Comment by reliabilityguy | Hacker News Reader

Comment by reliabilityguy | Hacker News Reader

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You intentionally disregarded my first statement in that comment that clearly differentiated between opinions and incitement for violence.

> So you clearly understand that insulting people can have consequences.

It seems to me you cannot differentiate personal insults (e.g., saying to a dude in a bar "your wife is ugly!" -- as you suggested), and opinions about ideas, e.g., "capitalism is a bad system". Are you saying that arguing the point of why capitalism is bad should be treated as an insult to people who think capitalism is better?

The difference between making a personal insult (the key word here is personal), and arguing why something in aggregate should or should not exist are completely separate issues. However, in the world of identity politics these two are inseparable.

> Or nothing that he said should have insulted anyone and therefore should not have consequences.

Or, let's listen to the whole conversation and not a rage-bait excerpt, and see if it was what you say it was.

> If you can't find quotes in context made by Kirk that people would find insulting, then that is a search issue.

Arguing ideas is not an insult. If you believe that any challenge to any claim is an insult, then it basically kills any sort of discourse unless the point made is in full agreement with your beliefs.

The amount of mental gymnastics you're doing here is impressive.

Your current iteration is trying to differentiate between insulting a person (ie. the ugly wife) and insulting people in aggregate. And arguing that ideas about an aggregate is not insulting a person, and therefore, the aggregate cannot be insulted or offended.

Then you jump to a logical fallacy that if you challenging some ideas is offensive, then challenging all ideas is offensive.

You do realize that co-workers discussing whether we should use AWS or Azure as our cloud provider could be a rich debate on the topic. But is highly unlikely to result in someone becoming offended and evenly less likely to result in some form of violence.

But this is altogether different from other kinds of ideas. We can discuss ideas along the same topic and at some point we transition from rational debate to offense. We can start with the idea that people with blue eyes are fundamentally different than those with other eye colors. That's not too offensive. Let's take it further, people with blue eyes are inferior to all other eye colors. This might offends some people. What about, people with blue eye color are so inferior that we should expel them to "blue-eyed people island". How about, people with blue eyes are so inferior that they would be better off as slaves for people of other eye colors.

What if I went on a tour across the country to debate blue-eyed people on the topic. Did I incite any violence? Did my ideas offend any aggregate? Would you be surprised if my ideas resulted in violence against me?

If you replace "blue eyes" with other things, you can see the number and ferocity of the aggregate changes depending on the topic at hand. Your ideas are so provably contradictory to the ways of the world that I don't understand how this isn't obvious to you. Wars have been waged over the idea that one religion is superior/inferior to another. Galileo was imprisoned for his idea that planets revolved around the sun. I can go on and on.

> The amount of mental gymnastics you're doing here is impressive.

Mental gymnastics about what? I am pretty consistent in my messaging: opinions and incitement for violence are two completely different things.

You, on the other hand, full of straw mans.

Any claim can be offensive, as I said earlier with my example about capitalism. According to you, we cannot discuss capitalism because some people maybe offended. Moreover, according to you, the person who will state that capitalism is bad can be rightfully attacked by the advocates of capitalism because he offended them. Thus, we have nothing left to talk about -- god forbid someone gets offended.

PS are you applying the same standard to “From the river to the sea” chants? Or offending Israelis and denying their rights to exist is totally fine?

> According to you, we cannot discuss capitalism because some people maybe offended. Moreover, according to you, the person who will state that capitalism is bad can be rightfully attacked by the advocates of capitalism because he offended them. Thus, we have nothing left to talk about -- god forbid someone gets offended.

Where did I say that? that has nothing to do with my point. My point is that a discussion of capitalism has an entirely different risk profile than discussing other topics. I stand by the first amendment that people can say whatever they want. Where you lose me is your follow-on that what they say disallows people from being offended. And secondarily, disallows people from having consequences for what they say.

Being on HN, it is highly likely you work a corporate job and you know exactly what I'm talking about. You know that if you were to debate some of Kirk's ideas in your workplace that you could be disciplined for it. Because your workplace knows that certain topics are extremely divisive and that don't want people arguing and fighting. That is why I said you are arguing in bad faith. And both you and I know we're not talking about the topic of capitalism. Let's be real.

Next time you speak to a woman at work I want you to try this idea out on them:

"Hey X, all kidding and sarcasm aside, this is something that I hope will make you more conservative. Engage in reality more and get outside of the abstract clouds. Reject feminism. Submit to your husband, X. You're not in charge."

See how well the "debate" goes.

> My point is that a discussion of capitalism has an entirely different risk profile than discussing other topics.

Can you provide me with some sort of guide on risk profiles for various topics? Maybe someone composed a list?

> Where you lose me is your follow-on that what they say disallows people from being offended.

People can be offended by anything because offense is a feeling inside persons head.

Why did you ignore my question about "from the river to the sea" chant?

This will be my last reply since you aren't really having a debate here. You know exactly what I'm saying and the point I'm making and you're just avoiding it. You obviously know what topics will get you fired from your job. You obviously know what topics will get you punched in the face if you say things to the wrong person. And that's not even politics, that's just how the world is.

I have no idea what "from the river to the sea" means. Based on what you said, it's some kind either pro-Israel or anti-Israel thing. I am not Israeli nor Palestinian so I don't know enough about the topic to publicly state an opinion on the matter.

All I know is that both Israeli and Palestinian children who have had their parents killed will grow up hating the other side. And if there were some kind of attempt at peace or debate in the future, one of those kind of people will be the one killing the person trying to have the debate. We're talking decades long generational hate from lost loved ones. Someone from the outside thinking they know what that's like to the point of deciding who should be killed can easily become the target of the other side. It doesn't matter which side that is.

> This will be my last reply since you aren't really having a debate here. You know exactly what I'm saying and the point I'm making and you're just avoiding it.

I know what point you are trying to make. I hope you realize how ridiculous it sounds. People can be offended by anything. Does it mean we should stop talking?

Ukrainians can be offended by the idea of peace talks with Russians: Russians are aggressors, there is nothing to talk about! Are we gonna stop any diplomatic contact with Russians right now?

For any somewhat important social issue I can find people who will be offended. Should we stop discussion about issues in our society?

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