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Comment by sulam | Hacker News Reader

You know what gives me the creeps? People who watch that video and read those facts and choose to focus on the tone of the closing tweet.

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Why? It's worth pointing out. Just because some topic is emotionally heavy, doesn't mean other aspects of it can't or shouldn't be pointed out. It bothers me when someone may make a noteworthy point, and then someone else tries to make some inference on how they feel in general by compliment of what they didn't reference.

It bothers me because of a widespread and damaging tendency to focus on second order ethical issues rather than the main point. Instead of talking about what actually happened, people talk about how what happened is presented or the precise words that are chosen, how the same thing happened elsewhere in a way that attempts to make the speaker appear a hypocrite, or the identity of the person who presented it.

This happens all the time in the media and politics, and often involves deliberately uncharitable interpretations of what was said.

https://unherd.com/2018/09/insincere-politicians-cheapening-...

It's a bit like "Responding to Tone":

http://www.paulgraham.com/disagree.html

Killing children is horrific. It doesn't need to be repeated.

Using hackneyed phrases cheapens the reaction.

Well-put. To state that our ethical standard must be vigilantly maintained goes without saying. To put the treatment of these cold-blooded killers first is unnerving at best.

I feel the story would have been stronger without the cheap emotional shot at the end.

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