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Moment of Silence
This is titled "a National Moment of silence".
I am very sad for the families and for humanity that such a thing happened, but I am not born member of the US "Nation", and feel excluded by this wording.
- duck 14y agoI really dislike how people take a moment of silence and/or a time for prayer, and turn it into something else with the linked article on gun control[1]. Talking about actions is fine, but why can't people understand that those are two different things and shouldn't happen at the exact same time. [1]: http://www.causes.com/causes/807161-stand-with-sandy-hook/actions/1716727 http://www.causes.com/causes/807161-stand-with-sandy-hook/ac...
- theorique 14y agoIt dishonors the memory of the murdered to politicize their deaths.
- kennu 14y agoIf you don't talk about these things when they happen, everybody soon just forgets the issue until the next incident.
- rdl 14y agoThere was a whole week where talking about the issue seemed to be everywhere -- that's a bit different from tying it to the "moment of silence" now. And it should continue over the next weeks/months.
- GiraffeNecktie 14y agoIf fixing the problem that caused their deaths is "political" I don't think the murdered would mind.
- marknutter 14y agoIf everyone agreed on what the fix is, you might be right. But since they don't, and it will likely result in political fighting, it's probably not appropriate to tie it to a moment of silence.
- GiraffeNecktie 14y agoIf it takes a discussion with people taking opposing viewpoints, let's get started. Now.
- davidw 14y agoBut please not on Hacker News. Thanks.
- rdl 14y agoI'd agree generally except that posting an inherently political call to action on the site essentially makes it the natural forum to discuss it. And, the tech community (specifically, Ron Conway) are probably the strongest promoters of this particular program right now, which is interesting given that the tech community has rarely been politically influential. At most it has been able to address things like crypto, CDA, and SOPA/PIPA; minimally effective so far at patents and immigration.
- pc86 14y agoThe last time legislation was posted in a knee-jerk fashion was 2001. Are you a fan of the Patriot Act? Nothing will be lost by having a sensible discussion and resisting the urge to pass whatever half-baked legislation gets written up the quickest.
- rm999 14y agoEven the NRA is (unsurprisingly) a supporter of 'gun violence prevention'. This moment of silence isn't advocating any specific solution, I don't see the controversy. I think almost every reasonable person can agree with "let's stop gun violence".
- king_jester 14y agoTell that to folks murdered over political reasons.
- rm999 14y agoThis is the first mass shooting in a long time that is sparking action. That's a good thing; the countries' aversion to discussing gun control may be part of the reason we are having a moment of silence to begin with. I think of it as "let us honor their deaths with meaningful action rather than cheap words".
- benjohnson 14y agoMay I never mistake a child's coffin for a political soapbox.
- gbeeson 14y agoThat is well put.
- jgrahamc 14y agoAnd if it had been titled "International Moment of Silence" some other person would have commented that it wasn't an international event.
- Luyt 14y ago"I am not born member of the US "Nation", and feel excluded by this wording." If you want to prevent your screen from going black, you can add 'http://www.causes.com/moment_of_silence.js http://www.causes.com/moment_of_silence.js to your adblocker rules.
- gbog 14y agoI don't want to block this banner. I find it interesting to have these "event's overlay". But I would very much like to point a thing that requires an outside view: the US netizens seem to forget often that many people from other countries use their websites.
- taybin 14y agoboo fucking hoo.
- Tichy 14y agoAs a comment on the implementation, I think if the overlay blocks the web site, it shouldn't provide a link to causes at the same time. That makes it look insincere to me.
- irahul 14y agoErm. I can guess this moment of silence has something to do with the recent shooting, but why is this submitted without any context?
- duck 14y agoIt was a pop-up on HN at 9:30am EST.
- jsnell 14y agoA very badly implemented "moment of silence" overlay appeared on news.yc for a while. Showed up on every page load, blocked access to the content, and could only be dismissed with the mouse.
- raldi 14y agoAnyone take a screenshot?
- hooande 14y agoThe context is that a "Moment of Silence" overlay was placed across many websites at 9:30 am today, organized by Causes. People who were checking hackernews at 9:30 am might want to discuss the experience. I thought it was a solid gesture, and it brought appropriate attention to the victims and their families. At the same time, it felt like I was being compelled to take part in something with no warning (though the overlay was easy to dismiss). There is no shortage of Sandy Hook coverage on TV and elsewhere on the internet. I'm on hackernews because I chose to read hackernews.
- JoeAltmaier 14y agoAgreed. If I participated in that network of sympathy, I might have learned of the planned 'moment'. I would have participated. I believe, since their ability to 'spread the word' was limited they resorted to recruiting folks to aid in hijacking unsuspecting folk into their emotional event. Effectiveness: around zero I would think. The moment was over before I could figure out what was going on. Then: resentment.
- rdl 14y agoThe shooting at Sandy Hook was a horrible tragedy, as were previous incidents at Aurora, Columbine, Virginia Tech, etc. And really any murders anywhere (although I can understand why recent and mass incidents are freshest in the mind.) This should be a political debate for or against gun control; it's better to mourn their loss and then to look objectively at policy changes later. Legislation by emotion has turned out horribly in the past. It certainly shouldn't be a time to push a specific legislative agenda.
- gbog 14y ago> a specific legislative agenda I don't know. Seen from outside, the gun control issue do not seem to belong to the "political agenda" layer, along who's next for presidential or the latest political sex scandal. From the outside view, gun control belong to the common sense layer, near "he who stole someone else's money will go to jail" and "tanks are not allowed on highways". It should even not be called "gun control", but "lethal weapon for sale at the next block". I hope US citizen are aware they are very different from most other countries in this regard. They may ask themselves if this specificity is an improvement over other laws, and then should be evangelized abroad. Or maybe it is an aberation? Or maybe it is some "cultural exception" (a la Chinese) and then, justified by what specifical traits?
- rdl 14y agoThe reason why this is something I don't support is that they are promoting a very specific gun control agenda, which seems to have been essentially randomly generated (or cynically politically generated), vs. either aimed at the specific problem in Sandy Hook or the statistically prevalent causes/factors of gun violence. Saying "we need to do something about gun violence" is a much less overtly political message than "we must adopt these specific 3 policy items." If they wanted to deal with Sandy Hook in specific, enhancing the mental health bars on getting weapons, enhancing safe storage, etc. would be most effective with the least cost. After that, banning semiautomatic rifles and handguns, but this would require constitutional changes. Armed security at schools would be another approach (being endorsed by Senator Boxer). For Aurora, mental health bars, possibly waiting periods, and possibly preempting local gun free zones would be the specific policy remedy with the least cost; banning semiautomatic pistols and handguns would be the intrusive but effective solution (via constitutional amendment). For spree killings in general, the low hanging fruit is consensual agreement by the media to not dramatize the killers -- don't ever mention their names, similar to how suicide bombers are handled in Israel. It's not the media/video games/etc. in general, it is specifically how the media treat these incidents. If they want to deal with statistically prevalent gun violence, they should focus on handguns (80-90%) and the drug war. Rifles and shotguns are essentially irrelevant to that. Domestic violence is another issue, and there have been really strong changes in the past 10 years to address that (confiscating guns over even misdemeanor DV convictions, unless you're the Sheriff of San Francisco.) Suicide is the other big issue around gun deaths, which I'm not sure you can really address through regulation, but better mental health access would probably be the best solution. There should be a discussion of what the aims of legislation are (reducing gun crime overall, reducing specific types of crime), and then pick and promote measures which will actually accomplish those. As far as I can tell, this was just a bunch of things a few mayors (Bloomberg, specifically) already wanted (interstate transport, 100% background check for all sales), and then the magazine ban randomly thrown in. There is some really low hanging fruit which virtually everyone would support (100% checks on all transfers, mental health bars for getting guns, enhanced penalties for crimes at the federal level involving guns, and per-state changes to gun crime laws).
- pfortuny 14y agoI was surprised by the banner, in what in another context I would say a positive way, even though I am not from the US. Thanks for the idea.
- lucb1e 14y agoWhat is this about? I'm assuming something with the recent shooting, but where does the submission cite from?
- tokenadult 14y agoDirect link to the link from the Hacker News homepage overlay (provided by a third-party service): http://www.causes.com/causes/807161-stand-with-sandy-hook/actions/1716727 http://www.causes.com/causes/807161-stand-with-sandy-hook/ac... Submission of that (almost simultaneously with this submission here) for HN discussion: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4952794 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4952794
- xutopia 14y agoI hate moments of silence. If we were to say nothing every time there is a tragedy in the world we'd never speak up about how to fix atrocities and organize ourselves to avoid them in the future.
- jack-r-abbit 14y agoWould be interesting if someone started a "Moment of Screaming" campaign. Imagine if for one minute everybody was just repeatedly yelling stuff like "STOP THE VIOLENCE!"
- quomopete 14y agoCan you accept the fact, however, that this is not about you?
- wogg 14y agoI thought this was supposed to be a moment of silence. Hacker News posting is not silence, despite requiring no audible speech.
- taybin 14y agoWhy is "nation" in scare quotes? How would you prefer it to be worded? What is the matter with you?