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Comment by wredcoll | Hacker News Reader

> You think your post is not one trying to rouse hate against specific people?

It's taken me a while to understand what I find so abhorrent about this frequent rhetorical device and I finally realized it's just plain ol' false equivalence.

Hating nazis for the harm they've caused is, in fact, just fine.

Hating someone because they were born jewish/black/gay/whatever, is not fine.

Pretending that people out here advocating for deportation/camps/imprisonment for the crimes of skin color or religion or whatever else is the same moral equivalence as those people just wanting to be left alone is leaving the realm of stupidity and verging on malice.

> Some people just want the puritannicals to leave everyone alone

It's, uh, "weird" that your problem isn't with the bigotry and bigots but with the people who point it out.

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> Hating nazis for the harm they've caused is, in fact, just fine.

Sure. Where did I say it isn't?

The problem is the author (and yourself) is okay with branding fully half the population, including the people you are pretending to speak on behalf off, as "having no business" being somewhere.

All thoughts are welcome, unless you have different thoughts.

The author (me) we not trying to rouse hate against specific people. Indeed, I didn't mention or name anyone.

If you truly believe that 50% of people are full of hate, then I can only suggest you get off the computer and go out into your local community.

Most people are willing to give a helping hand to someone who needs it. Most people don't go shouting slurs. Most people don't want their neighbours to live in fear.

If truly 50% of the people you meet are filled with hate and rage against the world, I think that probably says more about the company you keep than it does about the world.

> If you truly believe that 50% of people are full of hate, then I can only suggest you get off the computer and go out into your local community.

I obviously don't believe that :-/.

Your PoV is that anyone who isn't joining you in your campaign "has no business being here".

What's your estimate on how many people are full of hate? 25%? 5%? 0.5%?

What's your estimate on how many people don't care to join your campaign? 25%? 5%? 0.5%?

I ask because you're painting with an awfully broad brush, implying very strongly that people who don't care to join your campaign "have no business being here".

Because from where I am, maybe 0.5% of people are filled with the hate you think they have, and maybe 50% (probably more) just don't want to join campaigns like yours.

In your writing you lump them all together, in "Us good guys, against everyone else!", not "Us, good guys, against 0.5% of people".

Again, you'll notice that I didn't actually ask anyone to join a campaign. I rather conspicuously didn't ask anyone to become a member of a political party, sign a petition, or donate money to a cause. I am literally not organising anything.

I am not able to ban people from the web. I don't have that power, nor would I want it.

As for percentages, I suggest you speak to people. Ask them if they think it is ok to be gay. You can probably look up the statistics for your country - but in most places, people are tolerant.

Ask your friends and family if gay people should be banned from studying at universities. Ask them if your city should only allow white residents. Ask if they think it is useful to build wheelchair accessible buildings.

In my experience, it probably is only the 0.5% that you experience. We agree!

But then ask them whether people who bully minorities should be welcomed in polite society.

I'd be fascinated to hear what they (and you) answer to that question.

> But then ask them whether people who bully minorities should be welcomed in polite society.

I don't understand this PoV; bullies aren't welcome anywhere! It's almost a tautology. What is the point of making a special exemption for bullies of minorities?

Your writing, OTOH, lumps people like me, who don't care to join this fight, in with actual bullies. We don't really care if bullies are bullies of minorities or bullies in general.

Your entire screed was not against bullies. It was specifically against bullies of minorities, which makes no rational sense.

> I'd be fascinated to hear what they (and you) answer to that question.

My experience is that the fraction of bullies against minorities is so small it's barely a rounding error.

I wanna know exactly what % of people are the bullies that your screed was aimed at. Most everyone is okay with women, minorities, gay and lesbian folk. Only about 50% of the population (including the LG and B in LGBT) is okay with the transgender movement.

So exactly how large is the % of population your screed was aimed at? The fractions of a percent that aren't welcome anyway?

We appear to be in violent agreement with each other :-)

I'm not sure if my writing was unclear, but I said "Anyone who preaches the ideology of hate has no business here."

That's who my screed was against. Those who use their influence to promote hate.

I was very specific in not saying "everyone needs to agree with me" or "if you're not with me you're against me". If you took that away from my writing, I can only apologise.

I didn't mention people like you.

I said, "That's why it baffles me that some prominent technologists embrace hateful ideologies."

If you fall into that category, then, yes, I do hope you feel unwelcome.

If you don't, then I am not sure which paragraph you think applies to you.

> That's who my screed was against. Those who use their influence to promote hate.

Maybe that was your goal, but as you can see in this very thread, the first reply to me literally did lump me in with those bullies you speak off.

So it isn't just me who took that message from your writing, it was people who presumably agree with you too.

Saying, now, "well, it was not an us vs them argument", is pointless: if everyone is interpreting your message incorrectly, it's not everyone that is wrong.

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