Comment by dang | Hacker News Reader

Comment by dang | Hacker News Reader

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Are you aware that you're posting in exactly the flamewar style that we're asking people not to? I realize that this is a high-emotion, high-activation topic, but there are certain principles here that everyone needs to respect. That is what the site guidelines are for.

A comment like this one (and worse, "we need to shame China and the Chinese people" – https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26548441 - I can't believe that anyone who has been here over 10 years would post something that horrible to HN) takes us deeper into the hell that we're trying to stay out of. I'm not going to ban you for these, because if I imagine myself into your position, my guess is that simply re-reading what you posted, once you've cooled down, will be punishment enough. But if you would please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and take the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.

Yes, I'm sorry for being incendiary. However, I think shame and guilt are excellent tools for getting a culture on track. Better than war, anyway.

In my view that vector points directly toward war. The only difference is magnitude, not direction.

> a backwards culture

If you continue to post slurs, we're going to have to ban you. I don't want to ban you, but you can't do this here. Please don't do it again.

Thank you for showing more restraint than I did. I'm sorry for being incendiary, I did not mean to use any slurs. I've removed what I thought might be construed as slurs from my comments. I won't post further on this topic. Thank you for shaming me, I feel guilty and will do better.

I was trying to avoid shaming you, but I'm sure I could have done a better job of that, especially because I'm posting from a position of authority and that magnifies such effects by a million times.

One of my teachers once told me "I did a Ph.D. in psychology at Stanford and I learned just one thing from it: that punishment is not good for learning." Hopefully we can get to a state where there's less punishment and more learning. I think examples are good for learning, so I hope you can stop feeling guilty and just take it as an example.

It’s the regime that’s the problem not the culture

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