Comment by beardedetim | Hacker News Reader

Comment by beardedetim | Hacker News Reader

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> so I know who to avoid

This is a good point! I think that the concept of "who do I want to associate with" is a different way to view things than "everyone I see in the world needs to treat me with agency"

I have a hard time knowing where that line is. Like you said,

> I AM a free speech absolutist (or close to it), even if it does result in some discrimination. (Even against me.)

People out there, due to their agency, may not agree with where my agency ends and theirs begins. I think if we have the privilege and feel able to "choose to avoid" those that we disagree with, we could have these discussions in the open without fear and actively change people's minds.

I don't know how to though. I've written about it here [1] but I still don't have a good answer for how do we draw that line of where your agency ends and mine/theirs begin.

[1] https://timonapath.com/articles/body-politic

I think it's such a hard question because the line moves in accordance to people's position in their culture and society. Even oppressed/marginalized people can have very different circumstances. For example, the 80s-00s were very homophobic, particularly in certain areas of the country, but one thing I had in my favor was a parent with their own household that supported me. That meant that if, say, my dad pushed the issue and was an ass, I just stopped visiting. And likewise, once he'd come around (took 3-4 years), if his family had been an ass to me, they would have lost us all because my immediate family was behind me.

I also tested well enough (I was the top scorer in the county on all of our standardized tests) that it was worth shutting up about my being a big fat homo.

That's a very different situation from a gay kid in an Evangelical home in rural Alabama in the 90s, or (moving outside of sexuality) an African American family in the US South in the 50s.

Agency is very tied into a person's individual circumstances, and trying to legislate rules and policy around that is a nightmare, particularly given it can change on a dime. (My MS diagnosis knocked out a fair chunk of my agency).

I think most people's instinct is to try to protect the most vulnerable, but that may end up stifling conversation to the point where the group dissolves/can't hold itself together OR opening people to being poached away to other groups OR other groups with different norms outcompeting or attacking that group.

We need to be careful not to monkey's paw ourselves.

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