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If you'd please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to the rules when posting, we'd appreciate it.
It’s like if people accused me of being antisemitic because I was just saying that Jews believe they have a special deal with god. Or that I hate Christians because I said they believe Jesus was the son of god. When that’s literally one of the core tenets of Judaism/Christianity.
I’m not hating on any religion here, just pointing out core tenets that are at the root of ideological conflicts!
Personally, I think this is a great example for surfacing the actual underlying problems here.
Which is that trying to apply your own core values to something/someone with wildly different core values from a position of ignorance produces bad outcomes for everyone.
And any sort of ‘high ground’ definition is just internal propaganda - which everyone does need - but has little to no connection to actual reality.
Edit: We've had to ask you not to do such things in the past:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45031745 (Aug 2025)
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41821594 (Oct 2024)
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39082862 (Jan 2024)
If you keep doing it, we're going to end up banning you, so if you'd please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to the intended spirit of the site from now on, that would be good.
Seriously, what do you expect me to do?
If my behavior was actually a problem, those threads would have ended up being actually a problem - but near as I can tell, they aren’t. And this it out of what, 5k+ comments?
The only way I can think of to avoid this situation is to be so bland that there is literally zero signal being added.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45516877 is an example of the thread going in a flamewar direction, and while that user shouldn't be breaking the site guidelines either, your account is the primary one responsible. If most other users didn't respond by breaking the guidelines, that is commendable, but random. In the general case, they certainly would. This means that the way you were posting was flamebait.
It would be healthier for me to be spending more time with the real people in my life anyway - like the multiple Palestinian friends and co-workers who are refugees from Gaza. Instead of arguing with people on the internet.
And no, I’m not joking.
Islam isn't a big factor in the Ukraine Russia conflict, it's not a big factor in US domestic politics (which are tilting toward military conflict), it's not a big factor in Asian geopolitics. IF you want to make a point about Islam that's one thing, but ignoring the larger context and harping on your pet issue is distracting and rude. You could at the very least acknowledge the existence of the bigger picture and situate your concerns as a specific part of it.
I’m pointing out that a discussion about ‘high ground’ that ignores that it’s a subjective discussion where there are numerous other factions with wildly conflicting views of it is not a useful discussion.
And that the Islamic vs Western world split is a classic example where people seem to insist on projecting their western (often Christian derived if not strictly so) views onto a rather diametrically opposed set of values and then acting surprised when ‘the other side’ goes ‘WTF, no’ or even acts in ways that they consider abhorrent - but are not surprising if you actually know what is going on.
That people even consider this a religious flamewar (apparently) is quite hilarious because if you actually read the Koran and Hadiths, or have spent much time around many Muslim societies these aren’t even (generally) contentious things I’m talking about!
For example - you just don’t draw a picture of Mohammed. Especially not if it’s making fun of him, but even if it’s flattering, just don’t.
If you’re in a culture that has major Muslim influences, this is very very obvious. It’s not a flamewar topic, but it doesn’t come up much - for the same reason most people don’t talk about slapping strangers in the face either.
It’s still a thing. As are the calls to prayer. And not gooning on random Muslim women. And a hundred other things.
War pushes us into actions where we abandon the moral high ground, even as defined by us. That's part of the horror of war - we become monsters.
WW2 and the Japanese, as someone noted, provide many examples. For example, to the Japanese, the Allies taking prisoners was ritual humiliation - and death with a sword in their hand would have been preferable.
Sometimes, your high ground is another’s sewer (or even your own), and there is nothing anyone can do to change that.
Isn’t systematically humiliating an entire group of enemies being a monster too? It’s literally banned by the Geneva convention!
In the end when conflicts like this happen, realpolitik/pragmatic application of force wins regardless.
This becomes especially destructive in very dense environments like urban centers, because the level of hiding that can happen becomes almost fractal.
The fight in Gaza is one recent example, as are the others.
I’m not surprised that Gaza has escalated to the point it has (total war, essentially), because Hamas can’t actually give up without losing their entire identity and reason for being, for example. And the factions in Israel can’t back down without winning or ‘it would have all been for nothing’.
Or are you referring to tactics, because there are actual religions reasons/justifications for the nature of some specific tactics being used in Gaza.
Utter non sense.
You misunderstand both what Islam is about, the place it gives to the prophet and how sharia works.
Sharia explicitly protects non believers. Did you fail to notice that Jews lived for ages in the various Islamic empires?
As a non Muslim who has lived in majority Muslim countries multiple times, I’m shocked you can actually live in one and come out with such large misconceptions.
Regimes which do not accord basic rights to all citizens, including women should simply be ignored until such time as they do, no matter how much oil they have.
The Islamic world in as much as it exists as entity is not homogeneous in its belief and practices. It’s a collection of countries and groups and they don’t all agree.
I never said it was homogenous, I’m pointing out core beliefs that - while modified in a few places - are definitional for the religion, and are fundamentally at odds with other perspectives.
This isn’t hypothetical, this is a lived experience for a billion+ people.
Even 200 years ago, this would be (and was!) a very different discussion around Christianity, eh?
GP is saying that the phrase "moral high ground" presupposes an objective definition of "up" in morality. You can't cite a particular person's subjective moral "up" to disagree with them. Whether any given person values freedom or oppression more highly doesn't say anything about which one is objectively more moral, if any.
Besides that, do you think it unthinkable that a person would approve of some amount of oppression and restriction being placed on them in favor of achieving some goal?
In my experience, they think there are practical reasons why things are the way they are in China, and what you’re describing is a poisonous fantasy spread by idiots. (As one said to me quite clearly once in Singapore!)
Either way, I prefer freedom of movement, self determination, etc. but it’s pretty obvious that many cultures actively think it’s a bad idea and go out of their way to squash it in very real ways, especially against certain portions of the population. And I bet if we did a spreadsheet with various examples, you’d also consider some of them too much.
Like consensual vore. Personal freedom, or mental illness?
Ignoring that you’ll get a fight from any given culture on these and many more topics and we can all just ‘get along’ due to fundamental human awesomeness is just not how it has ever worked - ever - near as I can tell.
That’s where the disagreement arises between people who have no doubt that their view of these boundaries is the right one
Being a genocidal manic is as old as humans, near as I can tell. One group was the most recent assholes, but change is inevitable.