Hacker News Reader

Comment by SCdF | Hacker News Reader

This is one of the most "HN" things I've read in awhile.

Their first bullet point asks their audience to define a term they just made up, and implies that grouping people via this term is important to social justice, said as someone who has trouble making sense of social justice.

This list feels like they're trying to disprove a math proof or something. As if, if you can "catch them out" with some edge case you can blow this thing wide open. This kind of approach doesn't work outside of maths, physics and CS. It barely works there.

My advice: step back from your 12 highly specific "smoking gun" bullet points and start asking some more general questions. Or, even better than asking, doing some of your own reading.

View on HN

I think the list pretty skewers many of the contradictions in the SJW perspective. You have refused to answer them - are you scared of doing so?

I was subjected to this indoctrination during my undergraduate degree. It can take some time to step back and properly question rather than just accepting the spoon-feeding. There was a very definite message sent that as a white man (of 18 years old!) I bore responsibility, in some way, for the oppression of women over millennia, for the horrors of colonialism, for racism, for homophobia, for God knows whatever else. I believe that everyone should have the right to pursue their ambitions without hindrance, and I treat people with respect based on their actions, not what boxes they tick. Why am I apparently the enemy in this current culture war? Why is the supposedly tolerant left so utterly intolerant of dissenting voices?

> are you scared of doing so?

Are you? Where are your answers to the same - or other equally important - questions? Awfully convenient to have others go first and commit themselves, isn't it?

If your quibble is with the idea of a "protected group", his language is very close to that of a well-established term, "protected class" that's familiar to anyone working on the legal side of anti-discrimination.

The idea itself certainly isn't one he made up - the idea that it's possible to sort people into different groups based on physical or conceptual criteria is probably older than language. It's also one that "marginalized people" or "historically oppressed groups" (or whatever label you prefer) also struggle with.

I don't know if there's a generally accepted definition of "social justice", but one of the core concepts seems to be concerned with identifying and correcting privileges and oppressions (e.g., injustices) which are enjoyed or visited upon people based on their (perceived) membership in social groups.

There's nothing unreasonable about asking for clarity about which groups fall into the "oppressor" and "oppressed" categories; and about how group membership is determined. Even within "social justice" movements, there are complicated questions about that - e.g., trans people, Rachel Dolezal, etc.

It feels to me that you're treating this as more of a power game than a mutual pursuit of truth.

What evidence is there that it's a search for truth? What have you done to show good faith? What sources have you already consulted? What answers have you already considered? And a hundred other questions that you MUST ANSWER before we can move on. Why not? By what right do you do all the grilling, and suffer none yourself?

What does that even mean? What possible power could I (?) have over you (?).

Again: your list is a large barrage of insistent questions that require your readers to contort to a set of terms you've made up. It is not open minded, it is treating the subject as already wrong and here's why.

It reminds me of when you have a "discussion" with someone and they aren't actually interested in listening, they're just waiting until you say something they can "ah ha!" you with.

Man I'm so confused here. Questions are good! Even if alexrohde is trying to bait you, you have an opportunity to lay out arguments.

I'm a libertarian and I love it when people ask me questions, even if they're trying to bait me. I've got a consistent ideology and someone asking me questions doesn't threaten it.

I think alexrohde is a systems kind of thinker, and he's trying to understand the values and ideology that social justice lives by, because it feels inconsistent to him. But again, maybe I'm being too generous.

The post also reminds me Double-Cruxing: http://lesswrong.com/lw/o6p/double_crux_a_strategy_for_resol... but.. granted, it's one sided.

Your post is Poe's Law for sea lioning. I can no longer differentiate satire in this space.

http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/sea-lioning

I'm serious, I wasn't trying to be satirical. I also wasn't asking any questions? I was just doing my best to... idk, lay out my own thoughts.

I know that Poe's Law applies to a lot of the internet, but I feel like HN is one place where people are more likely to honestly engage.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com