Hacker News Reader

Comment by pvg | Hacker News Reader

Author's name is "Hitchens". The original title refers to the North Korean regime. Among the 382096 reasons not to make up your own titles.

View on HN

I don't think a reasonable person who knows anything about NK and its regime would take away from the title that Hitchens is calling the North Korean people crazy and despicable.

The point is, there's no good reason, most of the time, to leave it to the interpretations of a 'reasonable person'. An equally reasonable person can just leave the original title alone - problem solved. Oh and spell the author's name correctly.

I think it's pretty fair to write using some assumptions about the audience (ie that they are 'reasonable').

I think it's pretty fair (and easy) to write accurate, correct titles. We can dance all night about what's 'reasonable' and what assumptions and on and on. The article was poorly retitled. No getting around that.

Did you read the article? That's pretty much what he's saying. He also insinuates that deep down South Koreans may share some of these properties.

I find this kind of comments dangerous. Yes, technically he is calling North Koreans and some South Koreans insane. But taking this from the article can be done only by ripping it out of context. It's not the people who are evil, but the regime, the ideology. The meme complex, if you will. The distinction may be small, but missing it implies the author is himself crazy.

"It's not the people who are evil, but the regime ..."

I'm not sure about the North Korean case, but an author argued a few years back in the book "Hitler's Willing Executioners" that most WWII-era Germans were happy and willing to go along with the despot's genocide and total war.

"1984" ends with Smith Winston seemingly coerced into the attitude "[I] loved Big Brother". I'm not so sure he had no choice ... I think people usually are complicit in that which they tolerate and support.

People can be evil. In the U.S. we are too, in ways we usually don't acknowledge.

And sure, I broke the rule "if you have to bring up Hitler in an argument, you've already lost". So be it.

I thought it was common knowledge that WWII era Germans supported Hitler. I doubt they also supported the genocide, or at least the harsh reality of it - I remember reading that even Hitler avoided giving direct orders about it.

If you want to call that evil... I guess you may. But I'd say all it shows is that in certain contexts we can all support evil things.

At first I read it as: "Hitchens is even weirder and more despicable than you thought".

That's not possible.

I am the one who posted this: I wanted to refer to the regime, but there is an 80 character limit for titles here.

"Hitchens: Kim Jong-il's regime even weirder, more despicable than you thought"

And 3 characters to spare!

Reply on news.ycombinator.com