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I have just now read the edit of your parent comment. I appreciate your clarifications as well as your willingness to nuance your position. I can't really imag

I have just now read the edit of your parent comment. I appreciate your clarifications as well as your willingness to nuance your position. I can't really imagine the amount of effort you have to put into keeping HN on track. I thank you for that as well. I do however want to mention that the US cultural context is not always that apparent for a non-American (such as myself). My comments were made taking into account strictly the GP and your comment, not any pre-existing cultural context. Back where I'm from (broadly speaking the EU) simply mentioning that Cuba is socialist or that the embargo is anti-communist doesn't come across as particularly controversial or flame-bating.

dang 5y ago
I know that's true and I hear you :) - the challenge is to get a large community like this to understand and respect how differently things land among the different subgroups in the community. I mean, an internet forum is in one way an utterly trivial thing and at the same time, if we can really get this right it is actually a contribution to the practice of peace in the world, which is not a trivial thing at all. A strange incongruity. I wrote about that here if you (or anyone) are interested: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23308098 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23308098
- leto_ii 5y ago
  Thanks for pointing to your extended comment. I can say that in my case confronting people with wildly different political opinions has pushed me to become more dispassionate/detached in my replies, as well as to focus on the substance of the argument. I have started taking things more literally (which is probably what lead to our present conversation) and providing more precise and detailed rebuttals. All of this I consider to be intellectual progress on my part, so to me HN has provided challenging and fruitful waters to swim in. For that, again, I am grateful :)

dang 5y ago

I know that's true and I hear you :) - the challenge is to get a large community like this to understand and respect how differently things land among the different subgroups in the community. I mean, an internet forum is in one way an utterly trivial thing and at the same time, if we can really get this right it is actually a contribution to the practice of peace in the world, which is not a trivial thing at all. A strange incongruity. I wrote about that here if you (or anyone) are interested: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23308098 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23308098

leto_ii 5y ago
Thanks for pointing to your extended comment. I can say that in my case confronting people with wildly different political opinions has pushed me to become more dispassionate/detached in my replies, as well as to focus on the substance of the argument. I have started taking things more literally (which is probably what lead to our present conversation) and providing more precise and detailed rebuttals. All of this I consider to be intellectual progress on my part, so to me HN has provided challenging and fruitful waters to swim in. For that, again, I am grateful :)