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Comment by electriclove | Hacker News Reader

People making a business selling on Amazon.. If you left out the religion, would this be a story?

Is the point to get NYT and BuzzFeed clicks? Is it to get more attendance at the 'how you can get rich selling on Amazon' conferences? For better or worse, is it to show how a certain demographic is making a lot of money?

I'm not a fan of these articles..

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> If you left out the religion

Are you saying that if they left out the interesting part it wouldn't be interesting?

It’s interesting that a extremely disproportionate number of Orthodox Jews sell on Amazon. The mesh (as opposed to clash) of religion and modern technology and culture makes the article meaningful.

This type of article panders to a couple audiences:

- 'Gee, those super religious Jews who I though are technologically deficient.. well they are really quite capable and successful selling on Amazon'

- 'Those Jews are making a lot of money selling on Amazon'

I have issues with both of those responses

So you assume only bigoted responses to anything that mentions religion, meaning you have issues with any mention of religion at all. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

There seem to be quite a few people on this forum that both find this article interesting, and don't fall into the enumerated thought buckets.

I, a Jew, don't think either of those things and do think this article is interesting and has merit.

Sometimes it's just cool to see how people different from ourselves live their lives.

"Ourselves?"

As a Litvack Jewish person who goes to a Hasidic Minyan some of "us" are those people. ;-)

Weird phrase to get agitated about but I never said anyone wasn't...

I do believe you have misread this. "Ourselves" is used because "me" would not be correct, but really the meaning is "me the author" in that sentence. I would suggest a more generous re-reading.

Halevei the most Litvish comment here.

"ourselves" as in from the perspective of the person writing that comment, people who are different than them. No need to get defensive.

It's a piece on how a group with particular cultural and societal constraints is enabled by technology. Seems like a story to me.

it's interesting because it gives insight into a culture and community we typically don't have access to. the point isn't amazon - the point is the hasids.

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