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Comment by JMKH42 | Hacker News Reader

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There are few things I’m afraid of more than a man that thinks himself righteous, because there is very little that such a man would be unwilling to do.

So it makes sense to be cautious when I find myself feeling like one, or being pulled along by the emotions of another who does.

You're not wrong about the danger posed, but take a step back and consider who this attitude helps. The greatest beneficiaries of a culture in which good faith and civility are unconditionally granted for fear of misguided righteous anger is a paradise for fraudsters and bad faith actors. I think we're seeing that world now.

Spot on. Leaders in my company love to tout the line "assume good faith". If you say anything that indicates someone else is not operating in good faith, you are deemed the bad actor. This allows bad actors to run absolutely rampant.

You can assume good faith initially without having to tolerate a bad actor who invalidates that assumption.

It seems like your company leadership missed that part of the lesson.

I would argue that there's an incentive to "miss" that part of the lesson.

For people who abuse the concept, sure. Again, that's just evidence that you're clear to drop the initial assumption.

> consider who this attitude helps

It helps the good people, who do good and influence their society to do the same, and live in a good society. The best societies give the accused the full protection of the law, and give them fair trials. The problematic ones have mob rule.

Much of what you write assumes the OP author and you know what evil is, with certainty. That is the critical and most dangerous flaw.

This is a good point. I tend to be careful not to fall into this trap myself, but it doesn't really do any good to call it out in public. it ends up empowering the bad actors. Thank you for this awareness.

This style of commenting is completely unacceptable on HN. You can't just blithely speculate about fellow community members being “evil”, or indeed anyone else; people can do wrong without being evil, and the first rule of the In Comments section of the HN guidelines is to “be kind”.

Some of your comments about controversial topics are egregious enough to warrant a ban. I don't want to ban you because some other comments are substantive contributions, but we need you to avoid inflammatory, ideological comments in future.

Please take a moment to remind yourself of the guidelines – https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html – and take the intended spirit of the site more to heart.

We detached this comment from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47951566 and marked it off topic.

It comes from having the sort of parents whose behavior warrants this kind of suspicions.

Yup. You got me. Pleased to meet you. Hope you guess my name.

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