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Comment by slg | Hacker News Reader

Sorry, that is where I duck out of the discussion. You just said it would be trivial to give me an actual counterexample and yet you apparently aren't willing to put that trivial effort into actually finding one. You clearly don't want to put any effort into this conversation so I won't either.

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_Revolution

A dictatorial regime using violence to force society into a certain mold isn't at all the same as one generation organically having different values than a previous one.

Show me a generation that has been free of force of violence. This is shaping out to be another classic HN case where an example is demanded and then methodically shut down because it doesn't reach someone's ideal version of humanity. The awesome thing is he could have given literally any example, and the force of violence influence on value bit still would have been true.

> ..a generation that has been free of force of violence.

Yakutia?

A generation is not a dictatorial regime, and "organic" is operative. There is a world of difference between values changing over time organically and a small group of dictatorial leaders deciding they are going to beat society into submission.

I would ask you respond to me and the things I said and not to HN as a whole (or to what people said in this particular discussion), whatever other conversations you think this relates to, I don't think I was there and I don't think I'm responsible for them. By and large I stand by the things I've said here (there are things I'd take back if I could, but I digress), but I certainly won't be held responsible for things other people have said and that I'm not even aware of. I'm not as unreasonable as you're implying, this example was flawed.

You could turn this criticism around on your comment, "this is a classic HN whatever, where any criticism is dismissed for no reason. The crazy thing is I could've criticized this for any reason, or cited any amount of evidence, and it still wouldn't have been enough."

This is a public forum, your demand that I not include generalized related efforts of others is entirely unreasonable and since I don't deem the request 'organic' I will not consider it valid. I'm sorry you moved the goalposts to an impossible standard; of course no doubt you can use any amount of semantics to retroactively say organic was whatever weasels the strongest argument at the moment. Just keep in mind 'organic' was your introduced construct so you're arguing against your own words and not even something said by the person you replied to.

No goalposts were moved, the previous commenter did not say "organic" but it matches their intended meaning [1].

HN being a public forum means our discussion is visible to anyone and anyone can join. It doesn't mean that I represent anyone's views except my own, or that I should answer for trends you perceive in HN's comments.

[1] The intended meaning in this comment, that incited the discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34952301

Damn I thought you were answering for the view of my cat. Appreciate the explanation that your view is your own view.

>"organic" but it matches their intended meaning.

Yeah the fact they used cultural revolution which you say is not organic pretty much shatters the notion they were presenting things the way you say. The fact you thought they meant whatever dubious notion of 'organic' you have doesn't mean that they represent anyone's views except they own, or that they should answer for your perception of implied organic-ness.

I'm glad I could clear that up for you. Please give them some extra ear scratches on my behalf.

I apologize for being unclear, I meant it matched the intended meaning of this commenter: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34952301 I've edited my comment to clarify.

This is so ridiculously over-the-top - and so incredibly obviously not the category of change that is being discussed here - that I have trouble believing you really mean it. Like, come on dude.

The claim was that morality only ever improves with younger generations, that things only ever get better.

It's a stupid claim and I pointed out an obvious counter example.

Many people who lived in China during and after the Cultural Revolution, and in the former Soviet Union, say the way that many people talk in universities today are starting to sound like the people in power in the places they came from.

Yes - it's so stupid, in fact, that this extreme version that you are interpreting it as is obviously not what we're talking about here. It really feels like either a) HN-sterotypical-pedantic-literalism; or b) a bunch of bad-faith strawmanning. Neither are helpful.

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