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Lmao, Dang must not be awake, because this is far more of a "political flame-bait' thread than basically any other I've seen on this website in quite some time.

advisedwang 6y ago
This is an historical analysis. It provides no dictum for current behaviour, and no comparison to current events or people. You seem to be suggesting that merely looking at history should not be allowed in case we are able to draw a conclusion from it that suggests something remiss in the political sphere now. That's pretty chilling.
- onecommentman 6y ago
  But when postings only focus on the excesses of one particular political regime in one corner of a field, it becomes a meta-rhetorical device. When I see similar analyses presented on Mao, Stalin, French revolutionaries, and the motley crew of past authoritarians, left and right, I will be as sanguine as you. When papers/media exclusively cover the crimes of only one group (blacks, Jews, etc.), you would agree that would be (in the case of Nazis was) a concern from the standpoint of manipulating public opinion. Only highlighting the dangers of Nazi Germany in a forum, and never talking about similar abuses in other left-wing regimes? Now that is chilling.
dang 6y ago
I wasn't awake—good guess! But actually the bulk of this thread is pretty good. What we want to avoid is veering into tedious, predictable flamewar - that did happen, but at least it was concentrated in one subthread (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25083956 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25083956). Substantive discussion of an interesting historical article is always welcome on HN. I don't know if it seems like the moderation standard is obscure but to me it's pretty clear: we're just trying to optimize for curiosity (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=curiosity%20optimiz%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...). Curiosity dies a flaming death as partisan and ideological passions take over, but there's plenty of space for it if one can steer clear of those supernovas.

advisedwang 6y ago

This is an historical analysis. It provides no dictum for current behaviour, and no comparison to current events or people. You seem to be suggesting that merely looking at history should not be allowed in case we are able to draw a conclusion from it that suggests something remiss in the political sphere now. That's pretty chilling.

onecommentman 6y ago
But when postings only focus on the excesses of one particular political regime in one corner of a field, it becomes a meta-rhetorical device. When I see similar analyses presented on Mao, Stalin, French revolutionaries, and the motley crew of past authoritarians, left and right, I will be as sanguine as you. When papers/media exclusively cover the crimes of only one group (blacks, Jews, etc.), you would agree that would be (in the case of Nazis was) a concern from the standpoint of manipulating public opinion. Only highlighting the dangers of Nazi Germany in a forum, and never talking about similar abuses in other left-wing regimes? Now that is chilling.

dang 6y ago

I wasn't awake—good guess! But actually the bulk of this thread is pretty good. What we want to avoid is veering into tedious, predictable flamewar - that did happen, but at least it was concentrated in one subthread (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25083956 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25083956). Substantive discussion of an interesting historical article is always welcome on HN. I don't know if it seems like the moderation standard is obscure but to me it's pretty clear: we're just trying to optimize for curiosity (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=curiosity%20optimiz%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...). Curiosity dies a flaming death as partisan and ideological passions take over, but there's plenty of space for it if one can steer clear of those supernovas.