And, no one should have any issue reporting those people to their employers. If you act like scum, particularly with your employer in your profile, society should punish you.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16392728 and marked it off-topic.
Would you be fine with losing your job for wrongthink if - or rather, when - social opinion swings the other way? It doesn't matter if you're right or wrong - you should be punished for disagreeing with society!
Societal retribution for "wrongthink" is not the right answer. It's how you end up with LGBT losing their jobs where it's "wrong" to be LGBT - because the actual wrongness/rightness doesn't matter, just that society doesn't agree with them and that it's okay for society to punish them for being "wrong".
I could phrase a hypothetical opinion two ways:
1) "I think abortion is wrong because I believe in the sanctity of life and that life begins at conception."
2) "Anyone who is pro-abortion is a baby murder."
In the first, a viewpoint is stated in a respectful manner. You may agree or disagree, but the speaker wasn't deliberately demeaning or hostile. In the second, the same opinion was expressed, but in an overtly hostile way.
If we'd like a plural society in which many viewpoints are exchanged, we have to continually challenge ourselves not to conflate the two when hearing or responding to someone else.
And I get it -- it's not easy when one is passionate about something, even when one is willfully trying not to knee-jerk.
But if I either speak disrespectfully, or assume that someone else is being disrespectful regardless of their actual phrasing, then we all end up in the gutter.
>Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith.
This breaks the HN guideline against calling names in arguments, as well as the one that asks you to read other comments charitably (i.e. strongest plausible interpretation).
To drop a term like that in a comment here is not really engaging with the other commenter, just trying to make them or their argument look bad. That leads to much lower-quality discussion, so please resist the temptation.
It isn't okay to punish someone on societies' whim for the same reason vigilante justice should be frowned upon and the same reason it isn't OK to punch a nazi in the face [0].
If we wake up tomorrow in a world where being racist is perfectly acceptable - should you be fired for not being racist? I'm not asking you to consider that a realistic possibility - I'm asking you to consider if it is okay.
There are better ways of tackling racism/sexism than taking away peoples' livelihoods (which is likely going to have an effect on making them hold their positions more extremely than it is to have them change their opinions).
[0] https://www.vice.com/en_ca/article/jppmn4/we-asked-an-ethici...
Don't worry about such people. They will reap what they sow in time.
They'll likely never even know, and won't ever see it, but I do wonder if these folks ask themselves that question.
If you think that's all it takes, seek help.
I don't think that is "fascism".
Ironically that is technically a bigoted view.
Is drawing a cartoon of Muhommad deserving of being fired on the spot?
The nature of the paradox is that tolerance must be limited in some way, which implies judgment calls.
Freedom of speech prevents the force of government from falling on those who advocate unpopular opinions. It doesn't extend to commerce.
This breaks the site guidelines badly. Please (re-)read https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and don't do this again, regardless of how wrong you feel someone else is.