3 ms·

"One would have to assume" Have some perspective man or woman, you're acting like we're supposed to treat you like some babe in the woods and pretend this is g

"One would have to assume" Have some perspective man or woman, you're acting like we're supposed to treat you like some babe in the woods and pretend this is genuinely shocking to you? Please. Yes, powerful governments influence actors within their nations. We get it. Let's all feign surprise for a few hours online. But that's not what bothers me. The most frustrating thing is that your perspective fails to acknowledge how this is so painfully, hilariously, boringly mild compared to the corruption and abuses of power that are the baseline norm. It's like when people treat "gig workers" like they're the new 10-year-olds in a coal mine. Yes, all abuses of power are bad, we agree. But do you really expect us to pretend this is anything other than an extremely mild, boring footnote in the grand legacy of abused power?

philippejara 4y ago
How can you care about the NSA leaks when there are murders happening on the streets?!! Equally nonsensical point.
- standardUser 4y ago
  That's comparing two different issues. I'm talking about long-term trends regarding the same issue, and how people fail to acknowledge the trendline and instead cherry pick recent examples, usually relating to political opponents, and then present the example without relevant historical or transnational context.
vasco 4y ago
Pragmatism in a political thread in hackernews? Did you get lost somewhere? I agree wholeheartedly with this view. People in these threads pretend to hype the outrage, I guess because it makes for more juicy comments, it feels like some kind of role-playing of finding bigger issues than they actually are. These same people that are "censoring speech" be removing some pictures from Twitter, create wars - ukraine the latest - risk nuclear war, print money at will disrupting huge numbers of people and plant narratives about "the economy needs to cool down", and this is somehow the biggest issue of the day. You can call it whataboutism, but if you're worrying about drops of water on the floor while there's a raging fire in the living room, and someone mentions the raging fire, is it really whataboutism?

philippejara 4y ago

How can you care about the NSA leaks when there are murders happening on the streets?!! Equally nonsensical point.

standardUser 4y ago
That's comparing two different issues. I'm talking about long-term trends regarding the same issue, and how people fail to acknowledge the trendline and instead cherry pick recent examples, usually relating to political opponents, and then present the example without relevant historical or transnational context.

vasco 4y ago

Pragmatism in a political thread in hackernews? Did you get lost somewhere? I agree wholeheartedly with this view. People in these threads pretend to hype the outrage, I guess because it makes for more juicy comments, it feels like some kind of role-playing of finding bigger issues than they actually are. These same people that are "censoring speech" be removing some pictures from Twitter, create wars - ukraine the latest - risk nuclear war, print money at will disrupting huge numbers of people and plant narratives about "the economy needs to cool down", and this is somehow the biggest issue of the day. You can call it whataboutism, but if you're worrying about drops of water on the floor while there's a raging fire in the living room, and someone mentions the raging fire, is it really whataboutism?