Hacker News Reader

Comment by foobiter | Hacker News Reader

tolerance generally excludes the intolerant, yes

please explain to us where it stops. For instance lets say I find it toxic to use comma in sentences. how many people do I need to find that agree with me on this before I can ban you from hacker news for toxicity?

Well you both seem to think it's acceptable to start a sentence with a lower case letter, so I think you'll get along just fine.

shouldnt there have been a comma after “well”?

I sort of agree with you on the comma thing; reducing usage of commas while using more semicolons would make for better reading.

I usually don't like people that don't use a full stop at the end of sentences ...

this is a very obvious strawman... if you’ve been treating people poorly for decades you too may discover that publicly playing devils advocate for a convicted rapist may be the final straw.

Comma usage, pedophilia endorsement, it's all basically the same.

It stops when folks stop focusing on a singular angle to create arguments in bad faith. There’s a thousand examples of behavior that shouldn’t be tolerated that at some point in the last 200 years, society tolerated. Likewise, there’s a thousand examples of behavior that wasn’t tolerated by society that we by and large think should be tolerated.

But instead of talking about the merits of the behavior, folks want to throw out the “tolerance” card.

You want that to stop? Then stop.

> But instead of talking about the merits of the behavior, folks want to throw out the “tolerance” card.

I don't think it works this way. When Selam Gano wrote her original hate piece, she concluded that people like Stallman need to be removed, and if necessary, MIT should be burned to the ground. What people? "Jeffrey Epstein. Marvin Minsky. Richard Stallman." The sentence has been passed.

She didn't demand an apology or a change of behavior. She wanted punishment. By putting Minsky next to Epstein, and Stallman next to Minsky, she wanted to create the impression that somehow the terrible monster, the AI pioneer and the founder of the GNU project are same kind of terrible scum that needs to be completely removed to make the world better.

The Paradox of Tolerance is mentioned every time when an intolerant hypocrite wants to paint himself as a tolerant person.

Isn't the problem with RMS that he is too tolerant? He is tolerant of people we find bad.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com