Hacker News Reader

Comment by howlgarnish | Hacker News Reader

As a non-American, I find it truly bizarre (and sad) that's it's now controversial to publicly state that you're not taking sides.

View on HN

Something I've found about recent "activism" (not sure if that's the best word) is that the supporters act like it's not enough to acknowledge and agree with the activists aims, but that these aims must in fact be the most important issue the world faces, and if you're not 100% committed you are against them.

I think this 'My cause is "the" cause' has arisen as an escalation in the fight for attention. And I think it's a big element in peoples view that not taking sides is controversial - "if you're not choosing to focus all your attention on my pet cause, you don't care about X"

Thanks – this explanation ("the attention economy causes aggressive activism") resonates and somehow makes me feel better about the situation.

It can be disheartening to see friends and movements I agree with turn to aggressive rhetoric and evangelism. But the fact that it's yet another symptom of a broken (social) media environment is a nice reminder that it's not their fault so much as it is an expected result of a bad system.

Of course, it's equally sad/disheartening that our modes of societal discourse and decision-making have gotten this bad, but it's a theoretically solvable problem (eg; legislation and a good facebook competitor) and it doesn't involve me feeling bad about people I like.

"If you don't forward this email to at least 5 friends or family, something horrible will happen to you."

It’s a very evangelical phenomenon. These “activists” are no different than religious proselytizers. Maybe this is a very American thing due to the strong historical presence of the evangelical church.

Religious groups did this forever, it's thinkable other serious people watched the resulting loyalty and borrowed the tools. Peer pressure is literally how indoctrination worked since prehistoric time, it's simply generalized to any idea now.

Or also you can be for the cause, but if you are not for every single thing done in the name of that cause, you are against them. Or worse, with "the other side" (as if all issues only have a binary choice)

It really does remind me of the "family values" religious conservatives of the past. Proving how pure and wholesome they are and competing on it by doing more and more things that aren't just living a good honest life, but are trying to infringe on the lives of others. All to show your circle of other supposedly pure friends how godly you are. So it takes a noble cause which is to live an honest and good life and perverts it into a strange contest of virtue.

I have a theory this is a consequence of tech companies wanting to move things online and become 'platform owners', leasing and ad-supporting everything rather than selling it.

After all, nobody would complain if the KKK had brought Microsoft Office licenses, any more than they'd complain if the KKK had brought food at wal-mart.

But many tech companies have realised how profitable it is to be Facebook or Github. They own the domain, their name's in the banner at the top of the page and the name of the native app, they pay all the hosting costs and make all the ad money, and they've put themselves in the situation where they can censor users.

When we in tech moved away from "we just sell the stuff, none of our business what you do with it" and made "what you do with it" the core of our businesses, we were walking into the realm of politics whether we realised it at the time or not.

> After all, nobody would complain if the KKK had brought Microsoft Office licenses, any more than they'd complain if the KKK had brought food at wal-mart.

Oh yes they would. Selling to the KKK would make Microsoft and Walmart KKK supporters.

Wal-mart doesn't know if that shopper is on their way to the KKK cook-out. If you've heard someone proposing wal-mart should start IDing shoppers to check them against a blacklist of undesirables, they were trolling you.

It's only controversial among the people who think that not wanting to fight whatever particular battle is in question that minute is an endorsement of the status quo.

So do many Americans. It is a vocal and proselytizing minority getting outsized coverage that makes it seem like “everyone feels this way”.

That's because it's now a religious fervor rather than politics.

I think it's worse. If you don't spray every single corner with an anti-racist message, you are automatically a racist: https://kubernetes.io/

You gotta realize that millions, tens of millions, of Americans are white supremicists, look at black people getting shot by the police and think “they must be criminals they got what they deserved.”

We are having an (ongoing) argument in America as to who deserves what kinds of civil rights. Rights like marriage (which confers extensive legal rights), protection from being fired, fair treatment by the cops and legal system, and much more.

I'm unaware of any point in history where 'not taking sides' in a war was viewed favorably by either side.

I'm fairly confident that there will be a civil war shortly after the election.

I'll bet you $100 there won't.

Heck I'll raise that, and offer 20:1 odds to danielheath, I pay $400 if there's a civil war, he pays $20 if there's not.

How did the value of US dollar compared to other currencies change during the US civil war?

Fair question. I guess I was thinking that a civil war would be heralded (e.g. by all major news outlets) before long-term effects started happening (like currency changes), but who knows.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com