Hacker News Reader

Comment by HugoDaniel | Hacker News Reader

The ideology in their logic: "Mecca" is bad because muslims are bad. Hackers are bad because they "think different" about your intended use for the technology.

"Apple said we would be the only state that would pass this, and that we would become the mecca for bad actors," (implying that hackers are bad actors)

"They said that doing this would make it very easy for hackers to relocate to Nebraska." (implying that Mecca is where bad people go)

Its good to know some things never change[0]

[0] http://cdn.cultofmac.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/a2origin...

View on HN

You're projecting this ideology onto Apple.

Out of all of the places that people make pilgrimages to, Mecca is the most well known, and therefore commonly used to refer to a place that's popular for likeminded followers to visit. E.g:It's very common in Canada for marijuana enthusiasts to refer to Vancouver as the Mecca of pot in Canada. There's no negativity in that phrase at all.

I think you're underestimating how carefully Apple chooses it's words when it's crafting these one-line public statements. When they use an ambiguously charged word like 'Mecca', they have carefully worked through every possible sub-text that might be associated with it, and if they use the word, then they are intentional about having those subtexts be associated with their statements.

They could have said that 'right to repair legislation will turn Nebraska into a hub for Hackers', but that's not what they said.

>When they use an ambiguously charged word like 'Mecca'

I don't believe mecca is an ambiguously charged word, nor do I see any evidence to support this claim. It's probably the most commonly used metaphor for a gathering place of like-minded individuals, and was the perfect choice in this context.

Circular reasoning.

> "we would become the mecca for bad actors," Brasch, who is sponsoring the bill, told me in a phone call."

We're in trouble when carefully manufactured 'one-line public statements' come from a philosophical opponent via a phone call to a journalist.

Where is Apple itself publicly making this statement? All references in the article are second-hand.

"A Mecca for X" is a very common expression in several languages and AFAIK it never had a bad connotation.

https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=a+mecca+for&ye...

Using Mecca in the context of 'central gathering point' is very common in the English langusnge and it's use here or otherwise carries no conotation that muslims are bad. If you want to see hate your going to find it everywhere you look.

> because they "think different"

One of Apple's whole marketing campaigns was about thinking different.

You're talking out of both sides of your mouth here.

I think the point has eluded you. Apple used the slogan "think different" but are opposed to people actually thinking differently in this case.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com