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Comment by Tcepsa | Hacker News Reader

I'd guess the news cycle, and the increasingly over-the-top antics, political and otherwise, that it seems to spawn.

That's what I meant by circus as well, but it seemed like the person replying disagreed with me. We have some massive societal problems to deal with relating to wealth inequality, housing, and public health, but none of it seems to matter as a large segment of the population is convinced that, e.g. transgender people wanting to use the restroom that matches their presented gender is the largest ongoing attack on our collective well-being. The "circus" distracting from the general public's lack of bread (healthcare, labor rights, etc.).

> transgender people wanting to use the restroom that matches their presented gender is the largest ongoing attack on our collective well-being.

Understand what you're saying, but you could have just as easily complained about the pro-transgender-restroom-warriors fighting for unimportant things instead of all the other issues you listed.

The "both sides" argument doesn't really hold up to scrutiny. The key factor is that there is no measurable cost to, say, conservatives, for conceding on LGBT rights--just general talk in the abstract about moral decay.

There is a real, measurable cost to gay people, when they can't get married like everyone else, and to transgender people when they can't comfortably relieve themselves in public. The cost is also to society -- how does society benefit by bullying LGBT people into severe depression when they could otherwise go on to be productive members of society?

You've made a lot of rather large mental leaps that i'd rather not debate right now. But what your original comment lamented was the distraction from the very important issues you listed. Ignoring the merit of the bathroom arguments for a moment, there is definitely a similar associated opportunity cost. If it's not as important as the other issues you listed, it should perhaps be dealt with later...

Protecting people's basic rights and dignity is important.

Or to put it a different way, you can have an issue where the different factions are not equally important, are not symmetrical.

If I want to burn down all green houses because I dislike green, I am engaging in a petty distraction. If someone tried to stop me because they prefer blue that would also be a petty distraction. But the people stopping me because they're anti-arson are doing something important and very much not a petty distraction.

No. There is an opportunity cost for every action you take. Bathroom choices don't matter if the world is on fire and in danger of causing mass extinction and hardship due to global warming. There will be nobody around to mislabel or choose the wrong bathroom.

If you truly believed we were in actual peril, you wouldn't waste time on pronouns and bathrooms.. you'd be too busy trying to save the human race. Since that isn't what you're doing, you make all the hand wringing about climate look insincere.

People are allowed to care about multiple things, and don't have to dedicate their life to the most important cause they can think of. Your dismissal could be used for basically anything. Why waste time arresting a mere murderer? Why stop a company from dumping toxic waste, it's only a few barrels. Why inspect a building to make sure it doesn't collapse, those are super rare. If you actually cared about people you'd be working on one of the biggest five problems and not those!

Of course you're allowed to care about multiple things. The point is that you wont be very convincing to anyone that there is an emergency if you're also attending to less important things. If you're house is on fire, you're allowed to also sew a skirt. But it's not very wise.

If you are worried about pronouns and bathrooms.. you clearly aren't very worried about the so called climate EMERGENCY.

But again you can apply that argument do anything.

Are you worried about bathrooms? Must not be a climate emergency. Do you want to cook breakfast? Must not be a climate emergency. Do you have a light turned on? Must not be a climate emergency.

Really, you're just making an argument not to use the word "emergency" for this kind of geopolitical problem. Okay, whatever, sure.

But let's go back to the original argument, not your strawman tangent.

"We have some massive societal problems to deal with relating to wealth inequality, housing, and public health, but none of it seems to matter as a large segment of the population is convinced that, e.g. transgender people wanting to use the restroom that matches their presented gender is the largest ongoing attack on our collective well-being."

Being able to use a bathroom and not be harassed or have to defend your identity is on par with the rest of that list. The protection of rights is on par with massive societal issues.

Complaining about someone coming to pee is not on par with that.

Neither one is an "emergency" the way you're using it, but nobody was saying that.

You can play all the word games you want, but the fact remains if you treat bathrooms and pronouns on the same level as an existential crisis, demanding that people attend to both at the same time... don't be surprised when people don't take your absurdity seriously. If you truly care about saving the environment, i'd suggest getting your messaging in order. Unless you really truly don't care.

https://people.com/human-interest/scientific-american-drops-...

> if you treat bathrooms and pronouns on the same level as an existential crisis

I wasn't doing that. Nobody was doing that. It's not a word game; you're complaining about something that didn't happen. You're the one that brought up climate.

Yep, exactly my interpretation. And I agree with GP about the harm of those circuses. It's diversion-by-division.

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