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Comment by pg | Hacker News Reader

What did he say?

http://www.capitalnewyork.com/article/media/2014/02/8539961/...

He shouldn't have mentioned specific cases. If he felt the company had to cut elsewhere to compensate for high medical costs, he should have left it at that level of detail. But I don't see how you get from what he actually said to

  I'm utterly appalled at Tim Armstrong's attitudes towards 
  the lives of his employee's children. Apparently it's possible 
  to pay a programmer $100K/year, but spending ten times that to 
  save the life of one of his employee's children is absolutely 
  unacceptable.

Frankly, posting and upvoting that sort of comment is the behavior of a lynch mob.

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I think saying "I'm utterly appalled" on an online chat board is a lot different from joining a mob to kill someone. Let's not make any Tom Perkins-esque comparisons here [1].

And people should certainly be allowed to react when those in positions of power say appalling things. Whether he thinks that is absolutely unacceptable is doubtful, but he clearly thinks that the $7.1M in healthcare spending is something that should have to come out of the workers' 401k. The OP wasn't quoting Armstrong, but what Armstrong actually said/did clearly mirrors OP's paraphrasing -- that health spending shouldn't be the duty of AOL, because it should be passed on to the employees through the form of a 401k cut.

[1] http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB1000142405270230454950...

Using the term "lynch mob" metaphorically is a long established usage. But in case you weren't just pretending to misunderstand me, I didn't mean that HN users are literally planning to kill Tim Armstrong. I meant the forces that drive lynch mobs are driving people here.

Oh don't get me wrong, I'm well aware you weren't claiming that people are planning to kill Armstrong. I'm just saying you're making ridiculous claims over a fairly tame paraphrase. Even from the well established metaphorical usage standpoint, this is nothing like a lynch mob. It's one guy expressing his frustrations. And he should be able to do that without you saying that the people supporting/upvoting him are like a lynch mob. Why do you think that everyone else responding to your post drawing those comparisons also thought the use of the term "lynch mob" was out of place?

It should be fairly clear from the responses to your post that the characterization of this reaction as a "lynch mob" does not meet the established standard of usage of this term.

Getting universally criticized for a statement is not a qualification for assuming "lynch mob" victim status.

> I meant the forces that drive lynch mobs are driving people here.

This particular statement can be interpreted in so many different ways that it remains meaningless as it stands.

> Did he say that?

Did anyone lynch him?

...but he clearly thinks that the $7.1M in healthcare spending is something that should have to come out of the workers' 401k.

Which is utterly reasonable. AOL has allocated $X for employee compensation. The law mandates health care go up by $7.1M, so something else must be cut by $7.1M.

This is certainly bad for workers who prefer the 401k benefits to whatever Obamacare benefits are costing $7.1M (and it seems like this is many workers). But that's a problem with the ACA - blaming TA for that is silly.

I'm acutely aware that I'm effectively posting on your territory, but the term "lynch mob" seems to be almost comically inappropriate as a description of what actually occurred.

> Frankly, posting and upvoting that sort of comment is the behavior of a lynch mob.

Have you been reading the comments on the many political articles that now cross the front page of this site? The quoted comment is fairly tame stuff compared to some of the opinions expressed in those threads.

Yes. For instance, this thread, unlike others, has not included anyone directly advocating violence.

While the upvoted comment is a bit histrionic, I think it reflects the fact that Tim Armstrong could bring up specific medical cases as being contributing factors is a little frightening to most people.

We don't like to think about the reality that life or death situations we have no control over are being weighed on a balance sheet by people who's primary goal is making profits for shareholders.

> Frankly, posting and upvoting that sort of comment is the behavior of a lynch mob.

Posting a photograph of a victim of a lynch mob http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d5/Lynching2...

I think Armstrong might be discomfited by the well deserved online education in social etiquette and the priority of life (of poorer people) over money. He sorely needs it and he will be the better for it, though a complete cure for him seems impossible.

> Did he say that?

Did I call you an ignorant money peddler, who thinks he is very smart because he can micro analyze statements and completely ignore the context in which the statement was made, as per his convenience?

Of course, I did not!

I call you no such thing.

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