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Comment by maguay | Hacker News Reader

"You today ... me tomorrow" is my new favorite "Golden Rule" translation :)

It's really more a translation of karma.

At any rate, I vastly prefer it to the "Golden Rule." Whenever anyone goes on about it, I always say, "what about masochists?" It may sound a trite response, but I think it's a really important aspect of a moral system that people are different, and you should think about what they want, not what you would want in that situation.

The golden rule is not about what you want, it is about something you could will as a universal maxim. So you must take the masochists etc into consideration when universalizing.

It's not really a translation of karma, nor is it a translation of the Golden Rule. It does mean "I do this in the hopes that you would do it for me if I were in your place", but not in a "$deity will reward you if you do this". Basically, it's the spirit, rather than the letter, of the Golden Rule.

Why would you need a translation?

Maybe I should have said rephrasing instead of translation...

Did you accomplish what you set out to do with your comment?

Seriously? What the fuck. His comment wasn't clear.

Was his comment to distance the Golden Rule from Christianity? I'm having a hard time interpreting it otherwise, but that's an ignorant effort, as the "do unto others" concept predates Jesus of Nazareth by 1,000+ years.

I'm still not clear on what the point of his comment was; all I did was ask for clarification, with NO commentary at all. Can you clarify his initial intent? If so, please do.

Also, I know you might not have been one of the folks to give me downvotes, so I'll address whoever that was separately: Don't just downvote a comment on HN without explaining your beef. This isn't Reddit.

Golden Rule from Christianity

The Golden Rule comes from Hillel who was a Rabbi.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hillel_the_Elder#The_Golden_Rul...

Sorry for all the confusion! I'm actually a Christian, and wasn't meaning it as something to distance the Golden Rule from Christianity. I was simply meaning that I think the phrase I mentioned, which the original article quoted, is a great way to rephrase the Golden Rule. Just like we now say "24/7" instead of "all the time" or other similar phrases, this phrase can be used to sum up the Golden Rule (or other similar ideas) in a memorable way.

Hope that clears things up! I definitely wasn't trying to start a controversy. Hope you have a Merry Christmas season :)

You are being downvoted because the parent comment expressed a personal belief -- that he enjoyed a particular way of expressing the concept of "Golden Rule" (from a Spanish saying) -- and you are apparently questioning his need or personal preference for any other way of expressing this fundamental human concept at all.

It really provided little to negative value to the conversation, and your profanity-laden response doesn't help your case.

> Don't just downvote a comment on HN without explaining your beef. This isn't Reddit.

We try not to do that on reddit either. We also try to refrain from "this isn't Digg".

I'm really not sure why charliepark got all those downvotes either; I don't see anything wrong with his comment -- as far as I can see he's pointing out that the traditional formulation of the "Golden Rule" is a pretty good one.

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