3 ms·

You're missing that it's a dog whistle - we should not be nice. Look at this person's adjacent comments here.

Boogie_Man 1y ago
Someone got mad at me today because I said "we beat slavery" was I accidentally dog whistling? It's just how I thought about it. I guess "white people" did beat it but also "white people" were doing it. We kind of beat it as a country is what I meant. Idk my family wasn't even here yet but I'm just happy there isn't slavery.
- SalmonSnarker 1y ago
  You are being actively obtuse here, which is understandable if perhaps you're taking almostgotcaught's comments as a direct attack on you. (which it most likely isn't) If you looked at the adjacent comments you would immediately see a combination of "western christian values," and open pondering that "Epstein is an Israeli asset. Democrats and Republicans have loyalty to Israel." This alone is enough dog whistling for at least my neighborhood's dogs to start acting up.
  - Boogie_Man 1y ago
    Sorry, It wasn't a rhetorical device, it actually happened to me today. I'm not taking either "side", I thought it might explain something I didn't understand. 100% legitimately.
    - SalmonSnarker 1y ago
      That's fine, you don't have to apologize to me. To put it into terms that may hit closer to home: Remember Vatican 2? you may have heard about it. pretty big deal, lots of changes in the catholic church, made a whole bunch of news, put the latin mass out to pasture and also pulled back on the doctrine of deicide, ruffled a lot of feathers, etc. There are some people who yearn for the aesthetics and cultural heritage of the latin mass. They miss the funny words in a language they don't speak, the historical continuity of the latin liturgy, etc. For these types, it's purely innocent aesthetic yearning, mostly harmless. There are also some people who both miss the latin mass and feel very strongly about the perfidy of the jews being a theologically important teaching. These anti-semitic sedevacantist types share the same information ecology with all of the more harmless latin mass types. Dog whistles are a tool that can be used to disambiguate between the two types of latin-mass-enjoyers. Fetishizing "western christian values" communicates different things when one of the most prominent far-right groups, the proud boys, makes this a central doctrine. If a latin-mass-enjoyer were to tell me they deeply valued western christian values, before airing their favorite anti-semitic conspiracies, I'm likely to predict they're not into latin mass for purely aesthetic reasons.
tomhow 1y ago
> we should not be nice It's not about being nice, but on Hacker News we operate according to guidelines and norms that have evolved over more than 15 years, which keep discussions focused on substance and prevent it from burning to the ground the way most online communities do. Please do your part to make this place better not worse. The point you made above was a valid and valuable one, but the way you expressed it means its value is lost.
- almostgotcaught 1y ago
  [flagged]
  - ethbr1 1y ago
    [flagged]
  - tomhow 1y ago
    Anyone can act as though their position is righteous enough, and their opponent's is pernicious enough, that an exception should be made in their case. But it's only because enough people make an effort to avoid that that HN can continue to exist as a place where people want to come and discuss important topics. If someone else's comment is wrong, respond with an opposing argument. If their comment is inflammatory or in some other way in breach of the guidelines, flag it, and/or report it to us via email. We have several ways of keeping discussion healthy here, but we need everyone to do their part.
    - almostgotcaught 1y ago
      > Anyone can act as though their position is righteous enough, and their opponent's is pernicious enough, that an exception should be made in this case. "Both sides are the same" > If someone else's comment is wrong, respond with an opposing argument. If their comment is inflammatory or in some other way in breach of the guidelines, flag it, and/or report it to us via email. My man - there are well known dog whistles and revisionist accounts of the slave trade in this very comment chain ... And yet the only one that gets flagged is mine. And even so based on what grounds - a flippant remark about Wikipedia being free? Forgive me if I don't take your commitment to "healthy" discourse seriously.

Someone got mad at me today because I said "we beat slavery" was I accidentally dog whistling? It's just how I thought about it. I guess "white people" did beat it but also "white people" were doing it. We kind of beat it as a country is what I meant. Idk my family wasn't even here yet but I'm just happy there isn't slavery.

SalmonSnarker 1y ago
You are being actively obtuse here, which is understandable if perhaps you're taking almostgotcaught's comments as a direct attack on you. (which it most likely isn't) If you looked at the adjacent comments you would immediately see a combination of "western christian values," and open pondering that "Epstein is an Israeli asset. Democrats and Republicans have loyalty to Israel." This alone is enough dog whistling for at least my neighborhood's dogs to start acting up.
- Boogie_Man 1y ago
  Sorry, It wasn't a rhetorical device, it actually happened to me today. I'm not taking either "side", I thought it might explain something I didn't understand. 100% legitimately.
  - SalmonSnarker 1y ago
    That's fine, you don't have to apologize to me. To put it into terms that may hit closer to home: Remember Vatican 2? you may have heard about it. pretty big deal, lots of changes in the catholic church, made a whole bunch of news, put the latin mass out to pasture and also pulled back on the doctrine of deicide, ruffled a lot of feathers, etc. There are some people who yearn for the aesthetics and cultural heritage of the latin mass. They miss the funny words in a language they don't speak, the historical continuity of the latin liturgy, etc. For these types, it's purely innocent aesthetic yearning, mostly harmless. There are also some people who both miss the latin mass and feel very strongly about the perfidy of the jews being a theologically important teaching. These anti-semitic sedevacantist types share the same information ecology with all of the more harmless latin mass types. Dog whistles are a tool that can be used to disambiguate between the two types of latin-mass-enjoyers. Fetishizing "western christian values" communicates different things when one of the most prominent far-right groups, the proud boys, makes this a central doctrine. If a latin-mass-enjoyer were to tell me they deeply valued western christian values, before airing their favorite anti-semitic conspiracies, I'm likely to predict they're not into latin mass for purely aesthetic reasons.

tomhow 1y ago

> we should not be nice It's not about being nice, but on Hacker News we operate according to guidelines and norms that have evolved over more than 15 years, which keep discussions focused on substance and prevent it from burning to the ground the way most online communities do. Please do your part to make this place better not worse. The point you made above was a valid and valuable one, but the way you expressed it means its value is lost.

almostgotcaught 1y ago
[flagged]
- ethbr1 1y ago
  [flagged]
- tomhow 1y ago
  Anyone can act as though their position is righteous enough, and their opponent's is pernicious enough, that an exception should be made in their case. But it's only because enough people make an effort to avoid that that HN can continue to exist as a place where people want to come and discuss important topics. If someone else's comment is wrong, respond with an opposing argument. If their comment is inflammatory or in some other way in breach of the guidelines, flag it, and/or report it to us via email. We have several ways of keeping discussion healthy here, but we need everyone to do their part.
  - almostgotcaught 1y ago
    > Anyone can act as though their position is righteous enough, and their opponent's is pernicious enough, that an exception should be made in this case. "Both sides are the same" > If someone else's comment is wrong, respond with an opposing argument. If their comment is inflammatory or in some other way in breach of the guidelines, flag it, and/or report it to us via email. My man - there are well known dog whistles and revisionist accounts of the slave trade in this very comment chain ... And yet the only one that gets flagged is mine. And even so based on what grounds - a flippant remark about Wikipedia being free? Forgive me if I don't take your commitment to "healthy" discourse seriously.