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Comment by manofstick | Hacker News Reader

> Simply put, those who are attacked will fight back.

Well not that I'm Christian, but Christian teaching is basically the opposite of this (Matthew 5:39 - i.e. turn the other cheek). And Gandhi's resistance was also an example of the opposite. In fact the opposite is the only way to deescalate a fight (or, as the US chooses to do, create the biggest weapons, but isn't that then affecting the rights of the people on the other side of the argument?)

> Those who are forced to say or believe something will instead resist the idea.

Really? Advertising, religion, nation states, even your belief that these are "natural" laws are examples of your inherent bias. As a smaller example, even politeness - civility - is a counter example.

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The fact that people have to be taught other ways goes against saying it's human nature, doesn't it? Why would you teach someone to do things they already do?

And then you bring up every method of manipulation as if people don't hate all of those things. Why would we need to invent clever tricks to manipulate people if it was human nature to like it?

Sure, we're plenty effective both at hurting others and manipulating people, but it seems odd to express examples of our capability at doing that to unwilling people as evidence that we like those things being done to us...

Why would we have to go to such lengths to develop these capabilities if it was something we naturally liked? You're kind of proving the opposite of the point you think you are here....

Sigh.

If you want to be closed minded, and not accept that you are choosing your axioms in the same way as someone else exposed to different upbringings is - as per my examples, then I guess I have no chance of convincing you otherwise.

Well, you seem to be under the misconception that I think these are some kind of platonic ideals or whatnot. There was a time when the law tried to describe the values of the people rather than to dictate it and they came up with common law and some ideas about human rights after considering human nature and what did and did not work.

You can say there's construction there, but there's a limit to it. I mean, just as you can't simply construct a functional bridge out of anything you want, neither can you reasonably construct any sort of right and have a functioning society. There are both positive and negative rights, tensions among the rights of different people, and responsibilities imposed on individuals and society by any particular conception of rights.

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