Comment by detst | Hacker News Reader

Comment by detst | Hacker News Reader

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  I'd expect more intelligent people, which this community
  claims to consist of, to not react the way it has to the
  events, with nothing but hyperbole and sensationalism.

Your first comment here on HN contains this:

  Even within this submission, the comments here still talk
  and insinuate Aaron was facing life imprisonment, danger to
  being raped daily, and suicide was his only option.

Talk about hyperbole and sensationalism. There's been some of that but I've seen none of those three specific statements and if that's all you've got out of these discussions, you're seriously missing something. Just because you disagree doesn't make it all "hyperbole and sensationalism".

People are emotional and justifiably angry. Maybe some of it has been a bit ridiculous but that doesn't invalidate the disgust with these events and with the larger systemic issues.

I saw all such specific statements yesterday, albeit from different people. In particular, the argument that he was facing life imprisonment because the maximum possible term for the offenses he was charged with totaled 35 years was widely repeated. The news media does this all the time because big numbers sound most impressive, but the maximum sentence is only sought and handed down in a small minority of criminal cases.

The fact that is handed down rarely does not mean it was not threatened. And the reason why it handed down rarely may very well be that others plead out, because they were scared of that maximum sentence - which was exactly the problem in this case, that he did not want to accept the plea.

Honestly read the comments in the submission.. It was insane the amount of misinformation being thrown around. I'm sorry if my comment was exaggerated, I was just trying to highlight the issue.

Maybe the comments in the submission... were just trying to highlight the issues they saw.

Don't defend exacting discourse with the very hyperbole you claim is destroying it.

Let it be noted: I find immense irony in this discussion occurring in a thread where the parent comment is about how things need their context. What you're defining as misinformation needs to be taken in context.

So exaggerating for you is just highlighting the issue, but exaggerating for everybody else is insane. I see how it works :)

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