Hacker News Reader

Comment by jrochkind1 | Hacker News Reader

Is "support" always transitive? To support someone is necessarily to support everything they support? What does "support" mean, anyway?

To read and enjoy a book by him necessarily means I'm "supporting" everything he has ever supported, including in the past?

Why would it work that way?

(This is not meant to say anything either way on whether Delany "supports the sexual abuse of children". I suppose that's another transitive property of support... if I 'support' Delany who 'supports' NAMBLA which 'supports'... )

View on HN

Take NAMBLA out of the equation and Delany is still a man who promotes that man/boy sexual relationships aren't intrinsically abusive and should not be criminalized. There's nothing transitive about that.

He has not changed that opinion, nor is he ever going to. And yes, if you support his work then I'm going to look at you funny, just like if you had a painting by a certain German politician on your wall - and that goes double when you try to dissemble what his beliefs actually are.

This is pretty funny. Rail against browser boss Brendan Eich on HN for his anti gay marriage donations - all good. Rail against LGBTQ writer Samuel Delany on HN for his child rape advocacy - not good. Separation of art and artist, don't throw out the baby with the bathwater, downvotes, etc.

I’m sad that I’m not more surprised than I am.

I hypothesize that the negative response of a surprising number of readers is due to tripping some kind of pro-LGBTQ+ support mental programming rather than their taking a principled stand in favor of advocating the rape of little boys. Nevertheless whether it’s a principled stand or a knee jerk reaction, anyone who experiences a negative emotional response to opposing child rape, same sex or otherwise, has a serious problem and should get help.

"if there's a [X] at the table and 10 other people sitting there talking to him, you got a table with 11 [X]"

Reply on news.ycombinator.com