3 ms·

It's a straightforward reference that shouldn't be controversial to anyone looking to substantively discuss what is happening to our society. I know there are a

It's a straightforward reference that shouldn't be controversial to anyone looking to substantively discuss what is happening to our society. I know there are a lot of true believers and bots that want to shout down uncomfortable truths which makes for flamewar, but if we let that prevent good faith discussion then we might as well throw in the towel because that reality distortion field isn't going away. I thought the rest of my comment was insightful as well, despite having to trade in some inflammatory terms. We're apparently at a time of pulling on these threads that had remained unpulled. The only way forward is to hash these uncomfortable ideas out in the open. Because as the article describes, they're certainly getting pulled on in less public forums where other uncomfortable truths have an easier time remaining unvisited.

dang 2y ago
Looking it at again the next morning, I think I just misread your opening sentence. Sorry! (see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43823347 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43823347) On the other hand, other people would probably have misread it in the same way, so the point still applies, just not as much, and probably not enough to justify my mod response. This may be a little embarrassing, but I don't read people's comments very closely. There isn't time, and it isn't necessary. It does mean I sometimes guess things wrong, though, (moderation is guesswork*) and that sucks. * https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20guesswork&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
- mindslight 2y ago
  Well, thank you for looking again! I'm curious how you interpreted it? I thought about swapping around the two parts of the sentence to put the familiar context first, but thought it landed better the way I said it. On the original topic, because I will acknowledge that my comment did have several bits of dry tinder in it - the sin of my lead in sentence was that it was irreverant. It would have been inappropriate if it were responding to another comment. But I think there has to be more leeway in initial comments so that there is a chance of moving past the politicized pit of arguing about whether something even exists, and towards a less-widely-shared but larger understanding such that we might actually do something about it. I think the fundamental problem here is that we as a country now have something that can be straightforwardly referred to as a concentration camp. There are probably other terms that are more technically accurate, but not so much as to forgo the cultural touchstone of what we're actually really close to. I'd say you are in a similar position to maybe 2016ish or so (my own mental timeline is a bit hazy), when the tide had just started to turn against the prevailing "woke [0] brigade", and insightful but not-completely-defensively-worded comments would get jumped on by a bunch of reasonably-phrased but inflammatorily-framed comments, making it seem like the original comment was starting the flamewar. [0] I personally hate this term like others hate "concentration camp", but it's awfully hard to argue against its current utility, regardless of how far from its original meaning it is.
  - dang 2y ago
    > I'm curious how you interpreted it At first I read it as a gratuitous Holocaust reference (i.e. some sort of throwaway flamebait). Later I realized you were probably referring to ongoing current events. One can agree or disagree but that at least wasn't gratuitous.

dang 2y ago

Looking it at again the next morning, I think I just misread your opening sentence. Sorry! (see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43823347 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43823347) On the other hand, other people would probably have misread it in the same way, so the point still applies, just not as much, and probably not enough to justify my mod response. This may be a little embarrassing, but I don't read people's comments very closely. There isn't time, and it isn't necessary. It does mean I sometimes guess things wrong, though, (moderation is guesswork*) and that sucks. * https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20guesswork&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...

mindslight 2y ago
Well, thank you for looking again! I'm curious how you interpreted it? I thought about swapping around the two parts of the sentence to put the familiar context first, but thought it landed better the way I said it. On the original topic, because I will acknowledge that my comment did have several bits of dry tinder in it - the sin of my lead in sentence was that it was irreverant. It would have been inappropriate if it were responding to another comment. But I think there has to be more leeway in initial comments so that there is a chance of moving past the politicized pit of arguing about whether something even exists, and towards a less-widely-shared but larger understanding such that we might actually do something about it. I think the fundamental problem here is that we as a country now have something that can be straightforwardly referred to as a concentration camp. There are probably other terms that are more technically accurate, but not so much as to forgo the cultural touchstone of what we're actually really close to. I'd say you are in a similar position to maybe 2016ish or so (my own mental timeline is a bit hazy), when the tide had just started to turn against the prevailing "woke [0] brigade", and insightful but not-completely-defensively-worded comments would get jumped on by a bunch of reasonably-phrased but inflammatorily-framed comments, making it seem like the original comment was starting the flamewar. [0] I personally hate this term like others hate "concentration camp", but it's awfully hard to argue against its current utility, regardless of how far from its original meaning it is.
- dang 2y ago
  > I'm curious how you interpreted it At first I read it as a gratuitous Holocaust reference (i.e. some sort of throwaway flamebait). Later I realized you were probably referring to ongoing current events. One can agree or disagree but that at least wasn't gratuitous.