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Comment by dragontamer | Hacker News Reader

Caustic indifference to newsworthy events on the national scale is not something people should be bragging about IMO.

Trump is Trump. He's the President of the USA now. We should give him the proper respect that his office demands. In his hands lie the future of the North Korean / USA relations, US / China relations, the Supreme Court (which lies the future of Roe vs Wade, Citizens United, and other such cases decided by the court). US Border policy (at least for the next few years), etc. etc. A wide variety of issues that determine the future of this country.

Its one thing to deeply care about the future of the country, be it on the left or right side. But its another thing to simply not care about it and laugh it off.

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You can deeply care about the country and where things are headed and still find humor in the absurdity of a lot of his actions. This is quite literally what every late night talk show host does every single day - Trevor Noah, Colbert, Kimmel, etc.

If we are on the express to hell, I am at the very least going to enjoy the ride. Just as I will make sure I vote.

And I'm beginning to have doubts that laughing at other people and making fun of them has any useful purpose in the greater political discourse.

Colbert in particular is incredibly caustic, and almost exclusively caters towards making fun of the other side and "how stupid / hypocritical they are". As far as I'm concerned, this kind of trolling and sarcasm is part of the problem. And while Colbert himself is relatively tame, the twitter / internet goons who worship him are just as bad as Musk's online Twitter goons and trolls.

But this is getting quite far away from Mr. Musk and the point of the article. Bringing it all together: the general problem in today's discourse are the hero-worshiping trolls who take a personality (be it Trump, Colbert, or Musk), and take their fight to the internet to harass others.

And btw, Mr. Colbert was one of the first users of this methodology.

http://www.cc.com/video-clips/z1aahs/the-colbert-report-the-...

This was Colbert in 2006, so 12-years can change a person. I don't see Colbert really unleashing the troll armies upon anyone else anymore. But it is good to remember that Colbert was one of the first to launch a "media invasion" on the online space.

In a very similar manner to what Mr. Musk is doing in the article.

Oh, I agree that it's contributing to the problem. Or at the absolute minimum, it's not helping. But it's funny. And that was all I was saying, really.

As for your larger point - yes, the online trolling is bad. People unleashing their dogs, so to speak, is also very bad. But the real problem is social media itself. I'm sure you've seen over the past year all the Silicon Valley insiders coming out saying they knew what they were doing when creating Facebook and things like that. This funnels into the whole "echo chamber" concept. The real issue sitting on top of all of this is that social media isn't designed at all, whatsoever, to increase communication, connectivity, or "togetherness". It is designed entirely to engage and retain eyeballs on screens, sucking up ad-revenue. Exposing oneself to opposing viewpoints is rarely something people find entertaining enough to keep them clicking for more. Just as the things that go viral are virtually never well-reasoned debate - they are insult wars and snark for snark retorts that must be contained within the 280 character limit.

> We should give him the proper respect that his office demands.

Disagree 100%.

Blind respect for your country's leaders leads to dark paths.

"Respect" doesn't mean "agree with". If you disagree with Trump, then you should vote on 2018 for people who will oppose Trump, and then vote in 2020 for the most reasonable alternative to Trump.

That includes the primary vote (if Trump is defeated in the Republican Primary, the game is effectively over), in both the Republican and Democrat races. The general election vote, and so forth.

Finally, if you disagree with Trump's Executive Orders, or the laws that come about through his administration, then I guess a bit of civil disobedience can be fine. But you need to ensure that whatever civil disobedience you do actually furthers your point and improves your political sphere. Any 2014-like "Occupy" situations is a waste of effort. "Occupy" without a plan to vote or otherwise obtain power in the future elections is a futile waste of time and effort.

I don't merely disagree with Trump. I think he's a xenophobic, homophobic, misogynistic demagogue. He's a terrible human being that isn't worthy of respect. He wants power for the sake of power but is utterly incompetent at wielding it.

(On a completely unrelated note, are you a PDXLAN attendee? If you are, I've met you and we were on the same Overwatch team a year ago, I think. If not, nevermind, just someone else that uses a "dragontamer" alias)

No, sorry. I never played Overwatch before.

> I don't merely disagree with Trump. I think he's a xenophobic, homophobic, misogynistic demagogue. He's a terrible human being that isn't worthy of respect.

A wild animal, like a shark, bear, or lion, needs to be treated with respect. They're apex predators who are mostly selfish. They don't give a care about you and are prone to aggression, downright killing people who get in their way.

And yet, if you see a wild bear, you better give it the respect it deserves.

You can completely disagree with a man while being forced to give respect to their position of power.

> And yet, if you see a wild bear, you better give it the respect it deserves.

> You can completely disagree with a man while being forced to give respect to their position of power.

But neither of these is your original statement (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17492143), which is that Trump should be given the respect due the presidency.

The first statement, that someone (or something) should be given the respect it deserves, is a tautology; I think most people would agree that Trump should be given the respect he deserves, with only the question of how much respect that is.

The second statement says that respect is given to the position of power, which is different from giving it to the man. Respecting the presidency as an office is different from respecting the president who is its current office-holder.

> We should give him the proper respect that his office demands.

Respect, as you rightly say, is due to the office, but not necessarily to the person occupying it.

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