3 ms·

What is the officially accepted way to identify genocidal rhetoric on this site?

dang 1y ago
The main thing to understand is that we're trying to optimize for one thing on HN and that's curiosity (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=curiosity%20optimiz%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...). When you use a phrase like "genocidal rhetoric", I assume that you consider certain comments to be wrong and bad. From that perspective your question could be generalized to "what's the best way to respond to wrong and bad comments on this site?" Keeping in mind that "bad" here doesn't just mean the comment is badly written—in internet jargon, it means the commenter is bad. Curiosity doesn't exclude wrongness or badness—it's interested in it. How did this comment (or person) get so wrong and bad? Could that change? Is there a response that could pull them out of wrongness and badness into rightness and goodness? Why do most of my (<-- I mean any of us, of course) attempts to do this fail so badly? Is there a more effective way to respond? Might there be something interesting here beyond wrongness and badness? That's the spirit we're trying for on this site, so that's the answer to your question. If I ask myself what other approaches are possible, there's one obvious option, and that is to crush/destroy/defeat the wrong and bad argument (and person) utterly. This is the desire to kill the other person (if only metaphorically (and maybe not always so metaphorically)), and thus establish rightness and goodness over wrongness and badness. So the "accepted way" here is to listen to the other and dance with them, rather than killing them (or their position). Dance rather than war, if you like. Is there a third option? I'm not sure. When I look inside myself, I can find the listen/dance option (or one could say give-and-take), and I can find the kill option. But I'm not sure I can find a third. --- Edit: reading this the next day, I think the word 'dance' could have trivializing associations (e.g. let's just dance rather than deal with violence and tragedy). I don't mean it that way. I mean something like moving and changing in response to each other. If anyone can do that in response to the other, even just a little, then one's self becomes a place for at least a modicum of change.
- crawfordcomeaux 1y ago
  As someone who abandoned rightness/wrongness 9+ years ago (except in the idea of alignment with the cosmos), I can say that "genocidal rhetoric" doesn't necessarily imply rightness or wrongness. There exist language patterns that indicate a perspective that, when culturally carried and compounded for years, has the effect of cultivating behaviors that lead to extinguishing a people, whether intentional or not. This is genocidal rhetoric. As for options as to what to do with it, I find this useful for finding more. https://thenightgarden.substack.com/p/the-story-state-action-model https://thenightgarden.substack.com/p/the-story-state-action... I'm curious how people think maintaining genocidal rhetoric is aligned with serving life, when it literally serves the destruction of a group.
  - dang 1y ago
    > "genocidal rhetoric" doesn't necessarily imply rightness or wrongness I believe you when you describe your perspective this way, but it's so far beyond conventional usage that it may be misleading to express it in this way. Certainly I didn't understand your GP comment as being anywhere near what you're saying here, and I doubt others would.
    - crawfordcomeaux 1y ago
      It's true...conventional usage is rooted in addiction to violence, which includes dualistic myths of right/wrong, life/death, like/dislike, belief/disbelief. Perhaps a site-wide call for curiosity when encountering such myths could help spur people to pull themselves out of such ways of "killing" nondual animist views of experience.
      - deleted 1y ago
        [deleted]
- tehjoker 1y ago
  I appreciate you dang and the culture you are trying to cultivate, but I think in a genocide civility politics are inappropriate. I'm jewish, and I am certain that "raising questions" about whether jews should live or die or are intrinsically evil terrorists would not be allowed on this site. For balance, this should be accorded equally to palestinians, who are in fact being killed mercilessly in line for food by Israeli forces and US mercenaries. pg in fact has been loudly talking about the genocide, which I appreciate. https://x.com/paulg/status/1950180259636072737 https://x.com/paulg/status/1950180259636072737 I will try to be less flippant in my comments. Nonetheless, it is a lot of work to cut through genocidal lies that are often supported (at least in editorials if not in actual reporting) by the mainstream media. The north of Gaza has been nearly obliterated and still these guys get to cast aspersions justifying the annihilation of a people. Google recently updated images of northern Gaza: https://www.google.com/maps/@31.4956821,34.4752786,609m/data=!3m1!1e3?entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI1MDcyNy4wIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D https://www.google.com/maps/@31.4956821,34.4752786,609m/data...

dang 1y ago

The main thing to understand is that we're trying to optimize for one thing on HN and that's curiosity (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=curiosity%20optimiz%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...). When you use a phrase like "genocidal rhetoric", I assume that you consider certain comments to be wrong and bad. From that perspective your question could be generalized to "what's the best way to respond to wrong and bad comments on this site?" Keeping in mind that "bad" here doesn't just mean the comment is badly written—in internet jargon, it means the commenter is bad. Curiosity doesn't exclude wrongness or badness—it's interested in it. How did this comment (or person) get so wrong and bad? Could that change? Is there a response that could pull them out of wrongness and badness into rightness and goodness? Why do most of my (<-- I mean any of us, of course) attempts to do this fail so badly? Is there a more effective way to respond? Might there be something interesting here beyond wrongness and badness? That's the spirit we're trying for on this site, so that's the answer to your question. If I ask myself what other approaches are possible, there's one obvious option, and that is to crush/destroy/defeat the wrong and bad argument (and person) utterly. This is the desire to kill the other person (if only metaphorically (and maybe not always so metaphorically)), and thus establish rightness and goodness over wrongness and badness. So the "accepted way" here is to listen to the other and dance with them, rather than killing them (or their position). Dance rather than war, if you like. Is there a third option? I'm not sure. When I look inside myself, I can find the listen/dance option (or one could say give-and-take), and I can find the kill option. But I'm not sure I can find a third. --- Edit: reading this the next day, I think the word 'dance' could have trivializing associations (e.g. let's just dance rather than deal with violence and tragedy). I don't mean it that way. I mean something like moving and changing in response to each other. If anyone can do that in response to the other, even just a little, then one's self becomes a place for at least a modicum of change.

crawfordcomeaux 1y ago
As someone who abandoned rightness/wrongness 9+ years ago (except in the idea of alignment with the cosmos), I can say that "genocidal rhetoric" doesn't necessarily imply rightness or wrongness. There exist language patterns that indicate a perspective that, when culturally carried and compounded for years, has the effect of cultivating behaviors that lead to extinguishing a people, whether intentional or not. This is genocidal rhetoric. As for options as to what to do with it, I find this useful for finding more. https://thenightgarden.substack.com/p/the-story-state-action-model https://thenightgarden.substack.com/p/the-story-state-action... I'm curious how people think maintaining genocidal rhetoric is aligned with serving life, when it literally serves the destruction of a group.
- dang 1y ago
  > "genocidal rhetoric" doesn't necessarily imply rightness or wrongness I believe you when you describe your perspective this way, but it's so far beyond conventional usage that it may be misleading to express it in this way. Certainly I didn't understand your GP comment as being anywhere near what you're saying here, and I doubt others would.
  - crawfordcomeaux 1y ago
    It's true...conventional usage is rooted in addiction to violence, which includes dualistic myths of right/wrong, life/death, like/dislike, belief/disbelief. Perhaps a site-wide call for curiosity when encountering such myths could help spur people to pull themselves out of such ways of "killing" nondual animist views of experience.
    - deleted 1y ago
      [deleted]
tehjoker 1y ago
I appreciate you dang and the culture you are trying to cultivate, but I think in a genocide civility politics are inappropriate. I'm jewish, and I am certain that "raising questions" about whether jews should live or die or are intrinsically evil terrorists would not be allowed on this site. For balance, this should be accorded equally to palestinians, who are in fact being killed mercilessly in line for food by Israeli forces and US mercenaries. pg in fact has been loudly talking about the genocide, which I appreciate. https://x.com/paulg/status/1950180259636072737 https://x.com/paulg/status/1950180259636072737 I will try to be less flippant in my comments. Nonetheless, it is a lot of work to cut through genocidal lies that are often supported (at least in editorials if not in actual reporting) by the mainstream media. The north of Gaza has been nearly obliterated and still these guys get to cast aspersions justifying the annihilation of a people. Google recently updated images of northern Gaza: https://www.google.com/maps/@31.4956821,34.4752786,609m/data=!3m1!1e3?entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI1MDcyNy4wIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D https://www.google.com/maps/@31.4956821,34.4752786,609m/data...