what I mean, so this isn’t about ambiguity or a failure to communicate.
Of course stalkers, as a group, have a type. For starters, female.
If this is humor, I don’t get it.
This is false. Many men have stalkers. Basically any male celebrity, for instance… even minor, local or “internet” celebrities often have stalkers.
I didn’t say males don’t have stalkers. There is simply a large statistical disparity: the very large majority of stalkers stalk females.
I did say upthread “likely to have a stalker at some point”, not certain to have/not have one. That is what’s relevant to EV/risk.
The sort of person who is likely to have a stalker, if you know nothing about this person other than their sex, is very likely female.
The sort of person who is likely to have a stalker, conditional on being at all famous, cannot have their sex predicted so easily.
I googled “what fraction of famous stalkees are female”. After insisting I meant “stalkees” not “stalkers”, Google’s AI said:
It cited this for the first paragraph: https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2008-04841-009
Which, unfortunately, doesn’t give the answers in its abstract, and doesn’t appear on sci-hub.
Epistemic status: frustrated.
If few people see your post, then this almost by definition means it is unlikely anyone will seek to “gain information over you”. The kind of people who obsessively try to collect information about other people tend to fall into two broad groups: anti-fans—which are people who were stans and then were shut out, or people who had some kind of direct personal relationship or interaction with the person that went sour.
Anti-Fans may be in some cases be catalyzed by someone “coming out of the closet” if they have been misrepresenting themselves in a way which was intrinsic and important to the ongoing parasocial relationship they had with their stans (think of cruxy things, like Bob Dylan going electric, or more recently MAGA supporters enraged over the lack of disclosure about Epstein). More often than not, it is actually provoked by something very different: the sudden radio silence or “taking a step back for my privacy”—in a sense, going into a closet. This lack of closure causes resentment and fans begin trying to find out everything they can to reach the previous level of exposure. (Does this remind you of “ghosting”?)
This behavior is very similar to stalker behavior is interconnected to domestic violence. A romantic partner or potential suitor is rejected, but unable to accept why—as it is said “To stalk is to seek relevance.” (Not all stalking behaviour is caused by a sudden step back, but it is the most common[1]. Erotomanic delusions almost always involve repeated exposure to the victim, which is why they tend to be very famous and powerful people like Kings, Late Night TV show hosts, famous baseballers, or movie idols: people for whom media exposure is great- in a sense their obsession is a subset of the media’s obsession. Victims are tends to be males who are older and wealthier than the stalker, stalkers tend to be women with low socio-ecoonomic status (which I would guess means less mental health support, less self-confidence, more likely to be victims of abuse too—but that’s my speculation) dreaming of ‘escape’)
Not so fun fact: “approach behaviour” of stalkers is a counterintuitive indicator of likelihood of harm—threats are less likely to lead to acting on threats[2]. This again leads me to suspect that one single blog post isn’t going to trigger an obsessive information gatherer. They need to already have some kind of investment in the confessor.
Simply put—a post unlikely to be seen by anyone means that no one is sufficiently invested in their parasocial relationship with you to obsessively seek information over you. What does trigger that kind of behavior—is suddenly ghosting an audience.
So a couple of years ago I wanted to write about why people get obsessive and start collections—and part of that lead me to collect a lot of anecdotes and research on stalking behaviour, vexatious litigants, chronic complainers, OCD and Schizophrenia. I wrote a first draft of the book but never polished it since the topic is too vague to be cohesive. Might turn it into a Youtube series. It’s less about stalking—more about collecting—lot’s of stuff about Pinterest boards, wardrobes, sneakerheads and the bus-ticket theory of genius. Hopefully you’re not worried why I have all this info now.
79% of victims were acquainted with their pursuer (N = 62), and half of all stalking emerged specifically from romantic relationships (M = 49%, N = 53). (meta-analysis of 175 studies)
The state of the art of stalking: Taking stock of the emerging literature. Brian H. Spitzberg. William R. Cupach.
″...stalkers who communicate hateful, threatening, or obscene messages or content are the least likely to physically attack their target. This is especially true when the unwelcome communications are made anonymously. However, if such communications persist, the risk increases with each successive contact. Stalkers who express a desire to meet their target in person and to travel for that purpose are much more likely to be dangerous. But paradoxically, those who express a desire to have children with their target are typically less of a threat.”
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/machiavellians-gulling-the-rubes/201810/the-many-stalkers-taylor-swift
This was an interesting read. Thank you for sharing your information. I personally wouldn’t have been worried about why you have all this information, as it simply reads to me like an essay by somebody who’s done research on an important topic.
The way your comment is written, the underlying narrative is that the only risk to consider with coming out online is turning a reader into a stalker due to that post in isolation, and that this risk is insubstantial. I think your argument is plausible for that specific risk. However, I am considering a wider variety of risks, including:
A person with a larger body of online writings who comes out.
A person who publishes their post to an audience or on a platform that’s more likely to generate unwanted attention.
A person who is being investigated and/or stalked online as a result of real-world activities, such as applying for a job or pursuing political office.
A person for whom coming out will create friction in pursuing real-world activities in the future that oughtweighs the benefits they gain from coming out online.
A potential sense of paranoia about having disclosed potentially embarrassing information online.
The reputational and perceptions risk for a controversial community of its high-status members advocating that its low-status members post embarrassing information online.
LessWrong and the rationalist community already has a controversial reputation and is often accused of being a cult. It is an online platform, which is capable of spawning hate-readers like r/sneerclub. It is also a real-world community with a notorious history of deeply exploitative behavior and what seems to be a higher-than-average fraction of self-identified participants or ex-participants with deep mental health issues. It has a history of scandal and has generated a substantial amount of negative media coveage, considering its small size.
Considering all of this, I believe that the LessWrong and rationalist community is not well-positioned to reduce the risks of coming out beyond the normal level available in the wider culture. In other words, if there’s an X that you don’t feel safe to come out about, then I don’t think LessWrong/rationalism in its current form is capable of helping you feel more safe about coming out about X. This is a heuristic, not a general rule, and if other people do feel LessWrong/rationalism helps them come out about their personal characteristics in a way other communities don’t, I’m interested to hear it. But for this reason, I think that high-status LessWrong members should not be encouraging others to come out in public about more things with little regard for risks. That seems irresponsible and likely to result in damage both to members and to the community as a whole.
I do think that it would be beneficial if LessWrong/rationalism worked to think through this problem and become the sort of community that is capable of effectively supporting its members in “coming out” in a way that improved the community, its relations with the rest of the world, and the health and wellbeing of its members. Basically, I like the vision of “generalized coming out,” but I don’t like the strategy John proposes in his OP for getting there for LessWrong/rationalism.
Thank you for that reply specifying the controversy and history within the lesswrong community—and therefore that being the chosen platform for “coming out”, does seem to me to increase the risks.
I have to reflect more on this. But I think it’s important to acknowledge your reply in the meantime.
I think my current question or crux is sort of “okay, but if you don’t have a substantial posting history—why will you become stalked out of all the others?”. And that is probably case-by-case thing that depends, even within the localized environment of Lesswrong, important factors like: what actual topic or taboo they are coming out about, even how much it resonates with the community so how it gets displayed on the front-page and therefore how visible it might be to r/sneerclub-ers, other aspects of their identity could also make them more vulnerable—even gender.
I think I need to think more fine-grain about this.