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Comment by Thorentis | Hacker News Reader

> Choosing to take a stand strikes me as different than being pressured and judged for not taking one

Fantastic point. And I would hope those in favor of democracy can accept it. If you choose to support a political party publicly, you can reasonably expect people to engage with you about it. But nobody should be able to coerce you to support any particular party or candidate.

What we are seeing now, is not the freedom to choose a particular stance or cause. We are seeing the mob react with force to a lack of opinion.

You must have an opinion. And it must be the right one.

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>But nobody should be able to coerce you to support any particular party or candidate.

well, nobody is able to coerce you for not doing anything, but people can still judge you for it, and that may be perfectly reasonable.

Inaction can be as devastating as action. Withdrawing in the face of some injustice is as much of a choice as participating on either front.

It's an overused quote but really all that is necessary for evil to triumph is good people doing nothing. Of course today sometimes the causes are hyperbolic, but nothing is wrong with the principle. If someone is the victim of racism say, and people look away rather than stepping up, that's a failure.

>Inaction can be as devastating as action.

It can be but rarely is.

In the case racism, it isn't. Sitting in my house doing nothing isn't as bad as attacking blacklivesmatter protesters.

The call against inaction is an exaggeration to shame people into action for their side. It's the "if you aren't with us, you're against us" repackaged for the woke.

To take it another step further, a bias towards action can be harmful as well: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primum_non_nocere . I have often wondered if Google/Alphabet erred in switching from "don't be evil" to "do the right thing".

Indeed. Only a sith deals in absolutes.

However, ill-considered action can be very bad, regardless of intentions. And most calls to action by activists are ill-considered. See http://studiahumana.com/pliki/wydania/In%20Praise%20of%20Pas...

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