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Comment by bdjsiqoocwk | Hacker News Reader

Moving goalposts. The claim was they never apologized, and they did.

They moved the goalposts from “mad about not apologizing for the bombing” to “mad about the bombing itself”? How does that work in linear time considering the bombing itself happened before a window for apology?

> They moved the goalposts from “mad about not apologizing for the bombing” to “mad about the bombing itself”?

I think the GP was saying you moved the goalposts.

And the perceived lack of apology was an important factor in this person's (long past) anger.

I mean, think of it this way: if someone hurt you by mistake, would you feel the same if 1) they apologized for their mistake or 2) didn't apologize (showing a lack of care towards you). For me, at least, I'd only get mad at the latter, and I wouldn't be so mad about the harm itself, but rather the disrespect of not apologizing.

> I mean, think of it this way: if someone hurt you by mistake, would you feel the same if 1) they apologized for their mistake or 2) didn't apologize (showing a lack of care towards you). For me, at least, I'd only get mad at the latter…

If somebody bombed my embassy I would be mad at them. If they didn’t apologize, I would probably be more mad at them. If they did apologize, I could reasonably be less mad at them for bombing my embassy but I could be reasonably forgiven for still being somewhat mad. Because my embassy got bombed.

Correct, thank you.

You contend that no individual Chinese people have negative feelings about the bombing and three deaths themselves? The only Chinese people that could harbor ill will about it do so because of some sort of internal propaganda about apologies?

It was in 1999! Surely there are people alive today that remember this event that have not decided it was hunky dory because Bill Clinton said sorry on television?

That's not what I contend, no.

What I contend is that if someone starts with "they never apologized", and then shown wrong, and then goes on to say "yeah ok but they did kill them", that person moved the goalposts of "reasons to be upset". Furthermore, their grievance is probably motivated by something else that they don't know (or don't want) to articulate, and so use "they didn't apologize" as a shorthand for whatever their grievance is.

The first post in this thread mentions the bombing, not the apology.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41073744

The second post made the argument that it’s not about the bombing but about the apology. This was a change of topic by tivert.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41073828

My response to that was that it’s actually reasonable for people to be mad about the bombing. This was the original topic in this thread.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41073953

Then you showed up and accused me of moving the goalposts for not agreeing with an opinion you share even though that was not the original topic.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41074059

Seeing as I never changed my opinion or wording on this topic, there does in fact seem to be someone rewriting history in real time to justify their opinion going on in this conversation. Unless of course you view “disagreeing with you at every point” as “moving the goalposts”

Edit: Also it does seem that you do contend that Chinese people are only mad about the propaganda as you responded “Correct” to this:

>I'd only get mad at the latter, and I wouldn't be so mad about the harm itself, but rather the disrespect of not apologizing.

There is a load-bearing usage of the word only that you endorse. Unless you didn’t read it?

I'm convinced what I said was clear if someone is coming in with the intent of understanding. (And the proof is another commenter tried explaining me position and nailed it)

I don't have the patience for this.

So if someone starts shooting on the street and kills your brother, you won't be mad if they claimed it was a misteke and apologies?

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