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Comment by jf- | Hacker News Reader

Life creates a power dynamic which can be abused in this way. This is getting ridiculous. Have some minimal set of rules so that people, including important people, can’t be outright nasty to each other and leave it at that. There is absolutely no need for all this ideological baggage.

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>Life creates a power dynamic which can be abused in this way.

And such dynamics should be acknowledged and opposed wherever they exist.

>Have some minimal set of rules

Except as I said, these rules are frequently ignored or applied less fairly in one way or another for those with "merit".

I think the very first rule of life is to live. If someone helps you live when otherwise you're going to die, you should tolerate more of his weirdness. If someone helps you live better when otherwise you're going to be quite miserable, you should also be more tolerant. I think this is the logic of meritocracy, and the logic behind capitalism.

You either believe in capitalism and thus meritocracy as its twin, or neither. Why do capitalists get to take away so much profit, and why should we award patents to inventors, if we don't reward those with "merit"?

>If someone helps you live when otherwise you're going to die, you should tolerate more of his weirdness.

Yes, if someone has control over your life or death, you should probably do what they say.

That is what most people call "violent coercion".

>You either believe in capitalism and thus meritocracy as its twin, or neither.

Well, quite...

>If someone helps you live when otherwise you're going to die

>That is what most people call “violent coercion”.

Really? Is it?

There’s no point in continuing here, I’m afraid we’re too far apart to gain anything from this discussion. Have a good day.

If they can choose not to help they're not "helping you to live", they're choosing not to kill you.

And if they choose whether to kill you based on whether you do what they want, that's violent coercion.

And such dynamics should be acknowledged and opposed wherever they exist.

Power itself can't be opposed. By definition, opposition doesn't exist without power.

Abuse can be opposed and to some extent mitigated but it's not at all a static game. When you build walls humans go around them, climb over them, dig under them, or break through them. There is no wall that one person can build that another cannot overcome.

I said power dynamics (i.e. power imbalances) should be opposed, not the abstract concept of power itself.

Power itself is an imbalance. It implies the non-universal capability to do something. When we say "the president of the club has x, y, and z powers" we're not talking about the things everyone else in the club is able to do.

So to be opposed to "power dynamics" is to be opposed to non-universal capability, an extremely radical position which I am not sure you hold.

Could you expand on your definition to clarify your position?

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