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Comment by huyto | Hacker News Reader

if a man travelled to USA with a 10 year old wife he could end up in prison for decades, while in many cultures such an arrangement is normal and accepted. if we wanted to achieve "absolute tolerance" we would simply have to remove all laws because they are all intolerant in some way against someone.

tolerance does not mean that we have to accept the behavior of people who act in ways which are offensive to us. tolerance is the mutual respect of eachother's boundaries, namely that the people who visit Qatar respect the culture and laws of the country, and the people of Qatar in return respect the rights and freedom of those visitors

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> if a man travelled to USA with a 10 year old wife he could end up in prison for decades, while in many cultures such an arrangement is normal and accepted.

This isn't about whether or not to wear shoes indoors or not. It's not about regional cultural quirks, but about fundamental human rights. What actually constitutes fundamental human rights depends on the framework, but the correct one (and importantly the one FIFA follows obviously) is the "liberal/progressive/secular" one. Which is why an organization that supposedly values those rights shouldn't let a country that doesn't value them host a world cup.

> tolerance is the mutual respect of eachother's boundaries, namely that the people who visit Qatar respect the culture and laws of the country, and the people of Qatar in return respect the rights and freedom of those visitors

That loses the context of the World Cup. Basically saying "we want to host the world cup" is synonymous to saying "we don't mind gay people holding hands". If not, then FIFA isn't actually championing the values they say they are (which is probably the case)

Who defines "fundamental human rights". I think once you start poking, you'll easily see that such a definition is frail and subjective.

> Who defines "fundamental human rights".

The United Nations do. Why?

Why do I (or anyone) have to abide by what the UN says?

Because what UN says is voted by member countries and (partly) incorporated into their laws.

Tolerant means being able to tolerate (and respect) people with different ideas and opinions about how the world works.

Someone is bound to wheel out the old "no tolerance for intolerance" line, which is fine, but doesn't mean you can go to someone else's country and tell them that they're wrong and should be doing things the way you do them.

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