Hey Chris. So you know, I'm generally anti-left. But I've also had good training from hanging out on Wikipedia and I try to be fair about things and I definite

Hey Chris. So you know, I'm generally anti-left. But I've also had good training from hanging out on Wikipedia and I try to be fair about things and I definitely don't try to be ostentatiously anti-left. I personally agree with you that there's serious problems with the way that the left perceives, reasons about, and talks about both cultures and consequences, at a distance and otherwise. I furthermore believe that you could be downvoted or called a racist xenophobe on these pages, simply for expressing true facts and reasonable opinions. And I downvoted your comment. I also downvoted the grandparent comment and the great-grandparent comment, and for the same reason: because they didn't seem very conducive to a productive conversation. The original poster doesn't deserve snarkily being called out for "victim blaming" for a reasonable post which relatively-neutrally explores the cycles that perpetuate the status quo. The reply "What makes you think they aren't to blame?" doesn't add anything productive to the conversation and just increases the temperature. Your approach as exemplified by this comment - pigeonholing all critics into a conspiracy - is worthless, unproductive, raises the flame-war temperature, and is generally harmful to the cause of Reason as well as any particular cause you're hoping to promote. If Hacker News is leftist-zone full of oikophobes, well then, you should be all the more prepared to apply Principle and Rigor to your arguments, a property which is mostly welcome here. (Outside of a few disturbing incidents like the Brendan Eich witch hunt, anyway.) In summary, you got downvoted 'cuz you're doing HN wrong.