3 ms·

> accounts on HN peddling anti-western conspiracy theories? There’s a kernel of truth here It is a sad day when providing facts is described as "anti-western".

> accounts on HN peddling anti-western conspiracy theories? There’s a kernel of truth here It is a sad day when providing facts is described as "anti-western". > we just get inflammatory rhetoric We? Inflammatory? The facts speak for themselves. If the truth hurts, then perhaps the problem is the reader's attachment to invalid notions.

dang 7y ago
Some of the information you're expressing is important, but it breaks the HN guidelines to push truth in the flamewar style, as you're doing here. Facts don't speak for themselves; there are infinitely many facts, it's up to a human to select them, and the human voice shows up nowhere more loudly than in the facts one selects. If you're going to post about a divisive topic that's prone to flamewar like this one, you need to do so in the spirit of the site no matter how many facts or how much truth you possess. Otherwise you just damage the container here, and increase the amount of alienation between people, which harms HN and doesn't help the world much either. The cause of the truth is only served to the extent that people can hear you. Would you mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the spirit of this site more to heart when posting here? I've written about this kind of thing before, if more explanation or context would be helpful: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=by%3Adang%20facts%20infinitely&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu... https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20truth%20discredit&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
- macewindu 7y ago
  > in the flamewar style, as you're doing here I'm surprised but I'm open to being corrected. Please help me identify which statement I made which is considered "flamewar style".
  - 9nGQluzmnq3M 7y ago
    Invoking Hitler, aka Godwin's Law [1], is a strong indicator that you're no longer listening to counterarguments. Also, your quotes are talking about China, not India, and don't seem to mention genocide? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin%27s_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin%27s_law
    - macewindu 7y ago
      > Invoking Hitler, aka Godwin's Law [1], is a strong indicator that you're no longer listening to counterarguments. Sigh, surely you realize that in this context, both Hitler and his equal, Churchill are relevant.
    - bsanr2 7y ago
      Invoking Hitler specifically when speaking about the history of genocide by European powers doesn't seem particularly inappropriate. I'm trying to understand the emotionally-charged responses to macewindu's comments, as they're not particularly inflammatory vis a vis the history being discussed; white fragility[1] comes to mind. It's important to understand when one's responses might be influenced by the defensiveness they feel towards a perceived attack on their values. macewindu hasn't been wrong, but he has drawn attention to events that people who feel pride in the progressiveness of Western civilization would feel deeply shameful of, and it's understandable but unacceptable for that to draw out juvenile declamations like calling these facts of history, "anti-Western conspiracy theories." Be better than that. [1]https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_privilege#White_fragility https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_privilege#White_fragil...
  - dang 7y ago
    > It is a sad day when providing facts is described as "anti-western". > We? Inflammatory? The facts speak for themselves. If the truth hurts, then perhaps the problem is the reader's attachment to invalid notions. These are the sorts of things people post when they've left the path of curious conversation and are just lashing back against what someone else said. Also, you Godwinized the thread (invariably a flamewar marker) by taking some horrific quotes from Churchill and escalating that into full Hitlerhood. Again, that's not the path of curious conversation—that's fighting a demon. You can't do both at the same time; none of us can. If you post in this way, you end up producing the opposite of what you presumably want. Instead of getting people to expand their view of Churchill to include more of his shadow, you push them into locking their current picture down even more, because that is how people react to battle moves. All you'll get in that case is equally inflamed reactive posts back. No one's mind will be changed, only intensified. That is the flamewar style. Also, you've created accounts to do this sort of flamewar on HN before, and we've asked you not to before, and now you've done it again. That's a seriously bad pattern. Please don't do that. I understand that you have good reason to feel the way you do, and that it's based on valid information that ought not to be so quickly rejected by Western readers. But coming at them with a flaming sword only recreates the problem—and meanwhile it contributes to destroying HN, which helps no one. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

dang 7y ago

Some of the information you're expressing is important, but it breaks the HN guidelines to push truth in the flamewar style, as you're doing here. Facts don't speak for themselves; there are infinitely many facts, it's up to a human to select them, and the human voice shows up nowhere more loudly than in the facts one selects. If you're going to post about a divisive topic that's prone to flamewar like this one, you need to do so in the spirit of the site no matter how many facts or how much truth you possess. Otherwise you just damage the container here, and increase the amount of alienation between people, which harms HN and doesn't help the world much either. The cause of the truth is only served to the extent that people can hear you. Would you mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the spirit of this site more to heart when posting here? I've written about this kind of thing before, if more explanation or context would be helpful: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=by%3Adang%20facts%20infinitely&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu... https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20truth%20discredit&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...

macewindu 7y ago
> in the flamewar style, as you're doing here I'm surprised but I'm open to being corrected. Please help me identify which statement I made which is considered "flamewar style".
- 9nGQluzmnq3M 7y ago
  Invoking Hitler, aka Godwin's Law [1], is a strong indicator that you're no longer listening to counterarguments. Also, your quotes are talking about China, not India, and don't seem to mention genocide? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin%27s_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin%27s_law
  - macewindu 7y ago
    > Invoking Hitler, aka Godwin's Law [1], is a strong indicator that you're no longer listening to counterarguments. Sigh, surely you realize that in this context, both Hitler and his equal, Churchill are relevant.
  - bsanr2 7y ago
    Invoking Hitler specifically when speaking about the history of genocide by European powers doesn't seem particularly inappropriate. I'm trying to understand the emotionally-charged responses to macewindu's comments, as they're not particularly inflammatory vis a vis the history being discussed; white fragility[1] comes to mind. It's important to understand when one's responses might be influenced by the defensiveness they feel towards a perceived attack on their values. macewindu hasn't been wrong, but he has drawn attention to events that people who feel pride in the progressiveness of Western civilization would feel deeply shameful of, and it's understandable but unacceptable for that to draw out juvenile declamations like calling these facts of history, "anti-Western conspiracy theories." Be better than that. [1]https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_privilege#White_fragility https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_privilege#White_fragil...
- dang 7y ago
  > It is a sad day when providing facts is described as "anti-western". > We? Inflammatory? The facts speak for themselves. If the truth hurts, then perhaps the problem is the reader's attachment to invalid notions. These are the sorts of things people post when they've left the path of curious conversation and are just lashing back against what someone else said. Also, you Godwinized the thread (invariably a flamewar marker) by taking some horrific quotes from Churchill and escalating that into full Hitlerhood. Again, that's not the path of curious conversation—that's fighting a demon. You can't do both at the same time; none of us can. If you post in this way, you end up producing the opposite of what you presumably want. Instead of getting people to expand their view of Churchill to include more of his shadow, you push them into locking their current picture down even more, because that is how people react to battle moves. All you'll get in that case is equally inflamed reactive posts back. No one's mind will be changed, only intensified. That is the flamewar style. Also, you've created accounts to do this sort of flamewar on HN before, and we've asked you not to before, and now you've done it again. That's a seriously bad pattern. Please don't do that. I understand that you have good reason to feel the way you do, and that it's based on valid information that ought not to be so quickly rejected by Western readers. But coming at them with a flaming sword only recreates the problem—and meanwhile it contributes to destroying HN, which helps no one. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html