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Comment by awhitty | Hacker News Reader

No, it certainly does not describe the mechanism. One is inconveniencing a business and one is murder. Please don’t get confused on this.

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No, I am not confused. One is murder and one is intentional destruction of property. Both results are due to intentional sabotage by the actors involved.

Doctors… don’t murder folks (I mean, yes, this has happened, but not as a strategy of a strike). It’s a nonsense hypothetical created to make striking sound absurd. I’ve already described in general terms how striking in health care works. Walking out to strike mid-open-heart surgery doesn’t happen - it doesn’t benefit the doctor, and they would be liable for their actions (and for violating the 10-day notice, presumably). There are legal differences between property damage and taking a life, so the comparison isn’t particularly useful.

You are hung up on the end effect instead of the cause. The point is that sabotage is wrong even in the context of labor strikes.

I'm unable to ascertain if you're being intentionally obtuse or merely unable to follow how analogies work.

I draw a line at trying to compare property damage and homicide as if they stem from the same “mechanism”. There’s no analogy to be made there. The striking workers didn’t kill anyone, and it’s insidious to float “how would the author feel if a striking doctor planned their action to kill someone” hypotheticals because murder and property damage are not united under some definition of “sabotage”.

Like, what’s the useful takeaway from the comparison? Cement getting left in a truck is like losing a loved one? Really? Striking workers performing something like sabotage is similar to pre-meditated murder? Are these useful comparisons? I don’t think so.

So…both.

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