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Comment by harry8 | Hacker News Reader

Among his faults the man uses a lot of racist slurs. I won't and don't excuse that. I don't care how eccentric, imbalanced or in need of better psychiatric care and drugs he is. I wish to point out that his behavior is totally and utterly unacceptable.

There are people whom we should go out of our way to make feel welcome. Deliberately or not this man is working for the opposite cause.

Consider it a stone if you must, vote up or down according to your beliefs. Just let's not sweep it under the carpet, it is UGLY.

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Wow, really?

Of course, for lots of reasons. First, it's a flamewar topic that has been prosecuted ad nauseum on this site for many years, and the guidelines specifically ask you not to introduce those "unless you have something genuinely new to say about them" [1], which you didn't. Second, venting indignation is not what HN is for. That's noise, not signal, and the worst noise is noise that leads to more noise. Third, debating a human being's mental health in public, which some of you are all too eager to do, turns HN into a freak show that is a form of sickness in its own right. Let's call it social illness. Fourth, once you've seen all of this dozens of times it becomes bone-achingly tedious.

In short, nothing is less in the spirit of HN. I'm sure you didn't do any of the above intentionally, but the trouble with all such problems is that they're the sum of unintentional addends.

1. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Well ok. I really did my best. Maybe you can work out how you'd like to note that this story is a direct link to a video of a guy who continually uses wildly racist language and then make that note the way of your choosing on such direct links to videos of such individuals? Maybe you'll get a different result.

Personally I find comments like yours far uglier than most of what Terry posts, because his posts tends to be incoherent and obviously disturbed rants that few people are likely to take seriously, and so their ability to hurt is likely quite limited. Particularly, of course, since on here you need "showdead" on to even see them.

Yours on the other hand is condemning behaviour that you yourself appear to accept to be the effects of mental illness and may not be deliberate. And you're doing it to a much larger audience than Terry's banned comments gets.

To me, your comment is a bit like standing up in a crowd, pointing at a mentally ill person and telling us his behaviour is utterly unacceptable before said person has even uttered a word.

It is UGLY.

How about warning your friend that this guy has mental illness so frequently says some truly horrendous things so don't let it take you off guard?

The gentleman has uttered plenty of words. The first time you take an interest in the eccentric TempleOS it's very confronting and there's no escaping it.

For my part I tend to be much more offended by comments that are deliberate and still manage to be vicious than I am about someone making rants that are easy to realise are not made with sound mind.

If what you had written was a brief warning about his rants, then that would have been fair enough. But what you wrote was not a warning.

That's a reasonable and nuanced criticism not of what I did but the subtleties of how I did it. You are entitled to it. Other than to suggest someone reading what I wrote would not be warned, I think that over reaches your point by a margin.

I am similarly entitled to note that you did not write such a warning in whatever style you advocate and neither did anyone else. I'm comfortable standing by my noting his behaviour is unacceptable, because it is.

Terry’s entire life and sense of reality are twisted in ways you probably can’t even imagine unless you’ve tripped before. You seem to lack the empathy to imagine what it’s like to live as a Schizophrenic. I just ignore the racist bullshit along with the religious nonsense just like I would from someone with turrets syndrome or dementia. By doing so, it frees me to admire the beauty of his mind and work. I’m sorry you can’t.

Why would you say I can't?

I have empathy for violent criminals with frontal cortex damage resulting in poor impulse control too, but I don't excuse the violence or say it's ok or pretend it didn't happen and doesn't exist. Do you see the distinction?

While I share your loathing of racial slurs in general, what do you think of someone with Tourette's Syndrome? They also are unable to control their ticks and outbursts, should they also be condemned for it? Because either way it's out of their control, and condemning them for it (especially publicly like you just did) only exacerbates the situation for them.

Here you promote the myth that people with a severe mental illness are hopeless and powerless to control what they do.

For the vast majority of people with severe mental illness that's not true. You don't get to do what you like then claim "lol mental illness".

Tourette's isn't the same as coprolalia.

I never claimed it was.

If someone were going to be hurt by the language, I would warn them before making introductions. I wouldn't want someone thinking I actually wanted them hurt for no good reason and agreed that they deserved to be hurt. At least I guess...

I probably wouldn't have someone with tourettes making welcoming speech to a group of people who were not aware and whom I really didn't know much about. It's all a bit hypothetical though.

Let's look at what you said again:

"Among his faults the man uses a lot of racist slurs. I won't and don't excuse that. I don't care how eccentric, imbalanced or in need of better psychiatric care and drugs he is. I wish to point out that his behavior is totally and utterly unacceptable."

- "Among his faults..."

His "fault" is a mental disorder. You have a very 17th century approach to that.

- "I won't and don't excuse that."

Fine, that's your choice. But when you choose to attack someone over their mental state, you become the insensitive, intolerant jerk in the room. Again, you have a choice whether to attack someone over their mental state; your victim didn't choose to be disabled.

- "I don't care how eccentric, imbalanced or in need of better psychiatric care and drugs he is."

I think you make it abundantly clear that you don't care. Again, that's your choice, but it shows exactly what kind of person you are. Would you also not care if it's a loved one who is afflicted with a disorder? Based on what you've said so far, I have to wonder.

- "I wish to point out that his behavior is totally and utterly unacceptable."

Behavior that, again, is out of his control. You are blaming a patient for being sick. That is reprehensible. Yes, he needs help, but what you are doing is the opposite of help, especially since you know for a fact he reads this forum (and in fact I think that is your true motivation for attacking him here).

I don't accept your interpretation of my words. I acknowledged the possibility of mental illness being a reason for his racism. I don't know it as a definite fact, I doubt psychology is at the state where anyone could.

I've said elsewhere in this thread that (as Robert Sapolsky notes) those with frontal cortex damage to their brains sometimes commit heinous violent crime. That brain damage might be a reason, but doesn't make it ok for them to commit violent crime. It may be completely beyond their control.

His behaviour is unacceptable. I do not accept racist abuse as being acceptable behaviour. Do you?

What the hell, man? "His fault is a mental disorder". "Behavior that ... is out of his control." "..blaming the patient for being sick."

So you're already calling the guy a sick, mentally disabled, out of control victim? That's all your words -- that's what you think of him.

Why can't he be an asshole, too?

Get over yourself, man. srsly

Why is political correctness so important to you?

Why is accurately representing Terry so offensive to you?

    Why is political correctness so important to you?

1. Because hating entire races of people is a bad thing and it's something we ought to consider along with his achievements.

2. Some people would rather not hear/read a bunch of racial slurs so it can be helpful to give others a heads-up if they're thinking about checking out this guy's videos, so they can make their own call.

3. In some ways his unique mindstate is relevant to his work; TempleOS is a monolithic work, created in isolation. His mental illness renders him unwilling/unable to work with others, perhaps contributes to his bizarre racial outbursts, and yet also in many ways makes him able to create TempleOS - something many of us find fascinating.

Please note that nobody here is advocating that Terry shouldn't be allowed to have his say or that threads about TempleOS don't belong on HN.

Personally I really enjoy them and I find TempleOS fascinating.

But do you find racial slurs acceptable when rappers use them, or when they're used in Hollywood movies, or books like The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn? I guess I don't understand why people selectively find it so offensive.

Unacceptable? Offensive?

I'm not sure how I could have been any more explicit there. I explicitly said I enjoy reading news about TempleOS.

So clearly I accept them even though I don't like his racial epithets one bit. They're just one (somewhat unavoidable) facet of the whole TempleOS phenomenon.

    I guess I don't understand why people selectively find it so offensive.

There's a big difference between fictional characters in movies and Huckleberry Finn (a book I love!) using slurs and a guy like Terry using slurs in earnest in a non-fiction setting.

Huckleberry Finn is a create example, actually. Huck uses the n-word freely, but he is an unreliable narrator, and Mark Twain's stories about Huck often parody the shitty racial attitudes of many white Americans at that time.

You did not address the question as it pertains to hip-hop. I'll make it even larger: are you ok with members of the black community (around your area, i know it is not some monolithic club) using the terms, "nigger" and "bitch" constantly? I just moved to North NJ and i must say i am not OK with it. But if i bring it up i am some kind of 'bigot' that just doesn't understand 'culture'.

To reiterate: do you only decry white racism?

How does this pertain to TempleOS?

I mean, I totally understand where you're going with this: The world is so unfair to white people. "Straight Outta Compton" is a big box office hit, but Terry's not allowed to have racist diatribes whenever he feels like it, and it's a double standard because they're both using the n-word. Why can black people call each other that as a term of affection, but it's not okay for white people to use the same word as a slur?

Don't worry, you're like the 10 millionth person to go down that line of reasoning and I don't agree with it (bonus points for being even more confusing by throwing sexism into the mix) but I'm also not going to change your mind so it's cool, whatever.

wow. at no point was i advocating its use as a pejorative or a term of endearment. you may not be aware, but black folks use both as both. addressing the term 'bitch' should not be that confusing, unless of course you espouse the ultra progressive ideology of always being cognizant of differences (so maximum sensitivity is attained) whilst always being completely blind to difference (so maximum non bias is attained) Then i could so how having to think about use case could get tricky.

As much as it might please you to be otherwise, that was not my line of reasoning. i asked if you decry racism against whites (or asians, or latinos, or any subgroup) the same, or to the same level that you decry racism against blacks. Your tirade is answer enough.

Don't confuse a tirade with an effective, accurate parody of your views.

Satire does not typically switch between parody and self righteous condemnation, but maybe your just breaking new ground in the virgin fields of online humor.

Still no answer to my question either.

I don't think you've seen Terry's comments. They are magnitudes worse than rap lyrics.

Why do you assume it's selective?

"Political correctness" isn't important to me at all. I've said what is important and why.

Finding racial slurs unacceptable, when he isn't attacking a specific person on HN, is political correctness.

No it is not. My taking exception to constant use of the word "nigger" as a deliberate form of abuse and noting it is what it is. There will be some who won't know it and will dig into it and wonder why it escaped without so much as a mention. They might actually be hurt by it. I've said why I take exception, making people feel unwelcome who I think should be made to feel welcome.

I've said maybe he doesn't mean it because he's in need of psychological help, perhaps help of a kind that it wholly unavailable at this point in history. This is a tragedy but it doesn't make it acceptable.

Political correctness is something else entirely. Political correctness is it being unacceptable to have dissenting views from the powerful. The phrase comes from, I believe, the China of the 1970s. People who were deemed politically incorrect were treated very badly indeed by a pretty hideous and oppressive regime. It's something quite different from the right to claim my kind are superior to yours while being free of criticism for saying so. It's something different to saying the phrase 'political correctness' as an excuse to be abusive.

I do not object to this man's dissenting political views. He is unwell. He is abusive of people I would wish to make welcome. Look around at the demographic again at any conference, any place of work in this industry. I don't buy arguments that skin melanin or estrogen make for poor engineers, I know some do.

Given I'm not buying that, pointing out abusive behaviour and noting that is pretty awful doesn't seem unreasonable or oppressive of legitimate alternate points of view to me. Does it really to you? I doubt strongly there is any abuse I could direct at you that would make you doubt yourself. Would it were so for those smarter but less confident that you or me.

I am not saying suppress the story, that this story should not be here, just that we shouldn't pretend that awfulness isn't there.

If on the other hand you find racism, of the most gross kind, acceptable as long as it's not directed at a specific person on HN you and I diverge views quite strongly at that point.

I don't recall Terry ever being racist. He uses nigger a lot, but it doesn't seem directed at black people. It's used as a generalized insult. Just as someone describing poor tech as "lame" isn't against cripples. So while I hear that people find the very syllables upsetting, there seems to be no racism actually here. I'd hope people on HN (and people we want on HN) would be capable of understanding this.

(And anyways, Terry's accounts all get hellbanned here, so it's just links and discussion of his cool work. Except for these low-signal threads that will hopefully be detached as off topic.)

>might actually be hurt >I think should be made to feel welcome >He is unwell >he is abusive >look at the demographics [presumably of the tech industry] >abusive behavior >doesn't seem unreasonable or oppressive to me

>I am not saying suppress the story, that this story should not be here, just that we shouldn't pretend that awfulness isn't there.

How i wish the immediately above statement were applied liberally to the US culture, as opposed to just EuroAmericans and just Males.

All the other quotes are the big markers of a highly subjective point of view being flogged as the only objective point of view. But that's just, like, my opinion man.

The insane need a bit more leeway. Ignoring him would be sweeping it under the carpet.

I didn't suggest he should be ignored, I didn't notice anyone who did either.

Fair, I may have got the wrong end of the stick. I often do.

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