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Comment by adamrezich | Hacker News Reader

I'm not going to engage in charged political discussion with you as this is simply not the place for it—HN is a website of curious discussion, and that does not seem to be what you are seeking here in this exchange. I can't speak for everyone but I think many people generally find it uncouth to make blanket political statements like the ones you've made here, on this website, especially when none of it directly had anything to do with the subject at hand, forcing you to resort to further and further reaching in order to connect the disparate political talking points you're apparently quite passionate about together such that they have anything at all to do with AI Seinfeld.

may I suggest that you search elsewhere on the web for a better avenue for these sorts of discussions?

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No blanket statements made. I spoke about the GOP, referring to the leadership. No blanket labeling.

I merely continued the discussion from this context:

> sometimes you can't have nice things because there are people who will abuse them.

> there are actual Nazis out there who want to put people in ovens, so it's taboo to make jokes about how they may have a point.

> similar thing with trans people, you mention them and trolls come out of the woodwork saying they should kill themselves.

The fact that you keep claiming that my responses do not relate to the matter at hand indicate that you are willfully ignoring context whenever it suites you. You have repeatedly avoided actual discussion of the matter at hand, the position I put forth, and instead relied on sly attempts to dismiss everything I said.

Your behaviour is not appropriate for a website that values arguing for claims.

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As for this website for "curious" discussion is not a website where paraphrasing Popper of all people and mentioning the statements of a political leader in the same comment gets you flagged.

You keep deflecting from the subject at hand, and never actually engaging with it... So much for "discussion".

Quite pathetic if you ask me.

> No blanket statements made. I spoke about the GOP, referring to the leadership. No blanket labeling.

> It is easy to see the two countries are by all means shitholes, and so are red states...

it is possible that you have become so accustomed to "political talking points"-type "discussion" (i.e. twitter) that you genuinely think this is normal, respectful discourse—I would consider reflecting upon this a bit.

> You have repeatedly avoided actual discussion of the matter at hand, the position I put forth

yes, this was intentional—I did not come to this comments thread to discuss Russia or red states or Trump or Republicans or Ben Shapiro or Nazis or Iran or Putin or any of the other dozens of unrelated things you've brought up, and repeated taunts attempting to get me to do so, on your terms, are extremely unbecoming and exceedingly tiring. you already have an entire ideology that explains how you should feel about these things, and I've made it clear that I am familiar with this ideology, yet unwilling to participate in or engage with it—why do you consider this unsatisfactory, to the point of direct personal insults, which I have refrained from thus far? why am I supposed to engage in good-faith discourse with someone who comports themselves thusly? you have yet to give me any incentive for engaging with you and your myriad highly-charged political talking points other than "because I want you to", and then on top of this, you insult me for not taking you up on your offer?

ironically, this is precisely what I was talking about in my original post above: this is exactly the level of discourse I've come to expect from anyone who casually lobs the word "fascists" about. no attempt at good-faith discussion, a complex Byzantine web of interconnected political ideas, any and all of which may be brought into discussion without warning, and a general attitude of abject rudeness.

again: I recommend serious self-reflection.

Enlighten me then, if not with the word "fascist", how should I characterize the class of people that apparently wants me dead, and as a collective exhibit all 14 characteristics of Fascism as defined by Umberto Eco?

Which word has sufficient gravitas to convey that I am genuinely scared about my friends in red states who can't leave? To convey the terror of hearing about yet another shooting towards people just like you?

Which word can I use to describe people who don't want me to live?

Which word can adequately describe the class of people that carry such vile acts or condone them?

What should I use instead?

far be it from me to question your Gospel and its preferred terms. by all means feel free to continue to keep using the word as you have been—not only do I lack authority to prescribe which terms you can and cannot use, but also as I said above, the mere use of the term provides a convenient heuristic for many to simply avoid engaging or associating with that person, lest they bring topics such as Donald Trump, Nazis, Vladimir Putin, Iran, the GOP, Matt Walsh, Ben Shapiro, Tucker Carlson, red states, and direct personal insults into the conversation, almost all at once, completely unprompted.

there was a time in years past where I was more willing to engage with this sort of openly-antagonistic rhetoric but then I turned 30 and it's all just so tiresome now. arguing with you about your political ideology is exactly equivalent to arguing with a zealot of a religion that is not my own—I want to be as respectful as possible with regards to something that you clearly take very seriously and personally (despite you refusing to extend the same courtesy), while simultaneously refusing to directly engage with the disagreements between us, as there's virtually zero chance that any of that is going to be in any way productive for any of us.

do you happen to have any friends of any political persuasion other than that of your own? about half of my friends disagree with me politically, and we all know it, yet we can remain civil when talking about stuff, because we all have a sense for which things we consider take for granted as true, that the others may not, so we all wordlessly agree to avoid making statements like that. but that's just about all you've done so far here in this thread, which is something I've come to attribute to people who don't have that much ideological diversity in their social circle(s), such that they're only used to interacting with people that generally either agree with them about everything (upon which they find mutual agreement), or have wholesale outright ideological opposition towards (upon which they get into twitter-style flamewar arguments, usually exclusively over the Internet). by contrast, when you have an ideologically diverse group of friends and people you associate with, you generally learn to comport yourself better in circumstances where your personal beliefs are at odds with others.

I am asking you, as a trans person fearing for their life, how i should call the people i am terrified of, the people who seem to hate me for my mere existence without ever interacting with me, who have already decided that i am going to hell and seem to want to help me go there sooner.

I do have friends with different political beliefs. They don’t know about my “status”, they have expressed horrific comments about LGBT people without seeing the irony in the fact that said beliefs are learned and so i just dont say anything so as to not out myself.

I was politically on the “opposite” side of this, until somebody showed me empathy for the person I am, they helped me learn to love myself instead of hating my mere existence.

For the first time i have something to live for, and all i see is attacks against people like me on the rise. For the first time, I have something to lose.

I just want to live, unapologetically, for me as me, and yet i am terrified of the people who openly call for the murder of those just like me.

Do you know what that is like?

What am I supposed to do?

Just sit there and watch?

why would I reply in earnest when you've already insulted me and the entire sort of state I live in? how can you go from that, and bringing up all these different tenuously-connected names and issues, to genuinely asking what I think you should do given the situation you find yourself in, knowing full well that you'll take offense to basically anything I have to say, for one reason or another? what could I possibly say that would satisfy you? and even if there was something I could say—again, impossible, as you're basically fishing for me to say something for you to take issue with and get emotionally worked up about—why would I want to? this has not been a pleasant exchange, and I'm alright with it being over now.

Nothing I could express will ever be satisfying enough to convince, let alone persuade you into responding earnestly.

Whether you respond to me it’s entirely up to you… you need to choose to believe that people can change, as I have changed … you have to choose, despite all odds, to try to do the right thing, not just now, but every time, despite how difficult it may be, despite how disappointing the expected result may be, you have to choose to believe in people..

I have opened my heart, i have expressed my deepest fears.. I have been crying all the way from work to my home… i want to believe in people…

I want to believe that people can look past what makes me “different”, and look at me as a person struggling to live with their circumstances, trying to live an honest life and be a good person…

I am only human, I am terrified, and I am sorry.

I just want to live… for the first time I have a reason to and i am terrified that i will get beat or worse…

You have no reason to… you need to choose, to choose to leap into faith.

If you choose not to, I want you to know that I am sorry, and .. I understand why you chose not to. I’d have probably done the same.

this emotional gaslighting from a random handle on the Internet is very strange and disconcerting.

I do not owe you anything, especially given how this discussion started out.

you are projecting things onto me that you have no idea about.

you are implying that I am somehow treating you differently because you identify as trans, despite that only coming into the conversation with your reply before this last one. you somehow turned me pointing out that people who frequently use the term "fascists" tend to not really argue in good faith, into me somehow refusing to recognize your personhood or validate your existence or some such thing.

this will now be my final reply to the strangest discussion I have been part of in quite awhile—may you eventually find peace.

I am sorry that my messages have been misinterpreted. I wasn’t trying to gaslight or emotionally manipulate anyone. I didn’t imply that you are treating me differently either, and i am sorry my messages caused such feelings.

I was genuinely looking for something to hold on to, that the people I called fascists are just confused and manipulated into hating people like me.

You are right, you don’t owe me anything. But it’s beneficial to ask and search for “what we owe to each other”.

I hope I didn’t take away your capacity to believe in people and made you cynical.

It seems that at the beginning of the conversation i failed to follow Scanlon suggestion. Today is another day, today i will try to be better. We live, we learn we grow, we change.

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