Comment by earthnail | Hacker News Reader

Comment by earthnail | Hacker News Reader

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I read the original post DHH links to. I don’t think it warrants the kind of hate he gets.

DHH has always been very outspoken in his opinions. That’s why he bashed Heroku so badly when he introduced Kamal. It’s what makes Rails such a clear minded framework.

In his political blog, he’s raising an issue that’s occupying all of western politics. And he’s very aggressive about it - just how he was very aggressive when he said “stop paying ridiculous amounts for stupid managed clouds”.

Instead of arguing where he’s wrong, people - including the blog post you cite - write “that’s hateful and racist” and refuse to engage beyond that. That is the very shut-up mentality he writes about.

It frustrates me so much to see this here on HN. HN is supposed to be a place to discuss, not blame others. This resistance to engage in a constructive discussion, even if the person with the differing opinion isn’t articulating them well, or has errors in their reasoning that upset you, is super harmful. It’s what gives all these far right parties their rise to power. They occupy the subjects then that their voters have on their mind, because everyone else doesn’t dare to talk about it.

We could have constructive discussions around such topics. But if we don’t, all that happens is that those who don’t feel heard - in this case rightfully so, because we chose not to hear them - will develop more and more extreme ideas.

> Instead of arguing where he’s wrong, people - including the blog post you cite - write “that’s hateful and racist” and refuse to engage beyond that. That is the very shut-up mentality he writes about.

What a weird statement. He has a platform, people that think his content is hateful and racist don't have a platform. He writes about kicking out normal people living their lives from places that he is not even from. Antagonizing people in position of power with this kind of mentality is what every sane person should do.

I think you’re mistaking my comment as an endorsement of his opinions.

I’m coming from a different angle. I grew up in Germany, and we banned any Nazi content - rightfully so! - to make sure that shit isn’t spread again. But the political left - to which I consider myself more drawn to than the right, just for the record - has increased the amount of things that cannot be talked about bit by bit. That’s dangerous.

Now, we have a situation where many people feel they cannot air their frustration without being labeled a racist.

Here’s DHHs core argument:

“In 2000, more than sixty percent of the city were native Brits. By 2024, that had dropped to about a third.”

Now, when I lived in London - 2016-2019 - London was full of people from all kinds of countries, and I LOVED it. It’s what made London so special to me. But as his numbers suggest, that’s been a fairly recent development, and how could I blame people who preferred the status before?

He then goes on to imagine how he’d feel if Copenhagen changed the same way, and shows that it didn’t. He says this is the result of more restrictive immigration policies. He quotes a Danish prime minister from a left-ish party to underline that point.

As a side note: Denmark is the only country in the EU, or at least the only one I’m aware of, that doesn’t have a massive problem with new extremist right wing parties is Denmark.

I think there’s a valid political debate to be had, and DHH has some reasonable arguments. We can’t be lazy and just shout “you can’t say that”. That doesn’t solve anything. His post is not a “Heil Hitler” manifesto. It may not be perfect, and he sure would be wise to choose different words when talking politics instead of technology. But he has reasonable arguments - reasonable as in, you can reason with them, they’re not made up or illogical. And they are worth engaging with instead or cancelling him.

There is no "constructive discussion" to have with racists

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