11 ms·

Why are you complaining about an article you don't want to read on a site you don't want to read it on? Nobody's forcing you to be here.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
imwillofficial 6y ago
Because as a member of the community, He is trying to shape the discourse and culture here. We all should be doing that, to maintain the high quality content.
- amznthrwaway 6y ago
  Be honest. He’s a bigoted right-wing conservative who doesn’t want to hear about interesting scientific developments that he views as benefiting people with lifestyles that he condemns. You’re showing your bigoted ass by defending his bigoted ass. Fuck both of you.
- DoofusOfDeath 6y ago
  From a now-dead comment: > He’s a bigoted right-wing conservative who doesn’t want to hear about interesting scientific developments that he views as benefiting people with lifestyles that he condemns. Perhaps not here, but I think this is a view worth discussing. I'm moderately conservative, and some of that comment's criticism resonates with my own thoughts. With cases like HIV/AIDS, I find myself pulled between several competing virtues: One one side there's mercy and compassion; I'd like to minimize the suffering of hurting people. Even if someone is in dire straights because of actions that I view as unwise (extramarital sex, recreational drug use, etc.), I still want to want what's best for that person. On the other side, there's justice. I live in a society where everyone pays, to some degree, for individuals' unwise behavior. E.g., Medicare/Medicaid for smokers' lung cancer or HIV treatment for persons who chose to indulge in risky behavior. I'm not okay with forcing the community at large to cover the costs of (what I view as) individuals' selfish actions. I don't know what the right balance to this is. More generally, I'm not sure if there are any good principles for finding the right tradeoff between two virtues. I wish I knew. I want to do good, but the path is often obscure.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - foldr 6y ago
    There's an easy way to resolve that conflict that ought to appeal to religious conservatives: charity. If you donate to charities that help pay for people's HIV treatment, then no-one is being forced to pay and yet no-one is suffering unnecessarily either. Oddly enough, despite being so deeply concerned with mercy and justice, religious conservatives do not appear to be among the leading donors to HIV-related charities. That said, I don't see any kind of ethical dilemma here at all. It would clearly be a moral obscenity to systematically allow people to die of treatable diseases because they can't afford treatment. And if it's a question of 'blame' or 'risky behavior', then we should be refusing treatment to anyone who's ever eaten a donut.
    - DoofusOfDeath 6y ago
      Thanks very much for engaging the content of my post. I was disheartened to have shared my inner conflict on the issue, only to be downvoted into oblivion.
      - gibrown 6y ago
        Just in case it adds clarification. I think the downvotes are due to equating HIV to justice. Smoking once it is well understood I guess kinda is, but HIV is really just a matter of luck like all infectious diseases. You can reduce your risk (eg masks for stopping flu or COVID), but to call it “justice” feels very callous to me.
        DoofusOfDeath 6y ago
        Thanks for that. It sounds like I did a terrible job of expressing my thoughts. Perhaps one of my mistakes was using HIV as an example. If someone only skimmed my post, they may have pattern-matched on the whole "AIDS is punishment from God" trope, which is 100% not what I was trying to say.
      - 6y ago
- imwillofficial 6y ago
  "You’re showing your bigoted ass by defending his bigoted ass. Fuck both of you." Show me on the doll where that comment touched you...
  - dang 6y ago
    Please stop breaking the site guidelines, regardless of what someone else posts. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html Copying a bad comment by a banned account in order to break the site guidelines yourself is vandalism, if not arson. Definitely not cool.
    - imwillofficial 6y ago
      You got it

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

imwillofficial 6y ago

Because as a member of the community, He is trying to shape the discourse and culture here. We all should be doing that, to maintain the high quality content.

amznthrwaway 6y ago
Be honest. He’s a bigoted right-wing conservative who doesn’t want to hear about interesting scientific developments that he views as benefiting people with lifestyles that he condemns. You’re showing your bigoted ass by defending his bigoted ass. Fuck both of you.
DoofusOfDeath 6y ago
From a now-dead comment: > He’s a bigoted right-wing conservative who doesn’t want to hear about interesting scientific developments that he views as benefiting people with lifestyles that he condemns. Perhaps not here, but I think this is a view worth discussing. I'm moderately conservative, and some of that comment's criticism resonates with my own thoughts. With cases like HIV/AIDS, I find myself pulled between several competing virtues: One one side there's mercy and compassion; I'd like to minimize the suffering of hurting people. Even if someone is in dire straights because of actions that I view as unwise (extramarital sex, recreational drug use, etc.), I still want to want what's best for that person. On the other side, there's justice. I live in a society where everyone pays, to some degree, for individuals' unwise behavior. E.g., Medicare/Medicaid for smokers' lung cancer or HIV treatment for persons who chose to indulge in risky behavior. I'm not okay with forcing the community at large to cover the costs of (what I view as) individuals' selfish actions. I don't know what the right balance to this is. More generally, I'm not sure if there are any good principles for finding the right tradeoff between two virtues. I wish I knew. I want to do good, but the path is often obscure.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- foldr 6y ago
  There's an easy way to resolve that conflict that ought to appeal to religious conservatives: charity. If you donate to charities that help pay for people's HIV treatment, then no-one is being forced to pay and yet no-one is suffering unnecessarily either. Oddly enough, despite being so deeply concerned with mercy and justice, religious conservatives do not appear to be among the leading donors to HIV-related charities. That said, I don't see any kind of ethical dilemma here at all. It would clearly be a moral obscenity to systematically allow people to die of treatable diseases because they can't afford treatment. And if it's a question of 'blame' or 'risky behavior', then we should be refusing treatment to anyone who's ever eaten a donut.
  - DoofusOfDeath 6y ago
    Thanks very much for engaging the content of my post. I was disheartened to have shared my inner conflict on the issue, only to be downvoted into oblivion.
    - gibrown 6y ago
      Just in case it adds clarification. I think the downvotes are due to equating HIV to justice. Smoking once it is well understood I guess kinda is, but HIV is really just a matter of luck like all infectious diseases. You can reduce your risk (eg masks for stopping flu or COVID), but to call it “justice” feels very callous to me.
      - DoofusOfDeath 6y ago
        Thanks for that. It sounds like I did a terrible job of expressing my thoughts. Perhaps one of my mistakes was using HIV as an example. If someone only skimmed my post, they may have pattern-matched on the whole "AIDS is punishment from God" trope, which is 100% not what I was trying to say.
    - 6y ago
imwillofficial 6y ago
"You’re showing your bigoted ass by defending his bigoted ass. Fuck both of you." Show me on the doll where that comment touched you...
- dang 6y ago
  Please stop breaking the site guidelines, regardless of what someone else posts. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html Copying a bad comment by a banned account in order to break the site guidelines yourself is vandalism, if not arson. Definitely not cool.
  - imwillofficial 6y ago
    You got it