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I think criticizing people for running websites like “theholocaustisfake” is less like “attacking people for having bad thoughts” and a bit more like “attacking

I think criticizing people for running websites like “theholocaustisfake” is less like “attacking people for having bad thoughts” and a bit more like “attacking people for poisoning the well”.

notanzaiiswear 5y ago
That's what you think. The person running that web site probably thinks differently. If they came to power, they would perhaps censor sites that promote the holocaust. See how that works?
- KptMarchewa 5y ago
  That's why you need to stop them before they came to power. World learned that in 1933.
  - notanzaiiswear 5y ago
    Where you alive in 1933? I wasn't. So all I know about the Holocaust is just what somebody else wrote about it. I generally don't like taking things as gospel. I don't generally doubt the Holocaust (I have no reason to), but I think it should be possible to discuss even the details of the holocaust. To me it is rather the demand that certain beliefs may not be questioned that enables things like fascists rising to power. (To me it doesn't matter that much if the Holocaust was real or not - either way mass killings of people should obviously be avoided).
    - watwut 5y ago
      > I think it should be possible to discuss even the details of the holocaust Details of Holocaust are allowed to be discussed and are discussed regularly. Discussing details of holocaust and holocaust denier are two different things, turns out.
      - notanzaiiswear 5y ago
        "It turns out" - how so? Maybe some people simply take an interest in the Holocaust, start asking questions, and when they hit roadblocks, they become suspicious. Censoring certain claims about the Holocaust will only push them further into "conspiracy theory" territory. Sure maybe some people have ideological reasons to deny it, but I don't think you can generalize that to everybody.
    - ahiknsr 5y ago
      > To me it is rather the demand that certain beliefs may not be questioned that enables things like fascists rising to power Holocaust is not a belief, it is a historical event that has already happened.
      - notanzaiiswear 5y ago
        So what exactly is "the Holocaust"? Do you know exactly what happened? I rather think historians are still piercing it together. Also, while as I said I don't have reasons to doubt it, I do think that there is something like "winner's history". I have witnessed it with the wars that happened in my lifetime, when it was possible to glimpse some aspects beyond the portrayal in the mainstream media. So I am careful before I believe anything.
      - user-the-name 5y ago
        Pretty amazing that this is what gets downvoted in this site.
        mhoad 5y ago
        This entire comment section is maybe the clearest example I have seen in a long time of why so many other industries outside of tech kind of look at the tech scene as a amoralistic dumpster fire. I never used to see the value of trying to include humanities as a part of a tech degree until a few years ago and now I think it can't happen fast enough. So many of the arguments presented here wouldn't pass any kind of a 101 level class.
        notanzaiiswear 5y ago
        I strongly suspect you never had a 101 humanities class. Pretty sure "philosophy" is all about what you know and what you can and what you have to believe. Maybe you confuse it with "Bible class 101", where you get told a set of moral rules that you are supposed to follow and never question, because they are supposedly given by god. Still, I would be curious to hear your reasoning of why it is supposedly morally mandatory to believe in the Holocaust?
    - wayoutthere 5y ago
      Paradox of tolerance; the only way to have a tolerant society is to be intolerant of intolerance. You have to make that exception or you lose the entire thing. Very much a “sorry not sorry” about “cancel culture”.
      - notanzaiiswear 5y ago
        Yeah that "paradox of tolerance" is just bullshit. You may as well admit that tolerance in general is not attainable. I understand why you people want to censor other people. But don't claim you do it in the name of tolerance. It's all just a power game.
      - naasking 5y ago
        Popper didn't say to be intolerant of all intolerance, he said only to be intolerant of intolerance that cannot be countered by reasoned argument or kept in check by popular opinion. In no sense are far-right ideas "popular", and they are easily countered by reasoned arguments. Popper's paradox of intolerance is probably the most misused and misquoted argument in online debates these past few years.
        dariusj18 5y ago
        Except they are proving difficult to keep in check. January 6th was pivotal because 1. It's very lucky it didn't go in the other direction, 2. People watching learned a few lessons for the next time.
        naasking 5y ago
        I disagree that they are difficult to keep in check. Jan 6th was a failure of capitol police and other law enforcement agencies. The mob that breached the capitol was around 800 people, which is easily managed by a small police force. They had ample evidence that these protests would be in the tens of thousands. I'm sure you've seen the police presence for BLM protests, so I think the response here speaks for itself. I honestly don't see how this indicates the far-right are difficult to keep in check. It really shows that law enforcement didn't even try, either because they didn't believe they would become riotous or violent, or (hopefully not) for more nefarious reasons.
    - dang 5y ago
      I'm not sure what you're after here, but between your comments in this thread, the trollish username, and the fact that your account has been using HN primarily for ideological battle (or close), I've banned the account. Would you please not create accounts to break HN's rules with? https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
      - notanzaiiswear 5y ago
        I picked the username because it was only a matter of time until somebody would accuse me of being a nazi - as is the norm these days for anybody who doesn't adhere to the mainstream leftist ideology. If you would do a better job keeping ideology off HN, people like me wouldn't feel the need to comment. I can not take your pleas for the guidelines seriously if you only censor "ideological battles" or politics you don't like. So you didn't understand the point I was trying to make, but decided to censor me anyway. Great job upholding the curiosity theme of HN. For what its worth, I am not after questioning the Holocaust. I am interested in why people think people should have to believe certain things, what they truly believe about freedom and free speech, those kind of things. What exactly triggers you about discussing the Holocaust? Would discussing the moon landing trigger you in a similar way, like would you say people should have to believe in the moon landings? Discussion of ethics in computing have been all the rage lately, but apparently we can not discuss it on HN.
        dang 5y ago
        > I picked the username because it was only a matter of time until somebody would accuse me of being a nazi - as is the norm these days for anybody who doesn't adhere to the mainstream leftist ideology. That confirms both that the username is trollish and that your purpose is to use HN for ideological battle, which is against the site guidelines. We ban accounts that break the site guidelines. If an account uses HN primarily for political battle we're going to ban it regardless of which politics you favor or disfavor. As for the Holocaust, at at minimum you're concern trolling about it, which is obvious flamebait. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
  - mavhc 5y ago
    And forgot it again by 2016
molbioguy 5y ago
Violating their expected privacy, fostering moralistic vigilante justice against them, and creating an environment where they have to fear expressing opinions -- that's "poisoning the well" in a far worse way.
- mcphage 5y ago
  > Violating their expected privacy They're trying to be secret, that's true. But expectations of privacy are for personal matters, this is posting hostile things and then hoping nobody finds out it's you. I don't think the author necessarily has a reasonable expectation of privacy. > creating an environment where they have to fear expressing opinions The Holocaust was a thing that happened. Pretending it didn't isn't expressing an opinion.
  - ashtonkem 5y ago
    > They're trying to be secret, that's true. But expectations of privacy are for personal matters, this is posting hostile things and then hoping nobody finds out it's you. I don't think the author necessarily has a reasonable expectation of privacy. I disagree with this. I think they did have a reasonable expectation of anonymity, they just didn't do a great job at protecting it. Per the article it seems like Epik accept fake names and cryptocurrency; they could have done that and avoided this mess. I'd expect my registrar to protect my personal address, for example, despite the website being my full name. And for my other domains I absolutely would expect them to protect my identity because I paid for WHOIS protection. And none of them are even remotely controversial. > The Holocaust was a thing that happened. Pretending it didn't isn't expressing an opinion. Also disagree. It's an opinion, but a wrong one that they should face social opprobrium for.
- belltaco 5y ago
  Do you think a political opinion like 'taxes are too high and should be lowered" is on the same moral footing as misinformation like 'the holocaust did not really happen' ?
  - 5y ago

notanzaiiswear 5y ago

That's what you think. The person running that web site probably thinks differently. If they came to power, they would perhaps censor sites that promote the holocaust. See how that works?

KptMarchewa 5y ago
That's why you need to stop them before they came to power. World learned that in 1933.
- notanzaiiswear 5y ago
  Where you alive in 1933? I wasn't. So all I know about the Holocaust is just what somebody else wrote about it. I generally don't like taking things as gospel. I don't generally doubt the Holocaust (I have no reason to), but I think it should be possible to discuss even the details of the holocaust. To me it is rather the demand that certain beliefs may not be questioned that enables things like fascists rising to power. (To me it doesn't matter that much if the Holocaust was real or not - either way mass killings of people should obviously be avoided).
  - watwut 5y ago
    > I think it should be possible to discuss even the details of the holocaust Details of Holocaust are allowed to be discussed and are discussed regularly. Discussing details of holocaust and holocaust denier are two different things, turns out.
    - notanzaiiswear 5y ago
      "It turns out" - how so? Maybe some people simply take an interest in the Holocaust, start asking questions, and when they hit roadblocks, they become suspicious. Censoring certain claims about the Holocaust will only push them further into "conspiracy theory" territory. Sure maybe some people have ideological reasons to deny it, but I don't think you can generalize that to everybody.
  - ahiknsr 5y ago
    > To me it is rather the demand that certain beliefs may not be questioned that enables things like fascists rising to power Holocaust is not a belief, it is a historical event that has already happened.
    - notanzaiiswear 5y ago
      So what exactly is "the Holocaust"? Do you know exactly what happened? I rather think historians are still piercing it together. Also, while as I said I don't have reasons to doubt it, I do think that there is something like "winner's history". I have witnessed it with the wars that happened in my lifetime, when it was possible to glimpse some aspects beyond the portrayal in the mainstream media. So I am careful before I believe anything.
    - user-the-name 5y ago
      Pretty amazing that this is what gets downvoted in this site.
      - mhoad 5y ago
        This entire comment section is maybe the clearest example I have seen in a long time of why so many other industries outside of tech kind of look at the tech scene as a amoralistic dumpster fire. I never used to see the value of trying to include humanities as a part of a tech degree until a few years ago and now I think it can't happen fast enough. So many of the arguments presented here wouldn't pass any kind of a 101 level class.
        notanzaiiswear 5y ago
        I strongly suspect you never had a 101 humanities class. Pretty sure "philosophy" is all about what you know and what you can and what you have to believe. Maybe you confuse it with "Bible class 101", where you get told a set of moral rules that you are supposed to follow and never question, because they are supposedly given by god. Still, I would be curious to hear your reasoning of why it is supposedly morally mandatory to believe in the Holocaust?
  - wayoutthere 5y ago
    Paradox of tolerance; the only way to have a tolerant society is to be intolerant of intolerance. You have to make that exception or you lose the entire thing. Very much a “sorry not sorry” about “cancel culture”.
    - notanzaiiswear 5y ago
      Yeah that "paradox of tolerance" is just bullshit. You may as well admit that tolerance in general is not attainable. I understand why you people want to censor other people. But don't claim you do it in the name of tolerance. It's all just a power game.
    - naasking 5y ago
      Popper didn't say to be intolerant of all intolerance, he said only to be intolerant of intolerance that cannot be countered by reasoned argument or kept in check by popular opinion. In no sense are far-right ideas "popular", and they are easily countered by reasoned arguments. Popper's paradox of intolerance is probably the most misused and misquoted argument in online debates these past few years.
      - dariusj18 5y ago
        Except they are proving difficult to keep in check. January 6th was pivotal because 1. It's very lucky it didn't go in the other direction, 2. People watching learned a few lessons for the next time.
        naasking 5y ago
        I disagree that they are difficult to keep in check. Jan 6th was a failure of capitol police and other law enforcement agencies. The mob that breached the capitol was around 800 people, which is easily managed by a small police force. They had ample evidence that these protests would be in the tens of thousands. I'm sure you've seen the police presence for BLM protests, so I think the response here speaks for itself. I honestly don't see how this indicates the far-right are difficult to keep in check. It really shows that law enforcement didn't even try, either because they didn't believe they would become riotous or violent, or (hopefully not) for more nefarious reasons.
  - dang 5y ago
    I'm not sure what you're after here, but between your comments in this thread, the trollish username, and the fact that your account has been using HN primarily for ideological battle (or close), I've banned the account. Would you please not create accounts to break HN's rules with? https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
    - notanzaiiswear 5y ago
      I picked the username because it was only a matter of time until somebody would accuse me of being a nazi - as is the norm these days for anybody who doesn't adhere to the mainstream leftist ideology. If you would do a better job keeping ideology off HN, people like me wouldn't feel the need to comment. I can not take your pleas for the guidelines seriously if you only censor "ideological battles" or politics you don't like. So you didn't understand the point I was trying to make, but decided to censor me anyway. Great job upholding the curiosity theme of HN. For what its worth, I am not after questioning the Holocaust. I am interested in why people think people should have to believe certain things, what they truly believe about freedom and free speech, those kind of things. What exactly triggers you about discussing the Holocaust? Would discussing the moon landing trigger you in a similar way, like would you say people should have to believe in the moon landings? Discussion of ethics in computing have been all the rage lately, but apparently we can not discuss it on HN.
      - dang 5y ago
        > I picked the username because it was only a matter of time until somebody would accuse me of being a nazi - as is the norm these days for anybody who doesn't adhere to the mainstream leftist ideology. That confirms both that the username is trollish and that your purpose is to use HN for ideological battle, which is against the site guidelines. We ban accounts that break the site guidelines. If an account uses HN primarily for political battle we're going to ban it regardless of which politics you favor or disfavor. As for the Holocaust, at at minimum you're concern trolling about it, which is obvious flamebait. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- mavhc 5y ago
  And forgot it again by 2016

molbioguy 5y ago

Violating their expected privacy, fostering moralistic vigilante justice against them, and creating an environment where they have to fear expressing opinions -- that's "poisoning the well" in a far worse way.

mcphage 5y ago
> Violating their expected privacy They're trying to be secret, that's true. But expectations of privacy are for personal matters, this is posting hostile things and then hoping nobody finds out it's you. I don't think the author necessarily has a reasonable expectation of privacy. > creating an environment where they have to fear expressing opinions The Holocaust was a thing that happened. Pretending it didn't isn't expressing an opinion.
- ashtonkem 5y ago
  > They're trying to be secret, that's true. But expectations of privacy are for personal matters, this is posting hostile things and then hoping nobody finds out it's you. I don't think the author necessarily has a reasonable expectation of privacy. I disagree with this. I think they did have a reasonable expectation of anonymity, they just didn't do a great job at protecting it. Per the article it seems like Epik accept fake names and cryptocurrency; they could have done that and avoided this mess. I'd expect my registrar to protect my personal address, for example, despite the website being my full name. And for my other domains I absolutely would expect them to protect my identity because I paid for WHOIS protection. And none of them are even remotely controversial. > The Holocaust was a thing that happened. Pretending it didn't isn't expressing an opinion. Also disagree. It's an opinion, but a wrong one that they should face social opprobrium for.
belltaco 5y ago
Do you think a political opinion like 'taxes are too high and should be lowered" is on the same moral footing as misinformation like 'the holocaust did not really happen' ?
- 5y ago