4 ms·

It only “doesn’t work” if your goal is to appear morally impeccable to everyone. If instead of this worrying you > you will be the one who, according to some,

It only “doesn’t work” if your goal is to appear morally impeccable to everyone. If instead of this worrying you > you will be the one who, according to some, is advocating for things that cause harm and is considered a horrible person. you have a set of morals that centers something more or different than theoretical other people’s opinions, your example of the current “conflict in the Middle East” is still a good example just not for the reason you stated. It is a perfectly valid ethical position to think that genocide is bad and that people that advocate for genocide are also bad. To pivot to “actually the Really Bad Thing would be if you said that and someone somewhere disagreed with you” is weird and hollow. “The truly wise know that everything is morally equivalent, except for the pursuit of unbounded approval which is Good for some reason, and believing otherwise is the same thing as getting your morals from comic book movies” isn’t a coherent or defensible moral position. The Marvel movie comparison is a thought terminating cliche.

hnthrowaway6543 2y ago
[flagged]
- jrflowers 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - hnthrowaway6543 2y ago
    [flagged]
    - jrflowers 2y ago
      [flagged]
      - dang 2y ago
        Could you please stop posting unsubstantive comments and flamebait, and being aggressive with other users? You've unfortunately been doing it repeatedly. It's not what this site is for, and destroys what it is for. We've already had to ask you this several times. If you keep doing it, we're going to end up having to ban the account. If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.
        deleted 2y ago
        [deleted]
    - dang 2y ago
      You can't attack other users here, no matter how wrong they are or you feel they are. You've been posting flamewar-style comments in other places too. That's not what this site is for, and destroys what it is for, and we end up having to ban this sort of account, so please stop. Actually I did ban you, but I reversed that after posting a warning to the other user. It seemed fairer to either ban both of you or neither. If you'd please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to the rules when posting here, we'd appreciate it. Also—please don't create accounts to break HN's rules with. It will eventually get your main account banned as well.
foxglacier 2y ago
[flagged]
- jrflowers 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - foxglacier 2y ago
    No it's because genocide is too simple and poorly defined a concept to apply appropriately to every situation. It's just the result of people trying to generalize from a few specific events that happened in the past which they already decided were bad for some other reason and ended up creating the label genocide to describe them. Look at the disagreement people have over whether Israel or Hamas committed genocide in this current war. People can't even agree on the meaning of the word as it applies there. It's a novel situation that doesn't fit the mold of what this word was invented for. Are civilians really civilians if they're complicit in the fighting as in Gaza? Are they really civilians if they've done or are still doing compulsory military service as in Israel? It's just an attempt to draw a line in the sand so people will agree what's bad.
    - KPGv2 2y ago
      > People can't even agree on the meaning of the word as it applies there. The fact that your average Joe can't explain it is as material as your average Joe being unable to write a Bash script is to computer science not being a real thing. Essentially everyone on Earth except Israelis and religious sycophants agree what Israel has done is genocide. It is ludicrous to suggest Hamas has conducted a genocide against Israel because then you'd have to say that slaves in the US conducted a genocide against slave owners.
      - foxglacier 2y ago
        [flagged]
  - KPGv2 2y ago

hnthrowaway6543 2y ago

[flagged]

jrflowers 2y ago
[flagged]
- hnthrowaway6543 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - jrflowers 2y ago
    [flagged]
    - dang 2y ago
      Could you please stop posting unsubstantive comments and flamebait, and being aggressive with other users? You've unfortunately been doing it repeatedly. It's not what this site is for, and destroys what it is for. We've already had to ask you this several times. If you keep doing it, we're going to end up having to ban the account. If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.
      - deleted 2y ago
        [deleted]
  - dang 2y ago
    You can't attack other users here, no matter how wrong they are or you feel they are. You've been posting flamewar-style comments in other places too. That's not what this site is for, and destroys what it is for, and we end up having to ban this sort of account, so please stop. Actually I did ban you, but I reversed that after posting a warning to the other user. It seemed fairer to either ban both of you or neither. If you'd please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to the rules when posting here, we'd appreciate it. Also—please don't create accounts to break HN's rules with. It will eventually get your main account banned as well.

foxglacier 2y ago

[flagged]

jrflowers 2y ago
[flagged]
- foxglacier 2y ago
  No it's because genocide is too simple and poorly defined a concept to apply appropriately to every situation. It's just the result of people trying to generalize from a few specific events that happened in the past which they already decided were bad for some other reason and ended up creating the label genocide to describe them. Look at the disagreement people have over whether Israel or Hamas committed genocide in this current war. People can't even agree on the meaning of the word as it applies there. It's a novel situation that doesn't fit the mold of what this word was invented for. Are civilians really civilians if they're complicit in the fighting as in Gaza? Are they really civilians if they've done or are still doing compulsory military service as in Israel? It's just an attempt to draw a line in the sand so people will agree what's bad.
  - KPGv2 2y ago
    > People can't even agree on the meaning of the word as it applies there. The fact that your average Joe can't explain it is as material as your average Joe being unable to write a Bash script is to computer science not being a real thing. Essentially everyone on Earth except Israelis and religious sycophants agree what Israel has done is genocide. It is ludicrous to suggest Hamas has conducted a genocide against Israel because then you'd have to say that slaves in the US conducted a genocide against slave owners.
    - foxglacier 2y ago
      [flagged]
- KPGv2 2y ago