Comment by mjolk | Hacker News Reader

Comment by mjolk | Hacker News Reader

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> On what grounds do you reject that? Do you have evidence that women and ethnic and sexual minorities are not at increased risk of violence and mistreatment?

The FBI gathers data on bias in crimes[0]; I reject that the issues are specifically "common" in the US because they constitute a small number of the total crimes committed[1] and are taken very seriously (harsher sentences and being racist/sexist has severe social stigma). The article's use of "common" is an attempt at alleged certainty, much like saying "we all know that developers.." to avoid having to actually back the claim.

> The "I can't be bad as long as someone, somewhere, is worse" argument is a classic excuse to get out of ever having to improve anything.

That's not the argument here. It's stating that it's tiring that the US is always singled out as if it's somehow _specifically_ bad. Strong people fought for equal protection of people under the law in the US, so why is it consistently picked as an example over, say, Pakistan or Mauritania? Even if I was to concede that calling someone a "bitch" on Twitter falls under "violence and mistreatment" (as is suggested by the Coral Project's cited source), why should US shoulder all of the blame for the global site?

[0] https://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/2015-hate-crime-statistics-... [1] https://www.fbi.gov/news/pressrel/press-releases/fbi-release...

>That's not the argument here. It's stating that it's tiring that the US is always singled out as if it's somehow _specifically_ bad.

And that isn't the case in the original quote. The US isn't listed as specifically bad, it is included as a member of a list where the author contends mistreatment of some groups is common:

"In societies including the US where violence.."

Nothing special or notably different there. Additionally, usually the kind of articles you are alluding to are addressing a US, or at the very least a Western/Anglophone audience, so if the US or UK are pointedly included, the intent may be read as "'we' are not any better at this thing than we imagine 'other' countries are".

> And that isn't the case in the original quote. The US isn't listed as specifically bad, it is included as a member of a list where the author contends mistreatment of some groups is common:

I contend that the US doesn't belong in that list, and also that a generalization with a single enumeration is almost comical to defend as not attempting to identify as a specific case.

e.g. "Software pirates, including 7Z7, often..."

> the intent may be read as "'we' are not any better at this thing than we imagine 'other' countries are".

Except that the UK and the US is quite good about these things to the extent that the author had to cite something written about _Twitter_ (with a title mocking a perception of men, no less) to make a point about violence.

>I contend that the US doesn't belong in that list..

I'm not engaging with that, as I said "the author contends".

However, the single enumeration stands as it is addressing a US audience. It isn't a special case on the list, it is a special case to that audience.

>"Software pirates, including 7Z7, often..."

If the article that included the above sentence was addressing an audience of people to whom I was particularly special (ie. the 7Z7 Fan Club), then this is completely appropriate, even if I am not a particularly rabid example amongst other software pirates.

>Except that the UK and the US is quite good about these things..

The point then, is that despite patting ourselves on the back, we are not yet as good as we could be, nor as good as we apparently think we are - despite there being worse examples in the world.

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