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Comment by dizzy3gg | Hacker News Reader

So we should insult deeply religious people by calling them derogatory names also?

EDIT: Asking if you think its fair to call somebody names because they don;t have the same beliefs?

"SJW" is roughly analogous to "bible thumper" and about as derogatory too.

My point exactly, it's an insult that people seem to think is fine cause they don't have the same beliefs. If only we were all the same.

I've been called a bible thumper before, but it never really felt like it was a serious insult. But if activists don't want to be called something, I'll try to oblige. Labels are powerful thing, and I try to label people the way they label themselves.

Only if you treat all beliefs as equally valid a priori.

Some beliefs are demonstrably harmful.

Can you give a little more depth to the position that social justice is 'demonstratably harmful'?

Edit: I ask because as a teacher who's married to a social worker I'm pretty sure we both get up every day and try to improve the lives of people in our community.

Not the concept of social justice (which generally includes positive things like like equality of opportunity), but the label social justice warrior. Those are two different things.

Here's my litmus test:

* Do you parrot discredited statistics like the wage gap? (Bad information is self evidently harmful)

* Do you instantly cut off communication with people who do so much as disagree with you? (Fosters an echo chamber, see bad information above)

* Do you publicly label people who disagree with you as words ending in -ist? (Such labels are of questionable value anyways, less so when they don't even apply, and that's before talking about the social consequences)

* Do you try to get people who disagree with you fired? (Nuff said)

* Do you rally your friends to pressure media companies to change/stop making things that offend you? (Harmful to free expression, artistic integrity, and probably the economy)

* Do you use hateful language against people, and then rationalize it as okay because those people are above you in some social hierarchy?

Then you are not a "social justice warrior" or "SJW" and the "harmful" label does not apply.

You might need to add something about the goals, otherwise you very neatly describe people in Gamergate, who ironically enough, apparently popularized the term.

Maybe we can call those that use such tactics for social justice aims, Social Justice Gators, to clarify things while annoying people in various camps?

Well, I don't really share your views there (and I am quite curious how you arrived at that conclusion), but HN probably isn't the best place to hash that out. Would you be willing to continue this offsite?

Like abortion? I'm pro choice, but I'm just trying to make it clear. Your beliefs maybe different and the consider things harmful, whereas others don't.

Like the left-wing extremism that SJW's practice - misandry and calls for genocide based on race (white), gender (male), sometimes even sexuality (straight) run rampant in that movement. Those are harmful.

Are you familiar with the concept of "vocal minorities"?

Would you say, given that you are a person who uses the term "SJW", that the rape of Anita Sarkeesian is an action that you would support, or that a majority of your cohort supports? I really hope you say "no", because otherwise I'm completely wasting my time. But can you not see how a few vocal people in the GG debacle have managed to get everyone who uses the term "SJW" painted with that sort of brush?

There is no conspiracy to commit genocide against white, straight males. The very concept verges on paranoid schizophrenia.

My comments are purely about having civil discourse.

For the most part, religions in first world nations have stopped trying to police the media adults consume.

No they dictate laws instead.

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