3 ms·

Why would anyone "acknowledge the legitimacy" of beliefs that would e.g. prevent them from visiting their spouse on their deathbed? There's no middle ground he

by zorpner 13y ago

Why would anyone "acknowledge the legitimacy" of beliefs that would e.g. prevent them from visiting their spouse on their deathbed? There's no middle ground here. Also, it's worth trying not to use the term "witch hunt" to describe attacks on a group which has held an oppressive majority for hundreds of years and which is actively continuing to attempt to deny the rights of a minority. The analogy does not hold.

samelawrence 13y ago
The majority / minority argument does not hold. Oppressed minorities are not always in the right. Arguments around gay marriage / politics / Brendan need to step back and argue the issues, not the size or relative social power of the groups involved. I happen to agree with your side of the issue, but let's talk about the issue, not make it a David and Goliath straw man debate. The term "witch hunt" may or may not apply. As an example, we might say that during the French Revolution, the proletariat (oppressed majority, wat?) went on a witch hunt against aristocracy (minority holding majority power) and members of the royal court, regardless of their fault.
- zorpner 13y ago
  We can call this a witch hunt when same-sex-marriage proponents start guillotining the opposition in public squares, then ;) More to the point, the David/Goliath straw man occurs at the point that someone says "witch hunt", invoking ideas of a prosecutorial mob hunting an innocent scapegoat down. Addressing the inappropriateness of the term directly is not a strawman (and additionally, I specifically addressed the content of the OP's argument in the first part of my post).
  - alexqgb 13y ago
    Unlike actual witch hunts - which were notoriously short on evidence - this episode has an actual smoking gun. Or more precisely, a smoking checkbook.
    - chris_wot 13y ago
      Are you saying that Brendan Eich's personal views are that of Mozilla's as an organisation?
      - alexqgb 13y ago
        No you nitwit, I was talking about the absurdity of calling the campaign against him a with hunt. But now that you mention it, the organization - in overlooking this particular view - sent a clear signal that it takes the issue a good deal less seriously that a significant number of its stakeholders. That's starting to look like a major mistake.
        chris_wot 13y ago
        "Nitwit". I guess Hacker News discourse devolves in a slightly more civilised fashion. To really show me I'm wrong, or have asked a particularly stupid question, next time consider stronger language.
sentenza 13y ago
A general word of warning. (Disclaimer I'm for gay marriage, but that is not the point of the following text.) I have been subscribed to the main mailing list of the German Pirate party for four years now and from this very rich data set I can give you the following piece of insight: Discussions about LGBT issues will invariably degenerate into pure horribleness. It might not be obvious to most people why this should be the case, but believe me, if there is only one single troll that knows one of the big red buttons to push, the whole thing goes off the rails. I'm reeeally uncertain if I should do this, but to illustrate my point, I'm now going to describe one of those buttons: Many of the LG and B people are not really comfortable with the T people (and some are quite T-phobic!). A troll that identifies one of those anti-T LGB posters can "craft" a post that destroys any room that might have been there for meaningful discussion. At least this has been my experience on that particular mailing list. While the conversational level of the HN community is fortunately well above that of said list, I already see some pre-pathologies which indicate that HN might not be immune to the LGBT-shitstorm-effect. My personal feelings about this particular instance, without knowing any details are this: Guy I've never heared of before with anti gay-marriage history becomes head of Mozilla? Dude, show some heart-felt sensibility for the issue, tell everybody that either you've changed your views or that at least your professional actions in this regard will follow the broader community attitude, and then let's move ahead to other issues.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]

by zorpner 13y ago

samelawrence 13y ago

The majority / minority argument does not hold. Oppressed minorities are not always in the right. Arguments around gay marriage / politics / Brendan need to step back and argue the issues, not the size or relative social power of the groups involved. I happen to agree with your side of the issue, but let's talk about the issue, not make it a David and Goliath straw man debate. The term "witch hunt" may or may not apply. As an example, we might say that during the French Revolution, the proletariat (oppressed majority, wat?) went on a witch hunt against aristocracy (minority holding majority power) and members of the royal court, regardless of their fault.

zorpner 13y ago
We can call this a witch hunt when same-sex-marriage proponents start guillotining the opposition in public squares, then ;) More to the point, the David/Goliath straw man occurs at the point that someone says "witch hunt", invoking ideas of a prosecutorial mob hunting an innocent scapegoat down. Addressing the inappropriateness of the term directly is not a strawman (and additionally, I specifically addressed the content of the OP's argument in the first part of my post).
- alexqgb 13y ago
  Unlike actual witch hunts - which were notoriously short on evidence - this episode has an actual smoking gun. Or more precisely, a smoking checkbook.
  - chris_wot 13y ago
    Are you saying that Brendan Eich's personal views are that of Mozilla's as an organisation?
    - alexqgb 13y ago
      No you nitwit, I was talking about the absurdity of calling the campaign against him a with hunt. But now that you mention it, the organization - in overlooking this particular view - sent a clear signal that it takes the issue a good deal less seriously that a significant number of its stakeholders. That's starting to look like a major mistake.
      - chris_wot 13y ago
        "Nitwit". I guess Hacker News discourse devolves in a slightly more civilised fashion. To really show me I'm wrong, or have asked a particularly stupid question, next time consider stronger language.

sentenza 13y ago

A general word of warning. (Disclaimer I'm for gay marriage, but that is not the point of the following text.) I have been subscribed to the main mailing list of the German Pirate party for four years now and from this very rich data set I can give you the following piece of insight: Discussions about LGBT issues will invariably degenerate into pure horribleness. It might not be obvious to most people why this should be the case, but believe me, if there is only one single troll that knows one of the big red buttons to push, the whole thing goes off the rails. I'm reeeally uncertain if I should do this, but to illustrate my point, I'm now going to describe one of those buttons: Many of the LG and B people are not really comfortable with the T people (and some are quite T-phobic!). A troll that identifies one of those anti-T LGB posters can "craft" a post that destroys any room that might have been there for meaningful discussion. At least this has been my experience on that particular mailing list. While the conversational level of the HN community is fortunately well above that of said list, I already see some pre-pathologies which indicate that HN might not be immune to the LGBT-shitstorm-effect. My personal feelings about this particular instance, without knowing any details are this: Guy I've never heared of before with anti gay-marriage history becomes head of Mozilla? Dude, show some heart-felt sensibility for the issue, tell everybody that either you've changed your views or that at least your professional actions in this regard will follow the broader community attitude, and then let's move ahead to other issues.

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]